Thoughts On Football

Hi all! Thought I'd provide a little update on my football situation. I am currently holding down the starting Left Guard slot on offense and have an inside track to getting a starting spot on defense, most likely as a nose guard. I am also currently nursing a hurt shoulder. My hand slipped off of a bag and tweaked my shoulder pretty bad, I expect it to stop hurting in a couple days but until it does, I'm stuck feeling some extreme pain everytime I move my left arm in a direction it doesn't want to go. Oh well, such is the price of playing such a violent sport.

Sometimes I wonder though, is it really worth the pain and suffering? I think so. It's worth every second of joy and exultation at the end of a winning game. It's worth every second of playing time. I honestly can't describe how great football makes me feel. I love the feeling of being exhausted after a long hard practice but knowing that I accomplished something that day. There is also a kind of exhiliration found in being totally focused on a single goal. A calm develops on the field. All the noise from the crowd becomes mere white noise , all the pain from hits and collisions is drowned out by the adrenaline, and you play better and hit harder. The rush is second to none and it forces you to keep coming back for more. It is always intense and it causes strange effects. Being so focused can cause a sort of sixth sense. You can actually predict what is going to happen, where the ball is going to go, what the back is going to do, and what the man in front of you is going to do. It is surreal and the only way I can explain the feeling is like a runner's high or maybe more like the intense hypersensitivity soldiers experience in combat. But I don't know I've never experienced those two things.

This season we also have a few girls trying out for the team. I don't want to sound like some sexist chauvunistic pig but I don't believe that girls should be playing boys' or men's tackle football. It's not that I don't believe girls can't handle playing football it's just that at the high school level and beyond, tackle football is about having the biggest, strongest, meanest guys on the field which is something that girls can't be. It is a physical impossibility for girls.

I am also rooting for the Cubs. I really hope they win the pennant this year as they have had no luck in the past. On a side note, did you know that another blogger also roots for the Cubs. Go Cubbies!