![]() ![]() My helmet popped half off, the chin guard caught on my throat. Trying to take the last step over, I caught this senior’s shoulder pad in mid air just above the chest. After the coach blew the whistle, I only made it to the last dummy. He was, I remember, always a nice enough guy outside of football, but turned agitated and mean with the excitement of the drill. Somehow I paired up with one of the biggest defensive seniors on the team. The defense, in the other line, took turns popping up off their backs after the whistle, trying to tackle the guy coming at them with the ball. In one line was the offense that, one by one, picked up a ball and sprinted over three tackling dummies before trying to avoid a single defender on the other end. It happened during tackling drills we ran as a team with the older juniors and seniors. Still, I pressed on for two more years, that dream of playing in a big game taking me back to the first practice each summer, until another incident when I was a player on the junior varsity. I do remember an odd wheeze in my throat for a week or so after. To this day, I can’t remember if I played again in that game. ![]() I walked over, gasping, trying to breathe through thick mucus that had suddenly formed in my throat, what I thought was blood. When I popped up in front of my coach, gasping for air, eyes already watering from the sudden pain, he knew immediately that I wanted to sit out the next few plays.įrustrated by the score, maybe misreading how hurt I actually was, he yelled, “Fine! Get on the bench!” My full sprint stopped immediately, shoulder pads pulled up to my throat, the full weight of the player cutting off the air in my windpipe. I ran with the ball towards the sideline when an opposing player dove and caught my shoulder pads at the back just below the neck, what’s known as a “horse collar” tackle. The first time was eighth grade, in a game we lost by some large margin, which was how most of our games turned out. The only memories I really have of the game are times I felt terrible pain, times I really questioned why I even played at all. Yet I have no football stories to tell, at least no stories of personal glory, no big games that I helped win or hard hits I put on other players. And my brother, who chased me all through the house, picked me up, and threw me down wherever he could, always trying to hit me hardest so I’d be ready for the real thing someday. These two men taught me the game, my father who threw me routes in our back yard, who told me to always come down with the ball whenever it was thrown too high, even if it meant a terrifying hit from a defender. ![]() There’s so much ritual, so much rite of passage associated with playing junior high and high school football, that quitting is almost akin to leaving a cult. I couldn’t tell anyone at the time, including myself, because of the stigma against quitters, against those who couldn’t take the pain required to play, especially in the conservative part of rural Minnesota where I grew up. I quit playing football all those years before because I was afraid of getting hurt. Tests revealed he suffered from CTE, a type of chronic brain damage that was later found in many other players, most likely caused by repetitive hits to the head. Of course, Seau experienced a lot more pain than I ever did. For me, it was a realization of how much I hated the pain everyone experiences playing. It sparked a national conversation about the physical toll the game takes on players, especially on professional players who dedicate years to what is potentially killing them. One of my favorite players, one of the most energetic and enthusiastic linebackers of all time, Junior Seau, was found dead after taking his own life. It wasn’t until the weeks leading up to my graduation from college in 2012 that I found my reason, something I think I knew all along. I quit organized ball my sophomore year without giving any reasons to my coaches or ever really coming up with one for myself. I had no idea that I’d be done with football only four years later, that I’d leave the game by my own choice before I finished high school. I could feel the glory of doing something big, making some catch or tackle in a varsity game in the years to come. All I could think about was how I had waited my whole life for this. ![]()
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