I’ve faced lots of different challenges in my life but, one that has bothered me the most is what i know as The Game. A game that was more than just a game. A game that meant everything in the world to me. I always think in my head what can i get better at or, what can i do to get better. To really understand it though I’ve gotta take you back a little bit.

The alarm clock goes off It was 6:00 in the morning and i had football at 6:30. I hurried and jumped out of bed, excited for the first day of varsity football. I grabbed my cleats, running shoes, and gloves and hustled out the door. I got to the field at 6:20 there was about five other boys there. Everyone usually showed up around 6:25 looking tired and out of energy. We started out with all off taking a lap around the field and started our stretches. By the time stretches were done we were all mostly awake and ready to get to work. They split us up into two groups and half of us went into the weight room and the other half stayed outside. The weight room wasn’t too bad but, once you got outside though it went down hill real fast. On the field our coaches worked us pretty hard and most of the time by the end of practice we were more exhausted than when we showed up. We had these practices everyday for about five weeks.

At the end of these five weeks we were all in the best shape we had been in all year. We finally got to throw on the pads and start hitting. Hitting is my favorite part of football because the offence is always talking trash but once we put on the pads it was all defence from there on. Every year our team goes down to CEU (which is a college down in southern utah) for about 4 days. Going into this camp we weren’t really very close as a team which wasn’t good. I will never forget though the last day of the camp was when we usually scrimmage as a whole team. In the middle of the scrimmage my friend Michael tackled Kobe and was talking trash to him. Kobe got up, punched him, and shoved him. I ran over and grabbed michael as he was about to go at kobe. Instead of us all playing dirty and talking trash the whole rest of the time we ended up having one of the best practices of the whole year and it really brought our team together. As we huddled up after the scrimmage just looking around you could feel the amount of work that had been put into this offseason and this team.

Friday, August 17, 2018. The time had finally come for us to play our first game. As we we stepped onto our home field i felt a nervous feeling come over me. This was going to be my first varsity start and, i was starting over four upperclassmen which put lots of pressure on me to play good. I was out on the field for the opening kickoff. Right when they kicked it my heart dropped because of nervousness. Before I knew it the play was over and I jogged of the field. I remember making a couple of tackles but besides that the only thing i remember is walking off the field with our first win of the season. The final score being 24-14  which was really good considering everyone predicted us to lose that game.

The next couple of weeks flew by we lost the next week to skyridge which woke us up a little bit and challenged us to play good the next week. Week three we were faced up against Liberty which had the best Quarterback in the state of Las Vegas. We were predicted to lose by at least three touchdowns. We ended up beating them 21-10 out scoring them by two touchdowns. Before we knew it we were in region play faced up against our rivals American Fork. This was one of the biggest games of the season because they were one of the top 4 teams in the state. This was our worst game of the season. We lost by 30 points which put a lot of fear in our team. After the game me and a couple other teammates talked to the team and really pushed the team to get that game out of our heads and focus on the next. We had to stop playing selfishly and start playing as a team. The next week we were up against the best team in the state which was Bingham. They went undefeated state champs the year before and weren’t planning on losing and games this year either. Our defence started out doing good only letting them score one in the first half and our offense had one field goal. It was a 7-3 game going into halftime us being the ones down. We came out the second half with the same kind of defense holding them to only one score the second half. Our offense finally came through and scored a touchdown and a field goal putting us up. We had finally beat Bingham which haven’t been done in the regular season since 2012. The rest of the regular season was pretty easy which guided us into the playoffs.

We built up our confidence in the playoffs beating West Jordan, Davis and PG pretty easily. Our starting d-fence has been immovable not getting scored on the whole way thru the playoffs leading up to the championship. We had made it to the championship which was held at the University of Utah’s stadium. This had been a dream of mine ever since i was a little kid. I watched all of my brothers play on this in the semis and championships. We were up against The American fork caveman once again this team was the the only team in between us and our end goal. Also they were our rivals who had beat the crap out of us in the regular season. Leading up to this game lots of people asked me “you think you guys have a chance against af?” Everyone was against us even friends of my who said “they’re just too good.” Leading up to this game i probably watched twenty hours of film on their offence so, that i could know exactly what they were going to do when it came game time. Our practice that week was all business it was like we were going to war. We either win or, not come home at all.

Friday, November 16, 2018 It was gameday. We arrived at the stadium and unloaded the busses. Walking into that stadium was like waiting in line for your favorite roller coaster super excited but super nervous at the same time. It was time to take the field and our coach huddled us up to talk to us one last time before the game. He said something like this  “Boys we’ve been working together for the last seven months. We’ve sweat together, we’ve bleed together, and we’ve cried together. We have come to far TOGETHER to lose today. Let’s go out there and show everybody the work we’ve put in TOGETHER!” The locker room erupted and looking around as we walked out of that tunnel i knew that everyone on this team was gonna give everything they got. When we ran out on the field it was like nothing i had ever experienced before. The stadium was louder that i had ever hear it and, the energy was electric. American fork kicked the ball off and our offence went out and got stopped. It was now time to show everyone was our defence was all about. We stopped them on three consecutive drives and, we were having a blast while doing it. They finally scored on us right before the second quarter which put us in a tie with our offence not doing too hot. Our defence came out the second quarter and held them from scoring till right before the half. Our offence ended up scoring which put us up 16-10. However, American fork came out and scored putting them up by one point. Then the turning point happened when my best friend Nate Ritchie took a kick return back to the house and we took the lead. From then on we were just trying to run away with the game it seemed like American fork was always one step right behind us. As the clock ran down to zero i was in disbelief of what just happened. We were the second team ever to win a football state championship in school history. We all loaded onto the bus and rode home going crazy with a police escort which was probably my favorite part of that night. I started to think of football and how much time and effort i had put into it. But, I also started to think of the other things in life and how much more there is to life than just football. In the end yes this game is a big part of my life but, yet again it is just a game.