The Hit of Confidence
“Dad, I don’t want to go to football today, the jockstrap hurts my privates.” That was how my Saturdays were usually started. When I was in third grade, my father made me play flag football. I was pretty good at it so the following year he signed me up for tackle. Since I was a big shot on my flag team, I thought tackle would be no problem. You are required to wear much more equipment in tackle football then flag. The gear is itchy and annoying to put on. It was always a constant battle between us for me to get dressed, but finally he would get me into the car, strap me in and then we were on our way to the field.
The first car ride was silent until about five minutes away from the field my dad said, “There are a lot of under-sized guys who are very good in the NFL.” I don’t know why but that one sentence boosted my confidence and now I was ready to play. I ran out of the car and on to the field all pumped up feeling like nothing could stop me. Then I saw the giants that I would have to play with and my fears came back.
Somehow I was the first one in the tackling drill. I was nervous but I kept on hearing my dad’s voice over and over again saying, “There are a lot of under-sized guys who are very good in the NFL.” I don’t know what happened next except I was looking up at the sky and it felt like a little guy was playing the bongos in my head. After a couple of guys helped me up something clicked in and all a sudden I had lost the heart and the will to play football. For a couple of weeks I tried to avoid going to games, and at practice I would hide in the back of the lines so I would not have to go.
One Saturday I was watching T.V and my father came into the room and turned the tube off. He told me to get my football pads on and to get ready to work. I put up a pretty good fight that lasted about two minutes, and then I found myself outside in the backyard. I saw that my father latched a punching bag to a tree. He made me hit it over and over again. I kept thinking “Like it wasn’t bad enough that I had to go to practice and stink but now I had to do it in my own home.” After a half-hour of hitting the bag and messing up I was getting ready to quit until my last hit when I heard three little words that never felt so good to hear, my father said, “that was perfect.” All of a sudden, I was having a good time. This became a weekly tradition and gave me and my father a topic to talk about and began to make us the best of friends. Not only was it helping my relationship with my father, but I was gaining confidence and skill in football. I was not hiding in the back of the line during drills and I was beginning to show much improvement in tackling.
The final week of football was around the corner and I was doing pretty well in practice but I was still missing tackles during games. I have been working so hard and I had only one more game left to achieve what I was working so hard for. However I just wanted to make my dad proud. Now it was third quarter and I still had not made a tackle, but then it happened. The same kid that ran me over weeks ago was in the game and I knew now it was my turn. I lined up and the quarterback said “hike”. He gave the ball to the kid, and now the kid was coming right through my hole. I made the hit. I got up and it felt like one hundred pounds was lifted off me, I looked in the stands and my father was pumping his arms in triumph.
That one hit changed my life in many ways: it made my relationship with my father stronger, it showed me that if you work hard enough for something you can do it, but most of all it gave me confidence in myself. From that one hit I became a new man.