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I have never been what you would call a big football guy. Sure, I watch the Super Bowl every year religiously regardless of who is playing. On Sundays and Mondays I usually watch a game if I am home and there aren’t any baseball games on. But I don’t live and die by the game and I don’t get upset if I miss a game like so many people do.
I have always been more of a baseball guy. Maybe it was because I played baseball instead of football when I was young and so did my kids. Maybe it is because Los Angeles hasn’t had any pro football teams in so long. Who knows the reason why, it is just the way things played out.
I do admit that since L.A. lost both of its pro football teams it has opened up the field as far as the number of teams that I root for on Sunday and Monday nights. I will always be cheering for whichever team is playing the Raiders or the Rams. I’m sure they could care less if they lost me as a fan, but it makes me feel better when they lose.
But just like the property you live next to, things change. Whether that is bad or good is your personal call. Things will change if you want them to or not. Mine came when, in his freshman year, my son started playing football at the high school.
To long time readers you know the story. I had always refused to let my son play football when he was younger despite pressure from his friend’s dad. Little did I know that he and his mother had made a pact that if he still wanted to play when he got to high school he could try it. He did, he loved it, and the rest is history.
He now plays on the JV squad and loves it even more. During this time of year he eats, sleeps, and breathes for his team and the season. Being as thin as he his, he drinks power shakes every night. The first Dunn in the family history that has actually needed to gain weight. Each night ends with the syncopated ring of the weights he pumps. So far he is more dedicated to football than he has been to anything in his short life.
So what is a dad to do when his only son becomes so enamored with something that was only a small part of his life? Well jump on the gridiron bandwagon and support his desire the best that I can. In my world that means lose any of the negative feelings I have, I mean had, about him playing.
It isn’t an easy hurdle to overcome. Unlike baseball, where the risk of injury is far less, I still cringe when I see him going all out on a tackle or getting tackled. With my vivid imagination, I always seem to envision the worse case scenario of the outcome of the play. But knock on wood it hasn’t happened.
It doesn’t help when I have seen some of his friends, the majority of which play, getting hurt. I mean right out of the gate last year his friend Rick hurt his knee and his friend Nick fractured his hand. For the entire season I felt like I was watching through my fingers. It is definitely not a game for overprotective parents.
This season has been much easier so far, probably because he is more “seasoned” and has worked so hard to get into shape. But like most paranoia it is always lingering in the back of my mind. I am doing what I can to maintain a positive attitude toward the sport. It is one thing to watch it on TV and another to watch your child play on the field live.
For those of you who are not part of this little whirlwind in the football world, or have never had a child who played, it is quite an eye opener. Not the games themselves, but the incredible amount of time spent preparing for the brief season. I suppose “brief” is the word if your kid is not playing. “Eternity” is the word I would have to use in my case.
These athletes, the majority of them, begin training shortly after the regular school year ended in June and with the exception of a couple of weeks in August continued until the first season game in September. This is an every year schedule, but this year was even more grueling due to the intense heat we had this summer. To those who went the distance my hat is off to you for your show of dedication.
My mind and worries were put more at ease by the coach they have this year, Matt Malczynski, who by the way is the best coach we’ve had in any sport since being at the high school. He has taken these basically raw players, most who had only played one year, and has molded them into a team that will have to be contended with this season. He has, along with his assistant coaches, Chris Danielson and Zach Robbins, not only honed their skills for the future, but also built their confidence for the present. As far as I am concerned the more they learn in practice the safer they will be on the field.
So after the last few games I had done my best to put the concerns that I had about my son’s safety behind me. My feeling was that he was in good hands with what the coaches had been teaching him. I was completely on board now, or so I thought. The mind is a very impressionable thing, my mind especially.
Last Tuesday night my wife, son, and I started watching a new TV show on NBC. It was based on the excellent 2004 movie “Friday Night Lights”. The movie was a true story about a high school football team’s struggle to make the 1988 state championship. The TV show follows the same formula and had the same feel as the movie. I was really enjoying it, that is until the last ten minutes.
Varying from the movie’s plot line, during the sequence that takes place in the game they are playing, something happened that got me thinking about things that I thought I had left behind me. The quarterback, who tackles a runner because he was the last line of defense, is seriously injured. They didn’t tell us exactly how severe the injury was, but our last view of him is in the hospital, with a “halo” attached to his head, and unconscious.
Leave it safe to say my mind went into overdrive thinking about my high school player. I know you’re probably saying “It’s only a TV show, get over it”. You don’t know how often I hear that, but once it has crept in there it takes a while to get it back out again. Thanks a lot NBC.
I guess I’ll be starting at the one yard line again.
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