A Big Change at a Young Age

When I played peewee football when I was about 10 years old, I was always the quarterback for my team. We played full padded tackle football in Florida, just as many other states do. I loved to play football more than anything else in my life. It was so fun scoring touchdowns, making big plays, having fans scream, I loved it. When I got to seventh grade I was almost too heavy to carry the football. You had to be less than 150 pounds or you couldn't carry the ball. My coach was a nice guy, he always helped me cut weight if I needed to. The night before games he would have me stay the night at his house to make sure I was eating right and not gaining too much weight. Later that year my coach decided to move me to running back, because I was bigger than most kids. At first I didn't like the thought of not being the quarterback, I was the leader of my team and I thought to lead them I had to play quarterback. Well, it turned out I loved playing running back. I had excellent vision, which today I still think is one of my best attributes. This was a big change for me, but a good one. By the time I was in eighth grade I weighed 180 pounds. I was way too heavy to carry the football, and too big to play in the peewee league. My middle school didn't have football, so I had to sit out all of the eighth grade year of football. This was tough for me, I really wanted to play, but I just couldn't. My coach knew how I felt and he was a good guy, so he let me help coach the running backs. I thought it would be weird coaching the kids my age, but nope, it wasn't at all. I still felt part of the team and couldn't wait to get to high school and play again. I started at running back all four years in high school. We weren't that good at all when we first started, our head coach had just come from a big school and wanted us to win the state championship. Each year our record improved and my senior year we went undefeated and won the state championship, one of the greatest days of my life.