The mud smothering my jersey. My elbows are crimson with clotting blood, and I know there’s only more pain ahead of me. I hear the snap of the ball, and then it’s the uproar of bodies hitting one another. As I push off the corner back, I run inwards on a slant route. The a linebacker barrels into me, and I fall to the earth, my bones rattling with the impact. Along with the dreadful sound a receiver never wants to hear, the ball smacking the muddy ground.
To the left of me, I can hear our receiver being taken down, hammered to the ground again. I struggle to rise, but I do. I glance at the scoreboard, and remind myself that this isn’t just a loss. It’s an historic loss, and I feel every yard in my aching body.
We never had a chance against them. While our team isn’t bad, the opposing team is among the best in my state, and most people who speculate on those things believe they will be win every time when they play against us. We were nothing more than a bump in the road for them. A very painful bump in the road, as my punished body can attest.
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We didn’t go in thinking we were going to lose. We never prepared to get trampled. Coach had a game plan: we were to protect the receiver at all cost and use a passing offense. Their defensive line, known for its speed, would not be able to keep up. All we needed was for our offensive line to dig in and delay them. It was a good idea in theory, but theory is not the gridiron.
Their defensive line plowed through our line like they were made of tissue paper. My role in the plan was an utter failure. No matter what I did, what reserves of strength I tried to draw upon, they weren’t enough. I was not big enough. I was not fast enough. I was not good enough. In short, I failed as a receiver, and our team suffered for it. For an entire game, I was flattened over and over again by players that were larger, stronger, faster, and better than I was.
After the game, I had never felt worse. It wasn’t just the physical aspects, though my aches, pains, and cuts exacerbated my feelings. It was the mental game with the sense of failure, personal failure. Had I caught the ball as I was supposed to, we would have won. There was no way around it.
Coach said something afterwards that completely changed my mindset. He told me he was proud of the way we had played. We were knocked down, he said, but we never stayed down. There’s no shame in failure. There’s only shame in never trying.
