Letter to self - Nov. 2

Andrew Rehling

WRT 150

Rinke

November 2, 2012

Correcting what became a mistake

            Back in the 8^th 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, 8^th 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.