The first day of summer football practice. There is an air of excitement around the field. Everyone shows up a little bit early to catch up with their old friends. It has only been a few months, but it feels like we haven’t seen each other in 15 years and this is our school reunion. Everyone is wondering what everyone has been up to, who is dating who, or why practice is this early.

This is my second year playing the most violent sport our local high schools will allow. My first year wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I “played” linebacker and probably accumulated 5 minutes of playing time throughout the entire season. The freshman coach only played his 15 favorite guys every game. We called these 15 guys the turfburn club. We being the other players that never played and myself. We called them this because they are the guys who think they are the best players ever and they are all future pros, and when they try to do all of their spectacular catches or throws, they end up falling and sliding along the turf field, resulting long burns called turfburns.

Everyone hated the turfburn club. They were arrogant, snobby, and stuck up kids who were no better than any of us standing on the sidelines. However, that was in the past. It wouldn’t be like that this year. Would it? No way. The head coach wouldn’t allow it. Would he?
After the first three weeks, the hardest part of summer was over. Now, we actually got to play some football. Coach had me try the quarterback position and I did pretty well. After week six, I was at the top of the depth chart for JV. Me, a starter! I couldn’t believe it!

All of my friends from last season were happy that a few of us could start to see some of the field, but they were happiest for me because I would be leading our JV team. The rest of the summer, I outperformed my counterpart for the quarterback position by a long shot. It wasn’t even a contest, and I started to act and feel that way. I started to slack off.

The coaches noticed right away and I got constantly chewed out about my work ethic. I just thought to myself that there was no way they would play the other kid over me, he was nowhere near my level of talent.

Our first game was a great success for me. I ran for over 50 yards and threw for over 200 . Granted, we were playing a team three divisions beneath us who couldn’t keep up after the first 5 minutes of the game. That didn’t matter to me. All that mattered to me was that we won and that I performed amazingly well. All the coaches were astounded, and I took notice and once again, I started to get lazy and to have that “I don’t care” attitude that you get when you feel like you’re above the law. Once again, the coaches noticed.

They didn’t take too much notice until after pre-season. Once it mattered, they pulled me out and sat me on the bench. I didn’t care. I was so good they would pull me back up after a day of practice without me at the head of our offense. A day passed, then two, then five. All of a sudden, a week had passed. We got blown out the next game by an opponent that should've been an easy win. I thought that coach would pull me back up for sure. I thought wrong.

I refused to change my attitude, and coach refused to pull me up. Three more weeks passed and we had a record of 0 wins and 4 losses going into our last week of the season. Halfway through the fourth quarter, our best receiver got injured. We needed someone with decent hands who knew all the plays. I was put on the field and we were down by six. We needed a touchdown. Fast. Coach called “Wide right 22 y-trail,” meaning I run vertically as fast as humanly possible. As the ball was released, I looked over my shoulder just in time to see it coming right to me. I jumped and spun around and, as soon as my fingertips touched the ball, I got hit hard from behind. The ball flew to the left. When I sat up, I felt a searing pain in my arm. As I jogged to the sidelines, the pain in my arm got worse. I looked down to see a six inch-long burn just starting to bleed.