First Game

Football uniformWe played our first football game on Saturday. I am not sure what the final score was, but we lost. We were carrying a 18-8 score in our favor until the last play of the half. They were able to score a touchdown off of one of our cornerbacks. It was a pass into the end zone. Therefore, the first half ended with them getting the TD and a 2 point conversion to bring the score to 18-16.

As much as a numbers and stats guy as I am, I do horribly keeping score at a game when I am on the field. There is no public scoreboard and no announcements of the scores. Everyone has to keep up with the score themselves. I would not have known the half-time score had the coach not unmercifully berated us for letting them get that last score.

I have no idea what the final score was, but we lost. I think they were 2 TDs ahead of us at the end.

I did not play much. There was another safety that was there. It was the first time I had seen him, but apparently he had been practicing with the team early in the practice season before I arrived. The team had been playing together for several weeks before I knew about them and showed up. I guess the coach knew more about him and let him play instead of me. It was a bit frustrating to have been at every practice over the last three weeks just to sit the bench while someone you have never seen takes your place. I will just have to work harder in practice and impress the coach.

No one got ejected. That is always good. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Our oldest, and most beloved player, caught a pass and dragged three defenders out of bounds with him. The play was whistled dead and the three defenders kept pulling on Carlos trying to bring him down. The Refs blew the whistles a good 5 or 8 seconds while they kept hitting on Carlos. Our bench cleared out (with the exception of about 3 of us) to start a ruckus. The Ref was going to eject one of our players, but could not remember the number of the player. The funny thing was, there was no personal foul nor unsportsmanlike conduct called.

The thing to remember is that we are not professionals and we don’t have professional refs. It is all about playing and winning…not necessarily about going about it in a fair and orderly manner. Therefore, if you show up for practice for 3 weeks straight and other players don’t, they may still get to play just because they are better, not because they are dedicated. On that note, we had 24 players at the game Saturday when we only have 8-14 show up for practice.

2 thoughts on “First Game”

  1. I really did stay out of it.

    The last play of the game had me on the field in the middle of another outburst. I backed out quick. My visa depends on my ability to stay out of jail.

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