Recently Hank, the thirteen year old, told me he’d like to be a high school football coach when he grows up. Since this child rarely gets chatty with me I was honored that he’d brought the subject up and was quick to encourage him. He didn’t want to be a college coach because he’s heard it’s too stressful but high school sounded good.
He continued ‘I don’t know for sure if I want to do it, though, because I don’t know what I would say to the team if we lost.’ I told him ‘well, you could probably google ‘what to say to a team if you lose.’ See? Problem solved.’ As a side note, I’m probably way too reliant on Google’s ability to solve everything. On another side note, how good was my hair looking this day?
This kid and football…true story: a couple days ago I was puttering around the kitchen while Hank was eating cereal – not watching anything, not looking at his phone, just sitting and eating his Reese’s Puffs. All of the sudden, he raises his head, looks off into the distance, and says ‘if we just could have covered that fake punt we’d have won the game.’ The game yesterday? The game last week? No.
Y’all. Y’all! This boy was talking about the national championship game from 2013. TWO THOUSAND THIRTEEN. Like, he’s literally sitting there brooding about a game that happened five years ago! This kid.
This is the child that told me four years ago that going back to school after Christmas break felt like a ‘turnover on downs.’
Oh, he’s not the only one still obsessed with games from the past. When I told this story on Twitter all kinds of people favorited it – including Kristi Malzahn – so yeah, I’m pretty much a celebrity now. Several people commented on it, agreed with him, and were just as fired up as he still is about it.
I haven’t exactly broken the news to him that in order to be a high school coach he’ll need to be a teacher. I think he’ll be on board with it but it’ll might take some subtle encouragement. Speaking of encouragement have y’all seen this video of the high school football coach in Texas’ post game speech? Look, even if you don’t care one bit for football you should watch it. To set it up the coach isn’t going to make it – well, none of us are, but he has cancer and only has a few months left on this earth. He’s able to look back over his career at the impact he’s made with clarity and gratefulness. Click here for the link – you won’t be dissapointed.
Sent this to him yesterday – ‘Hey look, I guess this is what you say to your team when you lose.’
He responded ‘that’s so harsh, Mom.’
Yeah, kinda like that loss to FSU in the national championship game, huh.
Yeah, I’m still pretty sick about it too. That fake punt y’all. That flipping fake punt.