Stepping on the field I felt a tingling sensation in my stomach. I haven’t been on the field in so long in front of a big crowd.
My stomach started turning circles and my knees buckled up. Looking down on the other half of the field I saw the other team warming up. The kids that had been watching the whole week were just not even 50 yards from me; my grinning smile seeing the people move. The two big tackles they had on offense were warming up at least 40 yards from me. I looked in amazement at how big but tremendously slow they were. While they were doing their drills, I felt tickled at the fact that they couldn’t move lateral at all. I grinned when they would try to block someone, but instead they would fall or trip over each other like the three stooges Mo, Larry, and Curly smacking each other.
Getting done with our defensive drills I smiled at my teammates; they knew that I was thinking up something slick. Coach Heath tried to talk to me about any changes they could have made, but he saw the smile on my face, returned it and walked away.
The fans pouring into the stadium. It was Northwest’s homecoming and the atmosphere made the game even better. The fans of Northwest chanting trying to get their team pumped up even though it really wasn’t working though because they still looked the same. Finally, we were walking up to the locker room. My adrenaline rush was fading. My legs suddenly exhauster after all the running; I was breathing hard. My legs cold and stiff while walking up the pavement, listening to the cleats as we walked into the locker room. Our team was talking, rambling on about stuff that didn’t even matter or didn’t even have to do with the game.
As I sat down, I realized that my cleats were starting to tear, the green grass stains covering my brand new cleat covers that I just bought the day before. While staring into space, the door open and Coach Blevins walked in. Everybody got quiet like someone at a funeral. He told us to grab our hands and we recited our daily prayer that we do before a game. It made us feel like a brotherhood when we all recited the poem together in sync. While finishing our prayer coach Blevins voice changed from a calm one to a serious excited one. I am tickled while he is talking because I know what he is getting ready to say but it gets me every time.
Every time I heard one of his speech’s my bones rattled and my adrenaline started to rush again. While walking down to the field, as we grasp our hands, the crowd chanting for everyone to get ready for us to come down to the field. John says “A phonso man lets crank that beat!” Alphonso says to me “to get that beat cranked” and the team together cranks the beat that we use as a hype for us to get hyper. We walk down cranking the beat and I see the two big kids that I have to play against. We hold hands walking across the field waiting for the coin toss, and I smile, ready for the game, adrenaline rushing.