Being from Texas, it's only natural that we LOVE football. Well, most of us, anyway. Henry signed up for tackel football with the Vigo Youth league here in town this year. It's his first year playing "real" football. He played for the YMCA the first year we moved to Terre Haute, but it was touch and he was the oldest on his team, so it wasn't much of a challenge for him.
So for the past three weeks, he's been playing---no scratch that---he's been practing tackle football. And he's not been enjoying it. He doesn't like to get tackled and he doesn't like how the coach yells at him for not knowing what he's supposed to do. He's a newbie after all, what do you do?!?
So we made a deal. He had to stay with the program until after his first game. After all, that's the best part of any sport!
Saturday was his first game...well, sorta. We thought it was a game, so we invited everyone to come and watch him play what would probably be his first and only game. It didn't even end up being a game. It was a scrimage.
All the way over to the field, he talked about how he didn't want to play and would probably quit after that game. We didn't even end up getting his pictures because I didn't want to spend the money if he wasn't going to play.
The scrimage was against Woodrow Wilson middle school. They got the ball for 10 minutes on offense, and then we got the ball for 10 minutes. Henry got off to a slow start, but then he took off!! He ran so fast he caught an awesome ball and almost got a touchdown! The defense tackled him on the 5 yard line and set it up for a touchdown the next down.
During their last 10 minute offensive period, Henry was handed the ball and took off running down the field. Now, there is a little bit of question on what happend next since he got all the way down the field and stopped, but it was still an awesome run and set them up for another touchdown.
After the game the verdict was in, he likes football! Well, enough to at least give it one more week until the next "first" game. At least it should be a real game. But he says as long as we keep going to Dairy Queen after each game to either celebrate or commiserate, he's gonna keep playing! Yea!!!
