The sweat dripping from my face as the heat bellowed from the ever cooling sun. Coaches scream was as loud as a megaphone that was blaring right near your ear. Wanting to rip your ears off to finally get some peace and quiet.
The Wisconsin Badgers stormed the field with vicious speed, looking to annihilate our team as if we were a happy meal from Mcdonalds through the sixty minutes of play time. This team has been known for their viciousness due to their powerful defense and running game.
I would know because during our bye week, I went back home to Appleton, Wisconsin to spend time with my family and watch them play a game against the Iowa Hawkeyes. During this game I began to think to myself, what am I going to do? As Ryan Boyle got sacked and led off the field and then rushed into the dreadful locker rooms.
As coach screamed “Let's go and get them” we bolted onto the field like a bunch of wild stallions that were just let out of confinement and were led back into the wild just where god had intended them to be. I led the team out onto the field with such speed they couldn’t keep up with me. The crowd kept on chanting Cyclones, Cyclones as if they were hypnotized to say it over and over again.
While running on the field I thought to myself about how I prepared for this David vs. Goliath situation. I thought, am I ready? Are we prepared? Then I looked up into the stand and could see everyone that truly meant so much for me. Right in line, with the fifty yard line, I could see my Mom, Dad, brother Jim, and my cousin Al who had flown in from North Carolina just to witness this monstrosity of a game.
I looked up with fear in my eyes, almost as if I had just seen a ghost I looked up and right in between the two goal posts was what I thought was my long lost best friend from highschool who I hadn’t seen since we had graduated over two years ago. Her red hot fire hair flowing in the wind as she pulls it away from her face to look straight at me.
Her name is Caitlyn Klenowski. She had been one of my main supporters since we had first met back in the third grade. She had dropped her coat on the floor and I picked it up and helped her put it on because it was snowing outside. She was there for me ever since we met, from the time when my dad lost his job, to when my grandparents died in a plane crash two years ago due to engine failures, at least that's all they told me. Caitlyn has always been the one to make me feel better and trust in myself and everything that I do in my life.
When we got to the bench, the coach was already waiting there for us. He then began screaming like a drill sergeant, screaming at someone new that had just come into the training camp. I had almost felt the urge to scream back to him “Yes drill sergeant”.
It was the Badgers ball first. We kicked it and the ball went almost straight up as if it was a rocket trying to reach the ends of the universe but failing to gain anymore altitude and barreling down towards the earth and into the other teams hand. After they caught it, it took us thirty yards and six men to finally take him down.
It only took them two plays to get the rest of the way down the field. Somehow they got past our defense and got a touchdown and a two point conversion which had only felt like a few seconds went by when two full minutes of the game had come and gone.
Finally, after a ten yard gain on the return we got the ball back and began to start moving it down the field. Then out of nowhere, they took the ball back with an interception on the third thrown on the drive and barreled their way into the endzone with no problem.
The rest of the first half was back and forth back and forth, as if it was a game of tennis or table tennis and we just couldn’t get ahead no matter which team had the ball, we just couldn’t get it down the field like we used to.
When it was half time, we all went into the locker rooms as the score was Badgers 14, Iowa State 0. As I walked in, I thought that I had caught a glimpse of Caitlyn. She seemed to trying to tell me something that was really important. But I just couldn’t make out what she was saying.
The coach came into the locker room and said “What is going on out there? You should be winning; this team has two of its star players gone that carry the entire team, that doesn’t mean that we can’t play like we usually do without them, we can still play as good or better without them.”.
We all looked up at him and said “We’re trying coach, what you want us to do?’
He told all of us “All I ask of you boys is to try your best and not to rely on what everyone else is doing, I want you to think as if you are the only player out there trying to defeat this team and that you would try your best to make both of us proud to wear these colors..”
We all went back on the field with a new frame of mind. We all wanted it so bad that we put one-hundred percent into winning the game. The first drive of the game we returned the ball and were able to head all the way down the field without them even getting near us. We got a touchdown and the two point conversion right out of the hole. Then they fired back and headed all the way down the field to get within field goal range and they made it into the uprights, right by where Caitlyn had been sitting. We then had the ball and there was only two minutes left in the third quarter as we fired back and got a touchdown but had missed the extra point. Now it was a close game. Badgers 17, Iowa State 14.
It came down to the final seconds of the entire game as we had gotten the ball back after a turnover at the Badgers thirty yard line.  I ran towards coach and asked “what play I should do?”
“It’s all up to you now” as he looked into my eyes as if someone had died.

Feeling confused and determined, I ran back onto the field and confronted my team. I told them exactly what we were going to do. It was a pitch to the right followed by a lateral and a “Hail Mary” down the field.
Most of them questioned what I was doing but all I said in a soothing voice was “Trust me.” We lined up and got ready for the charge.
I looked up into the stands where Caitlin was sitting and saw her and she was mouthing to me what I thought was “You are going to be alright, I believe in you.” Now it’s time. “Hike”, I screamed as they all ran to where they needed to be as I pitched it to the right, then they tossed it back as no one was on me. Almost like a movie, I got a running start and bombed it as far as I could throw. The clock started counting down from fifteen seconds. The ball was at the twenty yard line as I questioned what I was doing. The last seconds of the ball being in the air felt like a lifetime. I was so nervous I had almost screamed come on, go faster, I want it to be over. Then, out of nowhere, my team broke through the pile in the endzone and somehow caught it as they landed in the endzone.
“We won” screamed the coach as he ran onto the field, along with everyone else from Iowa except Cailyn who stayed up in her original seat just staring at me and mouthed. “Good Job, you did it.”                                                                                                                                                          
I looked at her and screamed “I did it all for you”.