Romelo PerryLiteracy Narrative FinalUWRT 1101Robert Arnold

I turned and looked to the stands where my mom was sitting and saw her cover her eyes in a panic and when I turned forward, all I saw was 3 kids from the opposing team running towards me as fast as they could and in shock, I did not move. When you catch the ball or recover the ball while on defense youre supposed to run towards the end zone, son. My rookie team coach explained to me as I went over to the sideline, not knowing what at all I had just done and why everyone was so happy. Now get back out there and help our offense score a touchdown, and I took to the field in excitement knowing that I had done something good and helped my team drive the ball to the end zone to score a touchdown with little time remaining in the game. I did not know whether we won or lost, because the rookie league didnt keep score. I just remember that play out of all the plays I would make in my 8 years of playing football because it was the very first big play I had ever made. When I went home that afternoon inside I felt kind of embarrassed that almost every player on my team, knew that I was supposed to run when I caught that ball and I did not. So as my family and I walked into the house, I turned the living room TV to a college football game that was about to start and I sat there for the rest of the day watching every game that I could, trying to learn the actual rules and regulations of a game I was starting to play. I thought that maybe watching college football, would help me understand the game better, and it did, but I wanted to learn everything about the game. The following day I was in the living room all day long waiting for the NFL games to begin and I watched them all day, as well. As I got older and more experienced with football I figured out there was more to the game then just hitting the person in front of you, which a lot of people that watch the game think that, that is all football is and its really not. You have to create a hole for the running back to run through, so you have to not only hit the guy in front of you, you have to turn and push him in a way of making the hole for the running back as large as possible. If you are really good you can just push the guy in front of you onto the ground every time and land on top of him and he wont make the play, something lineman call a pancake and getting pancakes are really exciting. If your team was passing the ball you were going to have to block the guy in front of you or maybe he wouldnt be in front of you and came up on a blitz, which is when the linebacker or even defensive back would run up to the line of scrimmage and rush to try and get past you to hit the quarterback. Lineman arent allowed to go out for a pass on a pass play as this would be too many receivers down field and cost your team yards. You could though, have eligible lineman that could go down field for a pass and you would have to tell the referee before the game that he was going to be an eligible receiver. Tight Ends, the position I played, are at the very end of a 7-man front and they were allowed to go out for passes and block which I thought we were very important to the offense because we could do both, but every position is important on the team. By the time I was in 6th grade, I had learned every job for each different position on the offensive and defensive line. I had the most knowledge and experience on my recreational team in 6th and 7th grade and since our team ran the same plays as the middle school and high school, just less advanced, it was really easy to adapt to the style when I got the chance to play in the future. In 7th grade, my last year of playing with my recreational football team, we made it into the playoffs without losing a single game in the regular season and we knew we would be a hard team to beat. I think my favorite thing about the playoffs is that one of the players and one of my now best friends on the team rented an RV for our away games and all the players would pile in the RV and ride to the games together. We beat the first 3 teams in the playoffs, without a problem and then our quarterback got hurt riding his skateboard during the week right before our last playoff game and it was going to be at home. My coach knew that I knew every position, every play, every players job at each position and I was one of the bigger kids on the team, so he put me at quarterback in practice that Thursday, 2 days before the game and I perfected the position before that 2-hour practice was over. I probably had to learn the steps to give the running back the ball for at least 45 minutes, because you have to take certain steps so that way you dont get into the running backs way when he goes to the place where he is supposed to run the ball. When the game came Saturday, the quarterback that played before he got hurt came to me and said, You got this and even if we do lose, you were one of the best players Ive ever played with. And I went on to the field and did all that I could to help my team win and we got into the fourth quarter down a score and of course Cinderella story, won the game with like 40 seconds to go and the other team almost scored back, but they did not, so we got state trophy medals, which I still have mine somewhere. I dont think I will ever forget how cold that day was and how muddy my white jersey got. I cried from excitement and hugged all of my teammates