Community Service


Currently I am a Senior in high school. Although I have taken many different sports lessons through my life, I am, for the most part, not the athletic type. After two years in high school I had not done any extra curricular activities. All of my friends had sports and academic meetings after school every day, while I just sat at home. So I figured it was about time to find an activity. In class one day, I had heard a couple of girls talking about how they had to go to football practice after school, and I thought, "They are girls, why are they going to football practice?" I later learned that they were the football managers of the team. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but I became interested, mostly because I love watching football. Ever since I was little my dad and I went to watch Steelers games every Sunday. So I talked to the girls about managing the team. They told me it was hard work, basically they were water girls. They would fill up coolers with ice and water and fill up waterbottles for the football players to drink out of during practice and games. Although it doesn't seem too hard, these girls were doing this every day after school, Friday nights, and Saturday mornings, for no pay although this counts for community service. The only benefit out of this is that you get a Varsity letter, and of course the fact that they get to watch boys run around the field all day. They told me they were not going to participate in this next year, but I thought I might give it a shot. I talked to the football coach later that year and learned about what my job would entitle. Of course practice started in the summer with two-a-days very early in the morning, which I was not too excited about. He also told me that there were three other girls doing this, which i would soon learn that one of them would soon become my best friend. I was happy I wouldn't be doing this on my own.

The season had started and I had become very good friends with the other girls that were doing this. I had also branched out and started talking to the players more and making a lot of new friends. Even though it was hard and thank-less work, I had a lot of fun doing it overal. I loved standing on the sidelines with all the palyers during varsity Friday night games. It was something I started to look forward to. The season finally ended and my afternoons became very boring, my friends and I began not knowing what to do with ourselves once we didn't have practice to attend. We then decided we would commit to manage the team again the next season, which would be my senior year. Once again practice started in the summer and we would be out there filling coolers and water bottles. Although I loved doing this, it was not always easy. Especially with four girls, and a team of football players. There was for sure going to be some drama. After many days of arguments, two of the girls decided to quit managing, leaving me and my soon to be best friend, by ourselves. This was not a two person job. After many days of struggling to work this out, and many talks of quitting ourselves, we came up with a plan. We would recruit some incoming freshmen that wouldn't know what kind of committment they would be getting themselves into. After finally convincing my sister and her friend to help us out, we were back in the swing of things.

After a very long yet enjoying season, it came to an end. I was very sad knowing it would be my last season doing this, and I had grown very attached to being part of this activity and the company of the players and managers I had spent every day with. I knew I would miss it but I am glad to know now that not only did I have many moments of joy doing this job, but I also did something helpful. There was not one day when I would not recieve a considerate thank you from each coach, and most of the players, of how great of a job we were doing. Knowing that this was very much a volunteer job and that there were very few people who would want to do it, they knew we were very self committed. To this day, coaches still come up to me in the hallway giving me a friendly smile and hello. I am very glad I started this activity for many reasons. A big reason that I now very much appreciate from that experience is that a gained a best friend. Aimee was one of the other managers I worked with and although we didn't get along at first, today we are very close, and I am very grateful for that. I also started a large social network through this, I am still friends with a lot of the players I saw every day and it gained my self confidence by far. I only wish I could have started this early on in high school, I still to this day miss it and always have the memories.