When I was a freshman in high school, the seniors seemed like adults to me

What I must have looked like in the Fall of 1984 when I entered high school and got to rub shoulders with all of the seniors.

My high school housed grades 9 through 12, which meant that, at the beginning of every school year, you had 14-year-olds barely starting puberty sharing the building with nearly 18-year-olds who looked like they probably dropped their kids off at daycare that morning before coming to class.

When I was one of those 14-year-old freshmen (who admittedly was almost finished with puberty by that point), I idolized those seniors in the Class of 1985. To me, they looked, talked, and acted like they were adults.

Names from that class that come immediately to mind include Vince Federico, Lisa Strmac, and Kevin Horten, among many others. These were grown-ups to me, and it always made me feel that much smaller, younger, and immature.

In retrospect, this is silly. I look back now and realize these people were essentially just slightly older children. But at the time, the difference in age, experience, and demeanor seemed huge.

When I played football, there was a tradition in which, at one practice a year, the freshman team offense would go up against the varsity defense, and vice-versa. This was full-go, full-contact football, and I always assumed the intention was to allow ninth-graders the chance to experience what getting hit by a varsity player felt like.

I was on that freshmen offense, and I was a running back, which meant I was fair game for these 12th-grade adults to basically maul as they pleased. I took a handoff and ran right into Vince Federico, who I believe was a linebacker and had the ability to break full-size cars in two with his bare hands.

Vince smashed me to the ground, but then he popped up, offered his hand, pulled me to my feet and said something like, "Good job, big boy."

I will never forget that. The hit stung for a moment, but his encouraging words stayed with me.

Which makes me wish that, by the time I was a senior, I had taken the whole job of being a leader and role model more seriously.

I was captain of the track team, for instance. I worked hard and like to think I set a good example that way, but I wish I had interacted more directly with the underclassmen to help them improve. I wasn't mature enough at that point to do it, to my own loss.

There is probably a lesson in there for all of us as parents, aunts/uncles, managers, business professionals, etc. Someone is almost always looking to you to set the right tone or model correct behavior, whether you realize it or not.

Bottom line: Be Vince Federico and not me.