juck
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HomeOfLegends;2761866 said:Great post Hos
Football takes on a bit of a deeper meaning for me.
My father and I have never really been close. I'm 33 years old and can honestly say, we never did the things we all envision we will do with our kids. My father and I never tossed the ball around in the back yard, we never played catch, we never shot hoops....Until I was 18 I only say my father cry once. That was when his own father died. Until I was 18 I never heard my father say I love you, I guess I always knew it was a given. My father had a very short temper, it made it real hard to talk to him. Though he was never abusive, there was a fear.
Football had a way of bonding what little connection we had. I grew up a Cowboys fans more then anything because my father is an Eagles fan. He tried really hard to influence me, a have loads of pictures of me at an impressionable age dressed in Eagles pajama's. It never worked but in the end, it probably was a blessing. It allowed me an outlet, some thing to hold over his head. While it was all in good fun, part of me felt as if it was "take that" each time the Cowboy beat the Eagles.
In high school I was highly involved in sports. Basketball, Track, Volleyball, Wrestling and Football. Football was my passion. I'm from a football family. My cousin Forest Blue was a All-Pro center with the SF 49ers, I'm a distance relative of William Heffelfinger, my great grandfather was a player on the first American Professional Football team known as the Canton Bulldogs. 4th one on from the left. This picture hangs in the HOF, little known to the NFL or the HOF, the original that in those times were printed in cloth resides in my home. Handed down to my grandmother from her mother and then from my grandmother to my father and then from my father to me. In it's original frame, my great grandfather marked by the lipstick circle my great-grandmother place on the glass.
I guess it was in my blood. I was addicted to the game and became even more so when for the first time my father took intrest in my passion. He attended all my games. Became known as the crazy father on the team. One time even storming onto the field after a player of another team kicked our QB in the head while he was down. Another time we just beat the top ranked team in the state, they had 4 OL and 3 DL all heading to D1 schools. Our front dominated them, playing OT I made sure of it. I also blocked the XP on their last TD, we won by 1 point. My father rushed the field as time expired, claiming the new powers of the state.
All those memories and many more are all I really have of our father son realtionship but it was my last game of my Senior Year, the last time I would ever put on pads for my highschool team that changed a realtionship between a father and his son and would forge the way this father raised his own.
It was a State Championship game. We were playing a school we had no right being on the field with. The school was twice our size, they were loaded with D1 prospects across the board. We played our hearts out be we never stood a chance. When the scoreboard finally ran out I could of cared less if we won or lost, my emotions were going to be the same.
I realized I may of just put on football pads for the last time. I may of just played my last game with my brothers whome I have been batteling with for 5 or 6 years. I was over come with emotion. I never sobbed so hard in my life, I could not stand up, my heart was broke. I still tear up to this day remembering how it felt.
As I looked around, trying to pull myself up there was my father. Hundreds of people around, I could only see him walking towards me. He reached down and picked me up, tears filled his eyes, those tears I only saw that one time back when his father died. He picked me up off the ground, looked me in the face and put his arms around me, told me how proud I have made him and then for the first time in my child hood, for the first time I can ever remember he told me he loved me.
We never played catch, we never attended a game, we never talked, we never said "I love you" but that one winter day, when a game for kids was played, I became a man and my father became......a father. All was forgiven. That one time what was always just assumed was verified.
Don't ever tell me football is just a game. For me, it a bond between a father and son. It's unspoken words, it's the answers your looking for, it's a right of passage, it's family history and it's getting passed onto my sons.
I see the passion in their eyes and thanks to that one game, unlike my father, I'm going to be there the whole way. Catch in the back yard and tickets to the ball game. Then that one day, when they are putting on the pads for the last time and I'm picking them up off the field I'm going to tell them how proud I am and how much I love them. I'm then going to hope because I was a better father then my father was that they will go on and be better fathers then me but I will never forget.
It all started with a game, it all started with Football.
Nice story.I do feel it could apply to any sport.You can bond with a father or friends over any sport.
