Personal Narrative: My Growth As A Football Player

When I was in high school, football was my primary after school activity. For at least fifteen weeks I would spend five days a week doing something with football. My senior year I started for a team that only lost one game in the regular season. Now that I look back at my time as a football player I can see very obvious stimuli for my growth as a player and a person. From the time I first started playing to the end, I wanted to get better, my brothers on the team pushed me and I had coaches that taught and pushed me. My first practice was in July, the summer before my seventh grade school year. It was so hot! I remember walking up to practice that had already started. I had no idea what I was doing, I was so frustrated that I had just

I also had four different line coaches. Coach Dickie taught me how to be tough. Coach Dickie would see that I would try to avoid contact and he would make me repeat the drill making me hit the other player. He taught me that I can’t just wait and take the hit that I have to go give the hit. Coach O taught me to play. Coach O was the first coach to start me. The first to give me that responsibility and first to tell me to have fun. Coach Donnie taught me that football begins in the weight room. For a whole semester, he would meet me every weekday and he would oversee my workout, often providing guidance and motivation. Before our senior season, Coach Shambaugh met with the seniors and he told us about his plan for us and what he would do with us. One of the many changes that Coach Shambaugh made was hiring Coach Garett for the linemen. Coach Garett was exactly what the line needed he pushed us to expect more from ourselves and work harder. Now I am done playing football, I will never put on my pads again. I will never play another snap. During my time as a football player, I grew a lot. I learned more and more about the game and I built some great relationships with players and coaches. The combination of great players and great coaches made for a great experience that wasn’t always