My Passion for Spending Time with My Friends

Ever since I was in middle school I loved playing football. In those days I had very little competition. Our team enjoyed back-to-back winning seasons and went undefeated our eighth-grade year. Upon entering high school, however, things were much different. I couldn’t rely on my size any longer; instead I had to develop skill and technique to maintain my position. I realized I was not a natural athlete, nor did I have any extraordinary talent by any means. But nonetheless I loved playing football. I vowed that by my senior year I would have the skills to consider myself a good football player. I worked hard every off-season and summer to improve my strength, speed, and technique. Despite the competition, my senior season I was rewarded for my hard work. I retained my starting position on the offensive line and was voted most improved player on the varsity offense. Being a senior on the football team was one of the best experiences of my life. Football was not only a phenomenal leadership experience but also a blast for me to participate in. It was the perfect end to a stressful day. I built extremely close, lasting relationships with my teammates and learned life lessons about loss, perseverance, determination, and sacrifice.

          Unlike many of my teammates, athleticism doesn't run in my blood; I had to improve through devotion and love of the game. And while I had plenty of other activities I enjoyed doing in high school, such as musical theater and student government, they did not help me discover anything about myself like football did. My four seasons of high school football showed me that in the end, the win-loss columns mean nothing compared to the emotional bonds forged between teammates. The seniors on that team were my closest friends and advisors. Being a senior leader taught me valuable lessons about responsibility and accountability as I helped marshal a team who looked up to me. My love for football and everything I learned from playing the sport helped me realize that it is one of my many passions in life. I lived for Friday nights; Rosacker Field became my sanctuary, my sacred space. “A sacred space manifests a spiritual vision,”¹ says Professor Jerome Bump. My experiences on Rosacker Field helped me realize what I later developed into my own personal vision: the people with whom I have gone through the most were all that was necessary for me to be happy and carefree, and I knew that dedicating myself to those relationships would better myself and those around me. Football allowed me to realize this truth about the nine other seniors on the team, but this was only the beginning; I began to see other important relationships in my life and expanded those as well. I was lucky enough for my vision to occur week after week.

          I wish that I could continue playing football past high school. Obviously, however, the University of Texas is a much more competitive program than Fort Worth Country Day School. If given the opportunity to play, I would surely take it. But even though I am not playing football anymore, I can still embrace the qualities of the sport that made me love it. More important than the physical exertion and miserable heat were camaraderie and bonding. Perhaps it was the only part of the actual activity I enjoyed, and my passion for football derived more from spending time with my best friends. I do not think that I would have enjoyed football as much as I did without my nine senior teammates. While I loved the sport, I loved my teammates more. The friendships I strengthened and the lessons I learned carried over past the end of the season. My football buddies remain my closest acquaintances and are those with whom I have kept in contact the most after leaving for school.

          I have such a special bond with my teammates because of everything we underwent together. The final game of our senior season was a heartbreaking one. Our team had the home-field advantage over our cross-town rivals, the Trinity Valley Trojans. After going down 3-7 early in the game on a trick play, our offense drove down the field with seconds to play in the fourth quarter and scored a touchdown for the tie. Our dreams of beating Trinity Valley for the first time in five years appeared to be in reach. Because of our losing record our team did not have a significant backing by our student body. We learned to play not for the fans, the cheerleaders, and the marching band, but for one another. Remarkably, we maintained a good attitude throughout and kept our passion for the game alive. Underneath our pads, our shirts displayed a Lou Holtz quote that read, "Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” That quote was one of our team mottos. When I gave everything I had out on the football field, it was for the nine other seniors - nine of my best friends. It didn’t matter that few people believed in our ability to beat Trinity Valley; we were playing for each other that night. Our ambitions were unfortunately cut short when one of our players was missing from the Point-After-Touchdown team. A sophomore had gone out earlier in the game from a sprained groin and the coach had not noticed his absence. Mike McHatton, the linebacker whom I had blocked all game, ran around the end unscathed to block the kick. As the clock expired on a 9-10 loss at home, our heads hung low. That night was one of the saddest and happiest moments of my life. While we were defeated, our seniors came together like never before in friendship. I don’t think anything brings people closer together than loss. Throughout the season we had bled and sweat together as teammates and had experienced both victory and defeat as friends; but that night we were brothers. While my best friends on the football team and our mascot squad are now scattered across the nation, our bonds remain strong. We are constantly contacting one another like we were separated by no more than a mile. The relationships I created throughout high school, and especially among my football team, were deeply rooted ones. They were the people who I could count on no matter what. They could see me cry and not judge me; they could see me being ridiculous and not be embarrassed by me. These friends were the ones I would sacrifice anything for. Because my relationships with my loved ones were my driving force to get me through the day, I knew that I had to devote myself completely to retaining them. I wanted to be the best friend that I could be to repay my close friends for their friendship, trust, and allegiance. I have always considered myself to be a good listener, but last year sincerely aimed to help my friends with whatever problems or difficulties confronted them. Another truth I discovered during this process was that I felt better about myself when I devoted myself to my loved ones. The self-sacrifices I made, staying up late to talk to someone about a predicament they were facing or helping someone with schoolwork rather than attending to my own studies, were small compared to the benefits I received from being the best friend that I could be. And while I expanded this vision beyond my football team, I will always remember that all my realizations about life and friendship originated on the football field.

