Why I stopped playing high school football after tenth grade

I wasn’t about to waste my summer playing high school football, going to hell and back, only to win between two and three games. 

Our football team sucked. In my freshman season, they were coming off their worst-ever year, going 10 games without a win. It was so bad and the coach so disliked, that only 35 sophomores, juniors, and seniors went out, with 26 of us freshman, 25 of whom were eligible to play.

That meant one thing. The coach pulled the freshman up. Not because we were any good, but to make the team look bigger, with 49 of us on the sidelines on any given down instead of 24. The coach spun it as “a reward” for making us slog through two-a-days with the varsity team.

Hardly any of us bought it. And after losing 27-7 in Week 1, and 34-0 in Week 2, there was grumbling in the locker room. Finally, the coach told us we didn’t need to dress for any of the remaining games, and that it’d be optional. I decided to dress for two more: the homecoming game in Week 5, and the rivalry matchup in Week 8.

I should’ve stopped there, but I didn’t.

The most wasted summer of my life…

While some woman in South Korea was about six months away from bringing one of my favorite K-pop artists into the world, I was ready and raring to make the leap and be a three-year starter.

I spent the year going from a spindly 110 lbs freshman to clocking in at 140-145 lbs. Not small, considering we had a 150-lbs left tackle. I bench pressed 225 lbs, squatted over 300, and moved noticeably more weight on auxiliary lifts. So much, people started using the word “steroid” in front of my name, even if I’d never taken them.

So, in June of my sophomore season, I worked my ass off, taking extra time after practice to work on my receiving routes. I also ran in the evening and put extra time in the weight room. Come August, I was sure I’d have early consideration for varsity, only that wasn’t the case.

By the time we started wearing the pads, I found myself so low on the depth chart that I tried walking out of practice. If I’m not getting serious consideration, then why even do this? They convinced me to stay, so I begrudgingly stuck around, vowing to give minimal effort so they’d throw me off the team.

I tried everything. Skipping practice with no excuse, refusing to volunteer and step up for team drills, and even openly saying derogatory things about how bad the team was. None of it worked, though it led to disciplinary action a time or two.

Then came the scrimmage at a tiny high school

I remember that bus ride and the groans of, “Are we there yet?” coming from teammates. It was the middle of August, we all had the windows open, trying to get much-needed air, and passing through so much farmland that it made the tiny town we left look like a metropolis.

Finally, we pulled in, changed into some beat-up old jerseys that came from the early 1990s, and proceeded to get our asses handed to us in a scrimmage against a team half our size. Two-a-days were almost over, and the “Jamboree” game was looming. But damn, I stood on that sideline for most of the game wondering just what the fuck was I doing here?

I thought back to the day I tried to quit this team and focus on bodybuilding, wondering why I didn’t stay stoic and walk home (I didn’t have my driver’s license since I was 15 at the time). Yeah, I could’ve been in my parents’ basement working out and not wasting my time standing on a sideline, playing for a team that was going to lose nearly every game it played.

The prediction rang true and that’s when I threw in the towel

Then came Week 1 against a school I’ll call Belmont They beat us 41-0. In Week 2, a school I’ll call Park beat us 34-0. In Week 3, we were down 27-0 after the first quarter against who I’ll call Big Blue. Yeah. Outscored 102-0 in our first nine quarters.

So again: What the fuck am I doing here? And how the hell am I still on the sideline when opponents beat us this badly with the players we got? Not just me. Why aren’t they rotating more of us into the game?

School politics. In my freshman year, a pair of cousins saw extended time on the varsity squad as freshman. Their parents held longstanding jobs for the district.

In our sophomore season, they gave another kid a starting job. One who wasn’t remotely ready to play varsity. Their parents owned a well-known business in the area. A lot of kids who received serious playing time had a parent working for the school in some capacity, or their parents knew one of the coaches well.

Maybe I would’ve gotten the same thing if I let it be known I personally knew someone working for that same school. But that was a fact we kept on the down low, down low. Mainly because our parents didn’t want me or my cousin, MC, to enjoy favored status. In hindsight especially, I’m grateful for that.

Politics were rampant at that school (and others in the area)

I’m not about to rehash on arguably the most notorious example of politics at a public school in this article. That one is for another time. But our school was notorious enough. So much, that someone I knew well on the inside was transparent about the “good ol’ boys club” within the district.

So, looking back at it, unless I outperformed everyone and had the raw talent of a future Division I or Division II college athlete, I wasn’t going anywhere. None of us there had that kind of skill-set or raw ability. It came down to whose parents had connections and/or provided generous amounts of money for boosters.

But you know which school doesn’t play favorites even if their dads own the region’s largest defense contracting company? Arcane Elemental Academy. Yote Diamondback is the new girl, but she’s one hell of a box thrashball player – a sport that’s kind of like a hybrid between hockey, lacrosse, and indoor soccer.

Yote’s so good that she catches the coach’s eye quickly at Arcane. But it’s not the only thing Yote’s got a knack for. Find out what else she’s capable of in the first three chapters of Book I, The Arcane Prophecy, a young adult academy fantasy that carries Harry Potter vibes.