Friday Night Lights

On a Friday night in mid October, rain fell hard upon the Roger Bacon Football Field. Tensions ran high. My three co-captains and I held hands and marched in mud to the field’s center like a group of American Revolutionary Soldiers fighting for their countries freedom. We met the opposition. “Shake hands gentlemen,” barked one of the four referees; we acknowledged one another with a firm and sweaty handshake. I felt as if I could feel the adrenaline flowing through each one of my opponents’ blood streams. This was it: the biggest game of my senior football career.

This was the tenth and final football game of the regular season. Our record was fair: with five wins and four losses. We needed a victory to have a chance at making the play-offs and extending our season. According to jjhuddle.com, our opposition was favored to win the Division 2 State Championship. They were the Alter Knights from Kettering, Ohio. They had an impressive record at eight wins and one loss. The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Dayton Daily News predicted them to demolish us on our home field. The point spread, published by both the newspapers, was an astonishing 21 points. Earlier that day at a school pep rally in Kettering, one of their captains guaranteed an easy victory in Cincinnati. At this point in time, I was completely discouraged. No one was giving us a remote chance. As a leader on the team I forced myself to put up a front and sounded encouraging to teammates and wore a face of optimism. But on the inside my stomach churned with doubt and fear.

The newspaper clippings hung on our bulletin board in our locker room like a hangnail. I can vividly remember one of our players gingerly walking up to the postings and reading them. After he finished a mumbling of profanity resulted followed by a furious head on collision with his stainless steel locker. All 80 men in the locker room fell completely silent.

The lights beamed on the rambunctious audience below. After a routine coin flip to determine which team would receive the ball first, we departed ways and rejoined our teammates. Our pre-game warm-up consisted of groups of teammates splitting up according to position. We then would stretch, run, and perform ball drills with our coach. But during our pre-game warm-up, someone hinted to look at the opposing team. I watched as the opposition began approaching our side of the field. What happened next has stained my memory and will be with me for the entirety of my life. Players from the other team showed extreme disrespect by thrusting a sword, 3 feet in size, into the center of our field where our mascot was painted. I watchedProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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t violently sway back and forth. Immediately, our coaches tried to restrain us from killing as many players from the Kettering Alter Knights as King Henry VIII had wives. The referees simply gave the Knights a verbal warning. This infuriated each member on my team. Our souls filled with utter disgust and hate. I was ready to take on anything and anyone that wore the jersey baring the name KNIGHT. The Spartans from Roger Bacon
were ready to play football.

The next 48 minutes of football consisted of bloodshed, broken bones and sprained ankles in a 100 yard bathtub of mud. We scored on our very first drive and lead 7-0. Our stadium erupted and noises echoed all the way to the Ohio River. The defense, which I was apart of as a safety, never allowed the Alter offense to cross our goal line. Once the final second ticked off the scoreboard the men from Roger Bacon were victorious. We raised our heads and helmets higher then ever as we sang our fight song to the crowd. We had smiles running across our faces which did not wear off until our next game in the play-offs.

This was the first time in my life that I can recall overcoming adversity. The very next Monday at school seemed as if there were endless lines of people, students and faculty, lining the hallways with gracious compliments about the game. I confidently would smile showing gratitude at their kind words. We had won. We had beaten the unbeatable. I felt on top of the world and that I could do anything.