While I'm thinking about football, I can't help but be whisked away to another time, when I too donned the helmet of manly men, for my sophomore year. Ugh. Worst idea ever. I love my dad, and I know he was trying to help me make new friends in a new town, but holy crap did I hate that.
Now understand, as an adult, I am quite fond of watching sports. I really enjoy high school football. For some reason it seems like you can get a better feel for everything that goes into the game plan and the coaching at the high school level. But as a youth, I was indifferent towards athletics at best. I played a couple years of soccer, but I was much more into music and going to shows. Even when my dad presented the idea I was incredulous. My fears were soon realized, when I was rudely awakened to the locker room culture. Besides a couple of occasions where gum was stuck in my shaggy hair, uncharacteristic in those bleach blond, gelled forward days, I got through relatively unscathed, but it took years to get into football again. Now that I am out of the rat race, I enjoy it a lot.
In case you don't believe that I was on the sophomore football team, because this was not something that I talked about through the remainder of high school, check out the '99 yearbook. I am in there. Shoulderpads and all.
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