Saying Goodbye

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens”

Football is an integral piece in the development of so many kids across the country. It teaches collaboration, resliency, discipline, and most importantly how to acknowldege and overcome failure.

Covering the playoffs is always bittersweet for me. Over the last month, I’ve seen hundered of athletes come to the realization that once they take these pads off, they will never again rest on their shoulders. It’s a tough watch, and it stirs up a lot of emotions within me because I still remember every single emotion that came with that day.

I’ll discuss my own story a little more in depth (it all ties back to the point eventually, i swear).

I played football since I was in the 6th grade, and at Grace Community since the 7th. When I tell you it became my enitre life that’s really not an exaggeration. At 12 years old I broke up with a girl because “I needed to focus on football”. Middle school football. Yes I was that kid.

I wasn’t a bad student, but every fall I absolutely negelcted all of my assignments to watch film, hit the jugs machine, or just sit and dream about catching that game winning touchdown that never came. I really didn’t have any identity outside of football, and that’s quite the shock once you wake up and realize it’s suddenly not there for you anymore.

I would eventually go off to college, and to be quite honest struggle pretty heavily my freshman year. Academically I was fine, because I didn’t do a whole lot besides study and play 2k. But I felt empty. There was a piece of me I left in East Texas that I needed to feel whole.

I, like many of you reading this, am intensely competetive by nature. I thrive with a chip on my shoulder, and that is what I used to motivate myself to do anything until I left high school. But once you’re stripped of the competetive identity you gain through football, it feels like your floating through space, with no anchor to grab on to.

I didn’t seek out new opprotunities, or a real sense of community once I got to college, which only exacerbated the problem. That shift to independence is hard enough, and is much more difficult when your only defining feature has been taken from you.

I don’t write this as a biography of my life, or to try and tell you college is the worst thing ever. It will challenge you, break you, and force you to grow into a kinder, better, and more understanding version of yourself if you navigate it correctly.

The point of writing this is I want you to know that if you feel something is off, or missing after football ends, that it’s perfectly normal. I would challenge you to realize football is not who you are as a person, and that it by no means defines you. Once you do move out, seek out a new sense of community and realize your identity does not lie in a sport, but rather in how you treat other people.

I’ll end by linking an excerpt from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that I find is worth reading in a time like this. I hope you find it as useful as I have over the past several years.

A Time for Everything

 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.