The same play flickered over and over again on the screen in the darkened room. And what I saw took my breath away. Five huge figures, running at a considerable rate for being two hundred and thirty pounds a piece, all attacking one thing: the man with the ball.

The Freshman Football Team for Grandville sat together in a dark room watching film of their next opponent, Hudsonville. All eleven of their defenders stood at least six feet tall and glowered over the much smaller Kentwood team. But as I watched, the ball wasn’t the only thing that snapped that play. As one of Kentwoods running backs took the ball around one side of the field, five of the biggest Hudsonville defenders chased him down like a pack of enormous wolves running down a scared rabbit in the open field. And when all five hammered down on him, five jerseys in Hudsonville maize got up. But one black and red jersey did not. As I learned later, he had fractured his leg, a small fracture taking into account how large guys that hit him were.
“Holy crap, Sundstrom,” one of my teammates said in a low voice. “Better watch out for those animals there.”
“Yeah, you got that right,” I said, trying to sound confident.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder in the dark. It wasn't a quick grab like somebody was trying to scare you, but a comforting kind of touch.
“Hey, Sundstrom,” a voice said in my ear quietly, barely a whisper. I recognized Jareds voice, soft for a bigger guy. “Dont worry about them, man. I won't let any of them get to you.” I smiled slightly and thanked him. Jared had always been on my teams throughout grade school and middle school. And because of that, I trusted him more than anyone on the line. Hadnt let me down yet, but somewhere in the back of my mind, still could picture them laying me out, crushing me under their immense weight.


I walked onto the field of the Hudsonville Eagles, strapping on my helmet and snapping my chinstrap into place. A sea of yellow stood on the opposing sideline, with eleven more waiting for me on the field. How many were there in all? Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty..... I lost count as they moved in a massive swarm of maize. The referee set down the ball on the forty yard line and called us, the offense, over to start the game. Hudsonville set up their defense across the line of scrimmage, glaring down at us. Man, they were huge. I mean, huge. It isn’t often that you see a group of eleven men over six feet tall, physically in their prime. Arms filled their entire jersey sleeve, and pants had to be cut open to accommodate for their enormous legs. Physically, these fifteen year olds were simply freaks of nature: and I was the target.

Being the man with the ball can be fun, but is often times frightening. You are the target of eleven vicious, fired up, forces of nature. They want to hit you. They want to hurt you. They want to put you on the turf and knock your lights out. Such thoughts raced through my head just before the first snap happened. I could not help but glance over at the clear and obvious mismatch of size on the left side; Jared Duncan stood just under five feet, eleven inches tall and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck eighty. The man who lined up across from him was their defensive end, the man rushing my blind side. The side I could not see coming. He towered over Jared, standing six seven and two hundred and forty pounds (as I was later told). Jared was the only thing standing in the way between him. But Jared would take him on. Because I trusted him.

His job was to protect me from what I could not see; and if he failed, their monstrous defense would have a free shot at me.

The play was Open 45 Read Option, a play that, as the play suggests, gives me options of what I could do with the ball. I could either give the ball to Isaak running to the left (directly at the huge defensive end) or I could keep it and run the other way. I read the defense, called the cadence, and received the snap. Isaak rushed past me in a blur of maroon; I felt nothing and thought nothing, going purely on instinct. Initially I planned to hand the ball to Isaak, but at the last second I pulled it out of his arms and tucked it away myself. I bounced around one player and ran towards my sideline, trying to find some running room. A safety had denied me and had come up and hit me. I ended up gaining two yards on the play.

As the game went on, I became more and more comfortable with running the ball. For the most part, Jared handled the man child extremely well, and didn't let him get to me. We ran the offense decently, and our defense was making one heck of a stand against a powerhouse of an Offense that the Eagles had. We were tied, 7-7, going into the second quarter. They were wearing us down; it was tough to keep fighting. They were simply bigger and stronger than us, and somebody had to give up first.

I refused to let that be the offense. So at the end of the second quarter, I lined up and saw both of their linebackers blitzing towards where Isaak would be running.

I stopped and shouted, “St. Louis Ram! St. Louis Ram!” audibling to a slant route that would leave at least one man open. I called the cadence and received the ball. Just as I had predicted, both outside linebackers rushed the second the ball was snapped.

Now before I go too much into detail and confuse you, let me confuse you a little bit more first.

