When I started playing football in the 5th grade, I was just like anyone else. I thought it was just a fun little game where you got to run around and hit people. As learned the sport and began to participate in actual games, I started to learn from the sport itself. Being out on the field almost every day working and playing with my teammates taught me many valuable lessons. Playing football is an experience of adrenaline and energy that I have never experienced before. Football didn’t just develop me as an athlete, but helps to build me as a person

One of the most important lessons I learned from playing football all these years, is the value of hard work. To be a successful team, let alone player, you have to work really hard. The long hours, the summer heat, conditioning and more all made me realize how much effort you need to put into something to achieve success. Also putting together plays, coverages, and helped me figure out it’s more than just physical work. You have to work your mind as well. This has really helped me in areas outside of football as well. It has helped me to understand the amount of hard work I need to put in to achieve my goals, whether it’s school, athletics, or anything else. With schoolwork getting harder every year, now that I’m a sophomore in high school, this lesson I’ve learned from football has really helped me put in the time and effort on my studies where I needed it this year and in the past.

Putting in all this hard work in football has taught me about pushing myself to my limits beyond. Before I had joined football, I didn’t really know what it meant to really push myself. As soon as I started playing though, it was apparent. If I was going to work I was going to need to put everything I have into it. From running endlessly back and forth on the field to the point of puking, to pushing to get those extra reps in while in the weight room, I soon learned how to break out of my comfort zone. If you want to be the best team, or the best at your position, you have to push yourself harder than anyone else. This is another lesson that I try to carry over into my everyday life. If I want to be the best I can be in a certain class or anything else, football has taught me to push past my comfort zone and strive for greatness.

Through the challenges placed before me in the sport of football, I have come out stronger, both mentally and physically. As said in the 1994 classic movie, Little Giants “Football is 80 percent mental and 40 percent physical”. This sport is more than just jocks with pads on beating each other up. The struggles, the team, and everything about it has helped to shape my character in so many different ways. It’s more than just football though. It’s being a part of something bigger than you. It’s aggression, and finesse. It’s organized chaos. Football is a large part of my life, whether I realize it or not and I have no idea where I would be in my life if it weren’t for just playing this sport.