My favorite football game I’ve ever played in, was very eventful. It was Saturday morning, I played JV because I’m a freshman and not the best. Anyways, I had a great feeling something crazy was going to happen today, I just didn’t know what. I woke up, the game was supposed to start at 10. I was supposed to leave my house at 8, because we have to go down to the field and warm up. I grabbed a donut and left, my dad buys donuts every Saturday.

I got to the entrance to the locker room and headed in. It was dark, I was the first one in their. Not even a coach was in the locker room yet. There were people talking on the other side of the locker room though, which was lit up with lights. It must’ve been for a cross-country meet (which it was). Anyways, I laid down on the bench, trying to take a nap or something, since I had been up since like 4 in the morning that day. I slept for maybe 15-20 minutes, that’s when everyone started to show up.

We had the speaker turned on, listening to some music to get our minds focused and having fun. Then it got to about 8:45, we decided we should probably begin to get ready. I got my game pants out, and begin to put my knee pads in. Sometimes just putting the knee pads in was harder than the actual game. Then, I looped my belt through the waste and through my black compression pants on. It was a pretty nice day out, but you still have to try and look good for the game, even if it’s just a JV game.

The accessories I wore for that game were different from what I wore in the games before. One of my friends, a junior, asked me if I wanted to wear his arm sleeve. It was a sleeve that had been decorated to look like a United States flag. I of course, accept because I wanted to look cool. He also asked if I wanted to have his gloves. They were a pair of grey Cutter gloves, with a padded knuckle for blocking. I have to say, I thought I looked pretty cool in my outfit, plus I always loved our white jerseys more than our red jerseys.

I thought to myself, if only I had a visor to put in my helmet. If I had a visor, oh my gosh I’d look like an NFL player. So after I was all geared up, it was time for us to head down to the field to stretch. It may sound weird that we were wearing our away jerseys for a home game, but that’s just how JV works. If the varsity game is home, the JV game is away but you wear the same jerseys from the night before. Then it was my favorite part of warming up, practicing routes. I play receiver, so of course I always loved this part.

Then after that, it was time for the game to start. The night before we blew the team out about 60 to like 20 or something like that. With this in mind, we weren’t really expecting much from the other team. The other team got the ball for the opening drive, I played both sides of the ball, we didn’t really have many players. On defense, I played free safety, so I usually was most useful for pass defense. Occasionally, I was able to get in one some running plays, or jump on a pile. We forced the team to punt, so they did. I was a punt returner and I gotta say, this was an embarrassing fumble. I misjudged the ball and it bounced off my knee, but I was able to recover it, and I was able to juke someone. That was the only really eventful thing that happened from my perspective for that half, so I’m going to skip to the next half.

Our offensive coordinator had just left, so our receiver coach was in charge of calling plays on offense. I was told that we were going to start calling plays to me. The first play on offense of the half was “gold roll left flood”. This meant we had a double formation on the left and I was the farthest receiver. Therefore, I ran a vertical route, the inside receiver ran a 10 yard out. The first time we ran the play I was open, but the qb didn’t see me, so we ran a run next play and came back to the play.

It worked like a charm, I was open with about 5 yards of separation. I had to make a crazy catch though. I had to jump and spin around and catch it, which I was able to. However, I wasn’t able to keep my feet and stumbled down at the 3 yard line. I had came so close to scoring and I couldn’t do it. That’s when the play call came in. Brown slants 13, 13 was my football number which mean it was directed to me.

I lined up, felt a bunch of rush throughout my legs. The ball was snapped and I got my release, I ran about 2 yards straight then cut across the field. The ball was thrown before I even made my cut. I only had a second to react, I snatched the ball out of the air. Now I just had to go a yard, the safety hit me from the side but I shrugged it aside and spun in the endzone. The feeling of being the littlest guy on the field, and scoring, is one I will never forget in my life.

The rest of the game was ordinary, and I couldn’t stop shaking the whole time. When I got to the sideline after I scored, I looked up in the crowd and saw my people. Not only that, I saw other kid’s parents cheering, it felt amazing. After the game, I walked with my team back to the locker room, I was outside with my family before I first walked in. Then that’s when the party started, all the juniors and other JV kids were congratulating me, normally it me doing that for them on Friday nights. It was an incredible experience, and I truly hope I will never forget it, and make many more memories.