St. Louis Rams was a play that had the outside receivers running a quick slant towards the linebackers in the middle of the field (which, in my case, is where the linebackers had just vacated) and had the slot receiver run a wheel route, which sent him towards the sideline and back up the field towards the endzone. The defenses safety had to pick one of the two; he could not cover them both. From watching film all week, I had made a careful note to throw towards number 21’s side. He was very slow.
Anyways, as the play developed, my line did a fantastic job of protecting me, forming a perfect U shaped pocket for me to throw from. I looked off to one side, hoping to throw the backside slant. He was covered well, however, and I looked off to number 21’s side. He had two options: to cover the outside receiver on a slant or to cover the slot on the wheel route. He had chose to run up and cover the slant route, leaving Daniel Reynolds wide open with a free path to a touchdown. My internal clock clicked down the seconds as the play passed, waiting for Daniel to get deeper.
The two second mark ticked pass as I loaded up my weight to heave the ball downfield. But as I did so, I saw the huge defensive end come from the outside right up the middle. My brain went into overload as I frantically screamed at myself, Move!!!
Daniel was wide open, with nobody in sight. I made a split second decision to try to get the throw off before I was hit. I unloaded, slinging the ball down the field. But as I released it, the defensive end lowered his head and bucked the crown of his helmet into my forehead, and at the same time, a crushing force hit my back.
My vision went white, then black. A sharp, clear ringing sound pounded through my head and drove into my eardrums like icy splinters, resonating within me. It sounded like metal scraping metal. Only one thing went through my head.
Ouch.
That hurt.
I woke up on the lush green turf gasping for breath as pain blossomed and exploded into my back and right arm where I was hit. The world spun in circles; stars danced and twirled around my eyes like a cartoon character who just finished being hit with a wrecking ball. I pushed myself to my feet and tried to stand, but my vision swam and I felt the turf rise up to meet me again subconsciously.
Get up! I screamed at myself, forcing my body to stand. I staggered and took a woozy step towards our sideline. I felt like a punch drunk boxer after a long fight. I took another step, and tried to blink the stars out of my eyes. My vision swam again, and I felt an arm slide under mine and wrap around my shoulder and help me over to the sideline. I blinked a few times and found myself on the sideline, on the bench.
“Sundstrom, where are you?” a voice asked. I blinked again, trying to clear my foggy head.
“Sundstrom, what year is it?” the same voice asked. I vaguely registered that it was Coach Schmid talking to me. I looked at him and thought about it. But the only honest thought going through my head was, ‘oh, theres Coach.’
“Sundstrom, answer me!” He said sharply.

Come on, I told myself. You know this. What year is it? Think!

“2014,” I said finally. “Its 2014 and we are at uh...” I looked at the eagle head on the center of the field. What team had the eagle again? “Hudsonville.”

Coach Schmid frowned and walked me to the locker room for half time. I got a long drink of water and splashed some cold water on my face. That helped a little, and my head felt better after that. My dizziness had stopped, but the pain in my back and in my arm felt better. I could speak and think fluidly again after a twenty minute break, and I could finally function. Before the start of the second half, Coach Schmid told me that if I show any signs of a concussion, he’s taking me out straight away. Luckily, I had barely passed his makeshift concussion test. I knew I had one, but I was not symptomatic anymore, so I thought I could play. We finished out the rest of the game and lost a heartbreaker in the final seconds of the game. On the bus ride home, I began to experience the after effects of a concussion, or a ‘bell ringer’ as we liked to call it. I had an excruciating headache, and when I got home, I threw up almost right away. I had a hard time remembering actually getting hit (and still do) and I felt exhausted, drained of energy. I went to bed at 7:30 that night and didn’t do any of my homework.
For those of you who don’t know, this is called a concussion. A concussion is where your head experiences a blow that snaps your head back and makes your brain move inside of your skull. Your brain hits the inside of your skull and eventually bruises itself and may cause temporary loss of vision, balance, recognition, memory loss, nausea, dizziness, shock, and headaches.
Jared apologized profusely the next day in practice and claimed it was all his fault that he got to me. I actually congratulated him. He did a fantastic job keeping that man child away from me for the whole game and he only got to me once. I looked at him and I realized I just had epiphany. Here it is, kids:
Even though all people mess up every now and then and make your trust in them falter, you must realize in the end that that all they are: people. And if people don't make mistakes, then what are we? So next time one of your friends makes a mistake and breaks your trust, you have to be willing to take the hit. But know that if he was a true friend, he/she tried his/her best at blocking that huge defensive end. But sooner or later, that end is going to get through, and you’re going to get hit. So, you can get up, dust yourself off, and move on to the next play. Because people tend to sit and think about that one play three or four games ago when what they don’t realize is there are hundreds of more plays to come. But at the end of the day, your friends will have your blindside, just like you will have theirs.