“All of the suicides, sweaty mornings in the weight room,
two a days in the heat has led us to this one night; one game, forty minutes to
show who put in the work in the offseason, who wants it more. I can promise you
guys they haven’t worked harder than us, they don’t know about pride laps, they
don’t know what it feels like to lose every game in a season, they don’t know
about overcoming adversity, so let them know who we are. Who are we?
CARDINALS!!!”
Errrh! Errrhhhh! Errrr!! I slammed the snooze button on
my alarm clock, it was six o’clock in the morning and five more minutes of
sleep would do me wonders. I got out of bed turned the shower to hot, after
about five minutes switched dial back too cold to force myself to get out.
Threw on my favorite pair of American Eagle jeans and today for the first time
in almost a year I got to wear my football jersey to school. Next I threw on my
sunglasses, hopped in my truck and drove to school.
I pulled in to my usual parking spot behind the gym and
saw a few more of my teammates walking out of their cars in their jerseys.
“What’s up Kory man.” I said to my co-captain. “ Nothing much man, I could
hardly sleep last night. Are you ready for tonight Cap?” “Aww man you know I’m
getting at least one hundred yards and two touchdowns tonight.” I tried to give
off an air of confidence even though deep inside I’ll admit I was nervous about
tonight. I remember staring at the minute hand on the clock all day, my friends
and teachers were trying to talk to me all day but their words passed right
through me like water through a paper towel. I didn’t care about anything that
day except winning the first game of the season. Finally the end of the day
bell rang and I walked out to my truck. A few of my teammates piled in the back
and I drove down the road to subway. I think anyone who has ever been to subway
knows the feeling, the worker asked me what I wanted “ummm, uhhh, uhhhhhhhhh,
well I guess I’ll have the foot long chicken teriyaki.” I thought I was in the
clear but then he kept asking me details about the sandwich. “Which kind of
cheese? What type of bread do you want? Any Veggies?” Finally he finished the
barrage of questions and made the sandwich. I apologized to him but I was way
too focused to be bothered with questions about a five dollar sandwich. After
we finished and my friends stopped imitating me trying to complete the simple
task of ordering a sandwich, I drove back to school and went into the locker
room to suit up.
The locker-room smelled like the usual body odor and
Icy-Hot but there was such a feeling of focus in there. Twenty four kids who
had worked so hard all off-season to make up for last year, to bring pride back
to program were standing near the lockers getting dressed. I plugged in my
headphones and started to suit up. I felt like gladiator who was suiting up
before a fight, losing what was not an option; I wouldn’t be able to look
myself in the mirror anymore if I didn’t leave everything on the field to give
my team a win. My coach, who looked as anxious as all of us, walked into the
locker room and said “bus is leaving in fifteen minutes and carry your shoulder
pads on the bus its an hour and a half ride and there’s always traffic in
Boston.” My team walked onto the bus in a straight line after me and we were
ready for business.
The bus was cramped because the administration in all
their wisdom scheduled the smallest bus in the fleet. We really didn’t care we
just wanted to get to the stadium and do what we worked so hard to do. Of
course our bus driver got lost in inner Boston and we got to see some of scenic
Boston. Pimps in their usual all fur coats, Homeless guys carrying signs “punch
me for twenty dollars” it was very enlightening. After two and a half hours we
got to the stadium in Roxbury Park.
I led the team out of the bus and an official said we
have twenty minutes to stretch out and get ready then its kick off. It didn’t
faze me, I led the team onto the field and we could see our opponent for the
first time. The Boston Latin Academy Dragons were dresses in all black and they
had twice as many guys suited up but I knew we were going to run over these
guys all night. My other captains and I led the team through the abbreviated
pre-game routine.
We were all warmed up and ready to slay these so called
“Dragons”. We finished stretching and Kory said “take a knee around Carberry”.
I looked around at all my teammates and saw the determination in their faces.
Twenty three of my teammates were looking up to me just as I used to look to my
captains before games when I was an underclassman. I looked around into all their eyes and said “All
of the suicides, sweaty mornings in the weight room, two a days in the heat has
led us to this one night; one game, forty minutes to show who put in the work
in the offseason, who wants it more.”
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