Andrew
Rehling
WRT
150
Rinke
November
2, 2012
Correcting what became a mistake
Back in the 8th grade, I
played for a hometown Catholic league football team in Walled Lake. Our team:
the St. William Crusaders, and unlike most other of my friends from middle school
that played public school football, we didn’t take it as a joke. Playing
football was an extreme passion and if you didn’t agree with this idea and if
you didn’t try hard or play with heart, you didn’t play. It was that simple. I
was one of the football captains for our varsity team, I felt a good amount of responsibility
for helping keep the team up and trying to set an example for how hard the team
should work and also trying to keep a great, positive mentality to keep the
team going. Throughout our season we were doing great. We were a high ranked
undefeated team. No team was under estimated and each week the teams only
became harder and harder and we continued to struggle but we were all confident
that we would go on to win our entire division. We had one more game to play
before we were division champions and we could go on to playoffs. The team we
had to play was notorious for trash talking and playing cheap. We knew this; we’ve
played them before in previous years so that didn’t scare us. Compared to the
other teams that we’d played recently, they were supposed to be a lot easier,
so there was some room for underestimation in a lot of us, even me. We were all
a little nervous during pregame just seeing the height of some of their guys
compared to ours, but there was always this type of tension before you actually
began hitting them.
As soon as the game started, they
began the cheap shots on us and trash talking, but this was different. They were
trying to start fights. They tried to piss off some of us to make us look bad,
and when they weren’t they continued to intimidate us any way that they could.
As ridiculous as it sounds now, it worked. We were new to this and most of the
other teams that we played were all cleaner than this. We started fumbling the
ball, made late hits, and overall just looked horrible. Our starting star
fullback had to be taken out of the game for a good portion of the second
quarter; he couldn’t stop vomiting from whatever fear he had felt. It had to be
the worst game I had ever played, when it was over I felt embarrassed, and
overall I was deeply upset with myself.
It still frustrates me to this day.
We could’ve done so much better, they were nothing more than cheap shots and
trash talk and we let it get the best of us. It was absolute garbage, the other
team didn’t even make good on their threats and played as sloppy as we did even
as they were trying, and falling for anything that they did was a huge mistake.
If I could write a letter to myself and send
it back to my younger, 8th grade self and prevent us from losing due
to fear, these are some of the topics that I would cover as far as advice to
myself. First off, since we were beating them by a few points at half time, I
would have tried to gather the team at half time and tried to calm them down
first since we were all overwhelmed. Second, I would’ve said something to try
to motivate them, and tell them not to listen to what they were all saying
because we were still in the game. All we need to do is just drown their voices
out and hit the guys across from them as hit as they could. Nothing that they
were saying mattered. We were the better team. Finally I would carry out what I
was saying. Help make a play on offensive or make some big tackle on defense.
Do something, anything, to help bring a positive attitude back to the team. Get
them pumped up anyway that I could.
Losing this game has been a mistake
that has bothered me for years now. It was a horrible way to end our season and
it’s a mistake that I really wish I could go back and change through something
as simple as writing a letter to myself so that I knew, and we all knew what to
prepare for.
