Touchdown (2015)

It was a bright and sunny morning as the local junior league football teams got out onto the field. The grass was as green as the leaves on the trees and as luscious and soft as a pillow. Today was the opening game of the season for these teams and they were all looking forward to getting a chance to win game, win trophies and make it to the playoffs and eventually win the championship. There were hundreds of young kids out of the fields warming up, but one in particular, who was not.Billy Smith, who with his short blonde hair, crazy green eyes and freckled face, was sitting off under a tree off to the side of the fields. Billy had been a soccer player his entire life, and thus had very little grasp, if not interest in the playing of football. Sadly, since moving to this part of the country, there were no major soccer leagues for him to play in, and he was forced to either play football, baseball (which he doubly hated) or do nothing, and he couldn’t just do nothing when he loved sports so much.

             His parents had always been so supportive of all of Billy’s sports endeavours, and really loved coming out to the games to watch Billy play. They had already bought him all of the proper equipment and paid the fees for him to play at least one season, so he had to play, and he figured he might as well at least give it a try.

            Billy got up from where he was sitting and joined his team on the field for the practise. His team was called the Bears. The Bears had always been a losing team, the same player kept coming back, year after year, and they still kept missing the playoffs by a small margin every single time. He hoped that this year, they could be a successful team. The coach of the team was a grizzled, older man who was always apparently known for working his team hard, and harder when they lost games.

            Today, was the first game of the season for the Bears. They were playing against their rivals the Flames. The Flames were often playoff contenders, and were known for several years, going deep into the playoffs, due to their amazing passing game, blitz plays and running game. The first few quarters of play went just as they knew where going to happen, the Flames got out to an early 7-0 lead on the first drive of the game, and by half they were already up 35-7. The Bears were getting blown out.

            Billy was a wide receiver, meaning that it was up to Billy to catch the balls thrown at him by the Quarter Back (QB). Billy, having played soccer all of his life, had no ability to catch the ball whatsoever and kept dropping the ball when it was thrown to him in the first half, so much so, that the QB never threw to him again in that game.

            It was basically that way for Billy all of the season, even though his team won a fair amount of their games, he could still not catch a ball. His team won 7 out of their 15 games played, and with a 7-8 record, they were one win away from possibly making the playoffs, or one loss away from being knocked out of the running again.

            Well, just like in the first game of the season, they were playing the Flames, and the Flames had been having a disappointing season. They were also 7-8 and if they won, they would go to the playoffs, and if the Bears beat them, they knocked their rivals out of playoff contention.

            This being the last game of the season, this made Billy more determined than ever to complete the goal he set for himself after the first game…catch one pass. Just one pass would elevate his morale and would also make the team believe in him so much more than they already have been. Due to his lack of skills he was benched in a couple of the games this season, and the coach debated benching him for this one, but he didn’t, he let Billy play.

            The first quarter started easy enough, with both teams tying 7-7 and grabbing a touchdown a piece. The second quarter saw two of the major Wide Receivers for the Bears taken out of the game, and two guys (allegedly worse than Billy) brought into the game. The score was 21-7 for the Flames at the half. By the end of the third quarter, they had tied it up at 21-21.

            The 4^th quarter began with an easy field goal for the Flames and they were now leading 24-21. They then went back and forth on two consecutive drives each (not getting a touchdown) and all this time never throwing to Billy. There was now 00:30 on the clock and the Bears had the ball on the opponent 21 yard line, almost in their red zone. This was almost a desperation play for the QB, knowing that his team was about to possibly have another losing season, he decided right then and there, he was going to try…to throw to Billy. The QB hutted the ball back in the shotgun, and waited for Billy to get open, he dodged one tackle and when he saw an opening, he launched the ball into the end zone right at Billy.   

            It was as if time itself, slowed down. You could hear the whooshing of the ball through the air as it travelled. The ball was in a perfect spiral, it could not have been thrown any better than that. As it neared Billy, his determination grew, he pushed aside the defender and dove towards the ball, and instead of it just hitting off of him…he caught it!

            TOUCHDOWN BEARS! Screamed the announcer. As Billy lay on the ground, not wanting to get up for fear that he had failed, even though he was not sure he hear the announcer correctly. Billy eventually got up slowly to see his entire team looking at him from down and coming to run at him and dog pile him to the ground. He had done it! He had won the game for his team! It was the most amazing feeling of elation he had ever felt in his entire life!

            From that moment on, Billy sought to make football his sport of choice. His team went ot the playoffs and won the championship that year. Then when Billy came back the next year, he practised just as hard if not harder than the other guys, to make himself better and make more catches. Billy would go on to play the game of football well into his adult life. 

            The moral of this story? Don’t judge a book by its cover, and if you don’t like something, don’t jip it until you try it, the best way to live life, is to only have opinions on things you either understand completely, or have tried, not ignorance.