What I didn't tell the kids I spoke to at football camp

Photo credit: Kathy Rypinski

Last month, I had the privilege of briefly addressing a group of young boys getting ready to participate in the Wickliffe Football Camp.

When I say "briefly addressing," I mean it. This was a collection of nearly 40 kids from kindergarten through 6th grade who just wanted to run around, learn a thing or two about football, and generally have fun. They couldn't have been especially interested in what some middle-aged guy who hadn't played the sport in nearly four decades had to say.

So I kept my remarks very brief, as you might imagine.

I talked about my own experiences playing in Wickliffe. I talked about the city's great football tradition. I talked about my role as an announcer for Blue Devil football games and how I couldn't wait to announce their names on Friday nights in just a few years.

That kind of thing.

I was looking to motivate them a little and get them even more excited for what they would be doing at camp.

What I didn't want to tell them was that they had chosen a fiercely difficult sport...one that could be frustrating and even dangerous at times.

I didn't tell them how, in the middle of my sophomore season, seeing no clear path to ever becoming a starter at the varsity level, I wanted to quit football.

I didn't tell them how my forearms, every year from August through October, were bruised various shades of purple and yellow from all of the blocking and hitting we did in practices and games.

I didn't tell them there were times I got hit so hard I saw stars.

Or about the practice when I took a handoff, got tackled low by one of my teammates, and found both knees swollen and full of fluid just an hour later.

I didn't mention the fact that I opted not to lift weights in the offseason as so many guys did, and that this hurt my chances of getting more playing time (though I always thought this was fair...it was my decision, and there were rightful consequences for it).

I didn't bring up the time in a junior varsity game when I got speared in the groin and went down in intense pain, having to reveal to my coach that I stupidly wasn't wearing a cup because I thought it slowed me down.

I didn't talk about the sweat and pain of endless summer double session practices.

Yet maybe I should have brought up some or all of that. Because collectively, those experiences made playing football one of the best decisions of my life. I learned all of the cliched lessons about toughness, determination, persistence, teamwork, etc.

They were probably too young to realize how anything worth doing is probably going to come with some discomfort, and how there would be times they would question their decision to engage in it in the first place.

That will all come later. For now, they just needed to know that running, catching and throwing a football around is a heck of a lot of fun.

They'll learn the deeper lessons in time.