          More than once I have returned to Fort Worth Country Day to watch a football game and seen a former teammate there. During the season our coach would always say his former players, including NFL quarterbacks Eli and Peyton Manning, would get together and reminisce on their high school football days. He used to tell us those four years would be the best times in our lives. At the conclusion of my senior season, I finally understood him. Everything my coach told me about making memories and developing relationships during football I did not fully understand until my last week playing the sport. But I feel that the realizations I had about my life and my relationships came about solely through the long maturation process that culminated at the end of my senior football season. Senior year was the most influential time of my life because I matured greatly and realized what was truly important to me. Just as I had matured as a football player over the last four years, becoming stronger and more mentally tough, I matured as a human being and an adult as well. However, senior year was when everything truly fell into place, and it was a very comforting feeling. The three goals I had outlined for myself to complete by graduation – finding a nice girl, getting into a fine university, and excelling on the football field – I accomplished. I discovered that when I create a plan and stick to it, the results are overwhelmingly positive, and I found that structuring my life is good for my conscience. With my goals accomplished, I could set aside time to truly experience everything that goes along with the senior year of high school, such as coaching powder-puff games, prom, and senior banquets. As I spent more time with my friends and girlfriend, I developed enough memories and took enough pictures to last a lifetime. And through this process I learned even more about myself and what truly matters to me, for as Carl Jung states, “it is through conscious activity that the person becomes an individual.”² Without participating in my high school to the fullest extent during senior year, I would not have discovered much about my self; I would not have the knowledge about what makes me truly happy that I possess today.

          All the memories I was creating with my loved ones and all the emotions I felt during football and other activities, along with a thousand other things, came together and helped form my high school experience. My high school experience in turn shaped my character and allowed me to become a mature individual. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had my head on straight and was going somewhere. I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing in my life, and I was doing it. I had so many different passions in my life – football, performance, friendship, love – that through my experiences I developed a passion for life itself. Everything I did I did with all my heart. I had more fun senior year than in all the previous years of my life combined. Those friendships I solidified during the football season became even more important to me as week after week I had the best time of my life. Whether it was throwing darts in the English pub Ye Olde Bull ‘n Bush or taking an amazing limousine ride through downtown to senior prom, the times I spent with my best friends senior year are the most lasting impressions on my life. While I truly miss the Fort Worth Country Day football field and locker room, “the whole synthesis of located experience – including what we imagine as well as the sights, stories, feelings, and concepts – gives us the sense of place.”³ The humidity, the sound of helmet-to-helmet contact, and the feel of walking across concrete in cleats contributed to the sense of place I felt for the football field. J.S. Illinois argues that “memories are part of culture and depend, on various ways, upon the physical setting.”⁴ I have the same sense of place in our school’s theater as I do the locker room. Many of my best friends were also involved in drama. Because I have so many memories and close friendships from football and the rest of high school, I have realized all the activities I enjoyed involved the people I love the most. As I grew with and further developed those separate relationships as well, I discovered even more about the importance of different relationships and activities in my life; overcoming difficulties during a musical can be very similar to dealing with obstacles on the football field.

          I know that these memories never have to end as long as I put forth the effort to make them continue, for “memory is not in any danger of diminishing.”⁵ Though it is more difficult to stay in touch with my best friends since college started, I know that they will always be there for me whenever I need them. Those friendships and the ones I make in college will continue to determine the kind of individual I am and the man I become. Joining a fraternity gives me the opportunity to become best friends with the thirty-nine other young men in my pledge class, and I have not hesitated to seize this opportunity. Already I have tight bonds with some of my pledge brothers and we are currently looking into apartments for the upcoming school year. In conclusion, I believe that as long as I am engaging in activities that I enjoy with people I love, I will make myself happy. It is not the quantity of friends I have, but the quality of the relationships I create.

Word Count: 2162
Word Count without Quotes: 2235
Word Count - Quotes: 73
Endnotes:
1. Jerome Bump in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2006), 288.
2. Carl Jung, "GHOSTS:Ancestral Voices of "the Collective Unconscious," in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2006), 168.
3. David Bower in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2006), 249.
4. J.S. Illinois, "Learning to Dwell," in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2006), 284.
5. J.S. Illinois, "Learning to Dwell," in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2006), 284.