While most kids are at home or with their friends, swimming and hanging out in the summer, I am at football with my best friends, practicing in the hottest hours of the day. I cherish the days when we have long practices that leave me wanting to eat and fall asleep because I know that it will all pay off on Friday nights once the season starts.

My dream has come true, and I am now the quarterback of the varsity team at my school as a junior. Before the snap, I look around to see if everyone is set before I yell the cadence. In my head the play is drawn, and I go through what I have to do for the play that I call. My body is almost entirely numb from all of my nerves building up. Knowing that hundreds of eyeballs are staring at me when the play starts pushes me to go harder every play and focus on my job, whether it be from handing the ball off or reversing out and ripping my shoulders to make a catchable pass for my receivers to catch.

The feeling that I get when I hear my name being called is unexplainable: “DJ’s pass, complete to Lawson for a Touchdown.” I always dreamed of playing on Friday nights when I was a child. I remember playing flag football at the local YMCA and announcing my name in my head every time I grabbed a flag off the apposing team, as if it were a Friday night game. I could not wait for that day when I would walk on the field that every kid dreams of playing on at 7:00 PM.

Suiting up into that Columbian blue and gold, sweating, and working with my best friends to conquer the other team is exactly the way I dreamed it to be when I was a child. I have grown so close to my friends who are on our team, by just practicing and playing football with them. They have my back on and off of the field. Like Coach Dales would say, “I would take any one of my players into a bar fight with me.” I would do the same. He doesn’t mean that he is going to get us into a bar fight on purpose. Coach is just saying that bar fights are usually fights that are fought until the other person is laying on the ground unconscious. He knows that we would have his back no matter what the circumstances.

Many other schools have football teams that don’t have good team chemistry, and it shows in their records every year. If they can’t get along outside of the football field, they aren’t going to play well together on Friday nights. Fortunately, this year we finally, have a great relationship amongst all of our players. I wouldn’t trade any of my fellow teammates for anything. Football is everything to me.