Football is Legacy

It’s halftime.

Columns of players stream into the weight room, each of them dealing with the intensity of the game in their own way. Some pace back and forth with maddening energy. Others tend to their injuries. Others stand around the whiteboard dissecting plays. While others straddle benches attempting to catch their breath before the next half begins.

As a JV coach and a coach new to the team, there’s not much I can contribute to halftime adjustments during Varsity games. So, I step outside to take in the atmosphere.

Fans bustle in both directions along the chain link fence. Parents corral runaway kids. Old friends catch up. Teachers hug former students. Former players reminisce about their glory days while packs of middle schoolers awkwardly check each other out. The atmosphere is full of smiles and laughter, hugs and handshakes. Bonds are renewed, relationships strengthened. This is the place to be on this Friday night. There is a powerful sense of belonging. All the while, the marching band provides a soundtrack to this gathering of community at our home stadium.

Just a few yards away from me, in the grassy area between the weight room and the scoreboard, some elementary school-age boys are playing football. There is a quarterback under center with a couple of receivers. There is a defense loosely organized in a “you’ve got him and I’ve got him” scheme arrayed against them. They’re passing and running and chasing and tackling with joyful whooping and excited hollering.

One of our linebackers, Jefferson Meade, steps out of the weight room to get some air. He is a behemoth of a young man with a red, white and blue bandana soaked in sweat tied around his mop of hair. His eye black is streaking down his face. His jersey is bloodied. His fingers are bandaged. He is the tip of our defensive spear. Whenever he meets a running back at the line of scrimmage there is this thudding sound that makes those of us on the sidelines involuntarily wince in empathetic pain.

Oh, that sound.

It is the sound of someone’s bell being rung like a call to service on an early-morning Sunday.

One of the elementary-school boys spots him, decides to approach him. His steps slow down as he reconsiders his present course of action. His friends silently but emphatically gesture for him to continue. He does, halting a few steps away, gazing up at Jefferson with a mixture of awe and admiration. Jefferson does not notice him. His attention is singularly focused on the upcoming second half of the game.

The kid takes a step closer.

Then another step closer.

You know each step is taking a larger dose of courage.

Jefferson looks down at him. The kid extends his hand. Jefferson gives it a gentle tap before locking his eyes back on the field extending out in front of him.

Jefferson may not have thought twice about that moment. He may have thought that it was a small moment. Because, he did not see the size of the smile that grew across that kid’s face or what happened when that kid turned to face his friends – the astonishment that flared on their faces. Their excited embraces. Their high fives and jumping up and down. The speed with which they took off to get back to their game and how the velocity of their play accelerated.

I can imagine the kid going on to play football at Tuckahoe Middle School, wrapping his arms around some running back, planting him on his back, and saying aloud or thinking to himself “Jefferson Meads.”

I can envision him joining summer installs as a rising freshman at Freeman, progressing through the JV team, and eventually taking his place as our next starting linebacker.

On some future Friday night, I can picture him stepping out of the weight room in a sweat-soaked red, white, and blue bandana, tapping the extended hand of a young kid, beginning the cycle all over again.

With a simple tap of that kid’s hand, Jefferson had stitched an intergenerational thread connecting the future of our program, (that kid) to the present (him). It is moments like these that demonstrate how football transcends time, weaving together past, present, and future members of our community.

Football gives each of us a shot at legacy.

In gladiatorial moments on the field and seemingly mundane moments off the field, we are challenged to rise above ourselves, to show up as the best version of ourselves, to serve as ambassadors for our team, even if only for a fleeting moment in between games.

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Please note that I shared this post with Jefferson and his family and receiver their permission to use his name before posting.

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This post is part of my latest book project titled: “Football is _______”

Every two weeks, I’ll fill in the above blank with a word or phrase and tell a story. I’ll do that for 52 weeks and then compile the posts into a book of essays.

I’d love for you to join me on this journey and share your thoughts or stories along the way. If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others who might appreciate it as well.

Stay tuned for future updates on instagram (@blucollarprof).

Read previous posts in this series.

Thanks for reading! – shawn