I didn't really understand football until I became a Football Mom. Not just the game itself, which many women claim to "not understand" but rather the harsh reality that is the career of a student athlete.
Since I didn't grow up in a household with a football player, I'd never seen boys burned and dehydrated by 5-hour mid-day practices in 95 degree heat under the sun. Who are subjected to the same treatment for two weeks running. Injuries, food and sleep deprivation, playing in the extreme cold of Western NY in November and December...
This story began with a boy in fourth grade who wanted to play football. I remember the sign-ups at a local restaurant in February, birth certificate in hand, and the first information session at the park in June (hotdogs and sodas provided by The American Legion).
He was required to lose almost twenty pounds, because in those days boys within the same age range had to weigh in under a certain limit. He wasn't overweight, but he was taller and more muscular than any boy his age (as a baby he was always in the 97th percentile or above). His dad put him on a dry wheat toast and egg white breakfast, light Hot Pocket lunch, salad or cereal for dinner regimen for two months.
He was sometimes so hungry he cried. I ached when I heard him suffering from growing pains at night. I hated the way his coaches spoke to him, with threats and shouts. I hated the way that spectators talked about the players. I tolerated the laundry.
The boys he played with over the last ten years were good kids. Many came from broken homes and "underprivileged" circumstances. One player now lives with his grandmother who is very, very sick.
They don't drink, that I know of, and many of them maintain grades in the 90s or better. I've watched our own boy, for years, working on homework into the wee hours of the morning. He would sleep for a little while, and then wake up in time to attend "early gym" at 7 a.m. (this week he has been waking up earlier to take care of animals for a neighbor).
Over the years there were memorable games and not so memorable games. This year they added in many more hours of time lifting weights and other "state of the art" training techniques. It seemed to pay off. Their record was good enough, by Friday (the last home game), to be in the running for the playoffs.
Two years ago the team lost a teammate to leukemia (the same year our son was injured at the summer's first lineman camp. He walked to his best friend's funeral on crutches). Nicholas was a good athlete and an amazing, funny, friendly, intelligent person. At Friday night's game the boys taped up with orange duct tape in Nick's memory. It would have been his senior year and his last home game too.
For senior night cheerleaders and football players walk the field with their parents through a line of underclassmen. There are handshakes and flowers. One mother, M.I.A. for months, made an appearance for the event.
Our team seemed a bit "emotional," gloomy even. They played hard, and they were largely evenly matched with the rival team.
We could have lost the game with a five point spread and still made the playoffs. The coaches planned, in that case, to move our younger son up from JV for the playoff games (we've never seen them play together on the same team even though they are only two years apart in age).
It was a close game but we lost 31 to 38. One could blame bad calls by the refs in the other team's favor but that road goes nowhere. Our boys lost the game, and their playoff hopes.
The last three minutes of time on the scoreboard clock seemed, to me, a bit surreal. It wasn't about the score or even about the game. It was my son's last three minutes of football on his home turf. Ever.
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