Personal Narrative Essay: Racism In Football

Football was my favorite sport to play in high school. I played tight end on offense and defensive end on defense. My junior year our team went 10-0, it was a perfect season. Expectations were high for my senior year. We did lose 6 key players to graduation, but we still had a lot of skilled players. My team truly felt like a family. That family was shattered soon into the season when several parents accused our coach of being racist. This was almost enough to end our season. The racism accusations began soon after our first game. We played a county rival that we had not had the opportunity to play in the last decade. On the first drive of the game one of our senior players was hit with a season ending injury. Understandingly our team was

There was a meeting the fourth week at the Board of Education for the hearing about the racism. My parents were going to attend. My father did not like or agree with a lot of things that the coach said and did, but he did not believe he was racist. Even though I supported the coach my parents did not want me to attend the meeting so I stayed home. During the meeting the brother of the parents accusing the coach stated that the coach was not racist. Everyone in the crowd knew the parents were complaining because their son had been caught disobeying the rules and the coach had punished him. The board ruled the coach was not racist, but did need training on social differences. We played another county rival that week. We were behind at the half, but ended up winning at the

We did end up with a winning season and proceeded to the playoffs, but no longer did I look at all the parents the same. While my parents had never made a difference about anyone’s skin color, I saw that some parents did not like players who were not their race. Attending the only school in the county that was interracial I had never known a difference. The parent’s tried to use their minority race to their advantage to get their way. I knew that if anything the coach favored their race and not his own. My mother gave me some sage advice in life even before this event: “Never judge someone by what is on the outside, look inside that person and then make your