I woke up that morning nervous, but anxious to play. It was the morning of the third game of our eighth grade football season. We were going to play East Grand Rapids and our team and their team were both winless in our first two games of the season.

I got to school that day and everyone on our team was excited for the game, hoping to get our first win of the season. The day felt really long because I was so excited to play the game later that night.

A lot of kids, during the school day, were saying to our team, “You’re gonna lose.” and “Your team isn’t any good.”We didn’t listen to that because we knew we could play as a team to win the game and prove to all the people who thought we couldn’t win wrong.

After school I was getting ready for the game and I was really excited to play. I wanted to win really bad because the quarterback for our opponent, East Grand Rapids, was on my hockey team and we had been talking about the game for weeks. I left my house to meet our team and the bus to get to the game. Before games we would go over our plays also, we get help from our coaches on what we needed to do to be successful. We got on the bus and I sat all the way in the back by myself. I sat by myself so I could focus on the game and how I was going to lead our team to a win because I play quarterback. Because I’m quarterback I have to help people when they are mad about a bad play and tell them to make the play next time they are on the field. Also I can lead by helping people when they don’t know what to do when they are on the field.

When we arrived, we walked silently into the stadium, 2x2 single file lines. We walked onto the field and we were ready to kick some butt! We did our warm ups and I went out with three of my teammates for the coin toss. My friend from hockey was a captain for East Grand Rapids so I got to talk some trash to him before the game. We shared a laugh along with our trash talk but then it was all business. Our team was not taking this game lightly.

When our offense took the field for the first time I completed a few passes and we drove the ball all the way down the field for a touchdown to tie the game. We had a chance to take a lead with an extra point and I ran the ball in to take a 7-6 lead to end the first quarter.

In the second quarter, in the league we play, there is a rule that you have to take out 6 impact players. The impact players are the players who the coaches think have a big role on the because team. I hated that rule because I couldn’t be on the field. Also, because it changes the game so the better players on both of the team get taken out. During that quarter I walked around the sideline and helped people when they didn’t know what to do. Also, I told people, “Nice job.” When they did something good for our team. Going into halftime we were winning 13-6. At halftime our coach said we played hard and we can’t stop playing hard because they haven’t won a game this season, like us, and they will play really hard to win.

When I got back on the field to start the third quarter, our running back had a long run for a touchdown and we had a 19-6 lead with a quarter and a half left to play to try and get our first win. Our defense made a big stop to get the offense the ball back so we could add to our lead. We had the ball on the our own fifteen yard line, our running back had big runs and I made good throws for big first downs to keep the clock running so they couldn’t get the ball back. We drove the ball all the way down the field and had it to their three yard line. Our coach told me the play and it was one of my favorites in our playbook. I went to the huddle and said, “Spread right rippy set 747 on 1.”

Right then I told myself that if we score right here they can’t come back. I went to the line and made sure everyone was ready and looked closely at how the defense was set up. The center snapped me the ball I did a fake handoff to the running back and started to run full speed to the right. I looked for my receiver and he was not open so I made a move on a guy on the other team to get past him and ran to the end-zone as fast as I could. When I ran to the end-zone I dove to try and get past two guys “BANG.” I was in for a touchdown but when their team’s guys went to tackle me they hit heads and the kid on the other team laid there motionless.

We waited for a half an hour, later we were told by the refs that the game was done because it was getting too late and the ambulance still wasn’t there. We did it, we got our first win of the season our team was so excited and it felt so good because it was the first time we had won as one big team not two teams split up. After the game I went and talked to my friend, from hockey, on the other team. I said, “good game” to him. He replied,” My team would have beat you if the game didn’t end early.”

I knew our team wouldn’t have let them win but I didn’t say anything back to him. I shrugged my shoulders and said um-hum and thought in my head, “You have no idea how hard we’ve worked to get this one win and there was no way we were going to let this win slip away.”

When our team team got to the sidelines together we started jumping around and everyone was saying, “Great game, man. That was never even close!” After that we started to sing our school's fight song, I will never forget that celebration.

When the game was done and I was on the way home my dad said I played really good. I was really happy he said that because he normally says I need to work on something to get better.

The next day at school everyone was was saying, “nice win” and “good job” to the kids on our team. The funny thing is that just one day before they were saying how bad were!