In my four years at Northwest I participated in an array of activities, but one main one will resonate in my mind for all eternity. Football will never leave my mind. Few activities I come in contact with across in my life will require as much commitment as football. All the tough work not realized in the younger days comes to mind, not what starts in the fall like the games, but work people rarely see, for instance what we do in the spring.
During the spring, when the work put into the winter sports fades from memory the halls, and weight room become booming with activity. Through out the spring, the football team: lifts, runs, and does plyometric work. Plyometric work, the worst of them all, I remember Chris Nealy in particular, he would stop in front of the box, evaluate, inspect the box, then go on to the next one, silent as a mouse trying to sneak by coach.The spring workouts may require the most commitment before the games begin. Anyone can skip the workouts with ease, only one coach watches over the group, or the phrase that resonates, “I’m in a different sport”. However, the group that skips makes up a small portion of the ratio, a second group of people go to nearly every one, and I’m in the second group.
Then comes summer, a time of sleeping in, and ease for some. However, for the football team summer’s a time of hard work, time to get involved in everything about football. Workouts start at six-fifteen in the morning, and get ready for the torture that will soon ensue.
Three stations make up the morning: lifting, agility, and hallway which all come before the sprinting session. Few rules come into place here, the main one: to stay enthusiastic throughout, this becomes a necessity otherwise the younger kids will see older kids slacking, and think that’s how all people do the workout, and then lose enthusiasm. However, workouts don’t end there after the full workout the freshmen wait at the stadium for the start of the run which involves a variety of options: one hundred yard sprints, hills. Once again keeping up the enthusiasm becomes a necessity.
That’s all just the summer and spring, the season doesn’t even start for another couple months. Multi-tasking becomes a nifty skill, because members of the football team need to juggle a variety of tasks: school, home, football, church, work. Don’t even think about slacking on one of the areas otherwise the shortcomings will mush together way into another area. There’s school; people find ways to get help, come in early, stay later, but nothing can get in the way of football. Then there’s home time to, eat, do chores, and then try to do the work that teachers didn’t feel necessary for school, now this problem belongs in the much deserved spare time. Then football the major one, where the last seven months of everyone’s life went. All the teachers say how football comes before the rest of the sports, and how football sets the tone for the rest of the year. All the coaches say how people will lead by example in short “do what’s right”, and how everyone needs to bust their butts on the field. However after all Friday night under the lights become something to cherish.