and a lot of them went to the same middle school as me and played with me there in 8th grade.My high school offensive line coach worked with me on the plays that they ran while I played on the recreation team my 7th grade year. He mostly worked with me because he knew I had a lot of potential to be one of the best lineman we were going to have while I was there. Anything that I ever needed, he would do his best to give to me, anything I needed to know or didnt understand, he would try to explain to me and he was basically like a father to me and I still talk to him like everyday to this day. He played football in college as a lineman and he didnt go to the NFL, but he came back to the school he graduated from and coached me and the other lineman. He taught Civics and Economics to me my senior year and during class he would always tell a story that me and him had to the students or just make fun of my voice, because I have a really high pitch voice for a teenage boy, but I love him and I will never forget all he has done for me. I will never forget something he said to me while we were having an afternoon session one day, he said, Romelo, no matter what happens, if you get hurt, if we suck, if you dont like anyone on the team, you have to set the example for all the guys in and out of school. You cant be like everyone else, and you cant let other people bring you down. We are going to need you to be the voice and leader of our team while you are here and you will have a huge impact every season you are here. I played for our middle school team my 8th grade year and was already put into a leadership role, with being named the lineman captain. We didnt get playbooks and were just taught our plays in practice that we had and a lot of the guys didnt know the rules and what different fronts meant or how to block them, so with the knowledge I gathered from my sessions with the high school offensive line coach, I offered help to the guys on my team after practice. I just drew up different fronts for our offensive line to see with the basic xs and os and considering which play we were running how each one of us would block it up. Some of the guys were amazed that I knew so much and at their position and I just preached to them that once you learn even and odd that it will become way easier to understand and all of them would be able to play each separate positon on the line. At the time, they didnt know what even and odd meant because it was how the offensive line in high school split the defense and knew who to double team and who not to double team, also depending on how well the player was. Recreational and Middle school football was a much slower paced game then it was when I got into playing high school football. I played one year on the Junior Varsity team at my high school and I think they kept me on JV that year so I can adjust to how different high school football was then anything I had ever played before and it was.I wasnt the best player, I wasnt even the best lineman when I was there, I wasnt the biggest, strongest, or fastest, but how much I knew and how hard I worked made me stand out more than a lot of the other guys on my team that were more talented and athletic than I was. We were issued playbooks and every play in the playbook we went over in practice and if you didnt exactly understand the rules and your job on the play, the playbook explained it to you by your position. After a week of having the playbook I learned every positions job on each play in the playbook and when we would run a play in practice and someone wouldnt know what to do, I could tell them before anyone else and it was a lot of what my coach meant when he said I had to be a leader and take control. Sophomore year I was lucky and got moved up to play with the Varsity team, I wont lie and truthfully say that I did not play rarely any minutes, unless we were just killing a team and our coach put everyone in. But that year I think I learned the most of any year, because I was able to see how fast Varsity High School football was and how serious it was. I dont think there is any other feeling of nervousness than running out on a Friday night under the lights, it is absolutely my favorite feeling and senior year at every home game I was the first one to run out and the ovation of the crowd was so amazing. I was a starter at tight end my junior and varsity year and we made it to the second round of the playoffs both years and we lost to the same team. My junior year I am convinced that we had a better team than we did my senior year, but in my senior year we won the Conference Championship for the first time in over 20 years and being apart of that group with a lot of the guys I won the state championship with was so special to me. Walking under the bleachers waiting for the smoke to shoot up at me and hearing our fans chant and 300 violin orchestra play for the last time was one of the most depressing feelings I had ever felt before in my life and playing in my last high school football game and losing broke my heart and all I remember was running over to my coach and crying my eyes out right on the sideline in front of everyone with no care in the world on who saw me. And now I want to be a football coach just like the one that I had, so I can impact peoples life, just like mine did with me, and I still have to stay literate in the sport and continue learning the different changes that are made.