Day: September 24, 2017

Following week one of youth football two things are clear. To begin, I need to find a lot more balance in my life.

I woke up at 3 in the morning on a Saturday to get ready for youth football. I wasn’t excited–I was overwhelmed. I was worried about all of the little things I needed to get right and ready in preparation for the game and I missed a few things still. As a result of all this I spent the day strung out–a condition that worsened as we went from a loss to a second game blowout (proof that good players and coaching yield success) to a 3rd game loss (proof that size matters and we need to learn how to compensate for what we do not have). I was strung out and sad and missing my partner. What sucked even more is that instead of calling her when I had a moment, I texted and missed a really valuable opportunity to connect.

I have to learn to pick my spots. I have to learn to step away and do what matters. This is a very tough lesson because it blows contradictory to the winds of what everyone around me in these situations is demanding. I need to fight harder against the gale and hold on dearly to what matters most.

In game terms I probably needed another week of game prep personally. In addition I need to create more opportunities to get the ball to receivers in space and build those opportunities around a lot of this very useful misdirection. I wasted my 4 backs in the I formation, meaning week 2 needs to see me moving the ball around in a lot of screens and quick passes which will eventually lead to some shots downfield once my QB is ready to do so. Here’s the new plan for me: compartmentalization. I shied away from that, mostly because it felt like such things were fueling relationship problems. I need to recognize that while this is real it is more how I carry it out that causes problems.

I woke up at three in the morning–the witching hour for many–and found myself applying helmet decals and trying to be ready for a week one game I was absolutely not ready for. By not ready I mean I didn’t have any real sense of who my opponent was (true again next week) and who my team was going to be. I have a better sense of the latter now, because we lost a game that should’ve been a straight up blowout.

We played like we were scared and didn’t know what we were doing and in the later minutes forgot how to act. The game was 7-6 going into the 4th and we lost 21 six on three big plays. It wasn’t like we couldn’t win. We could. Even down our star RB we could’ve won. I think we should have.

I think I worked too hard and not at all hard enough. In other words I worked on the wrong stuff and now that I know what needs to be done, I can do that as well. It is a lot to explain and frankly another post entirely. For now…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I continue to believe the universe is putting me in situations just to see what I’ll do. In layman’s terms, the universe is fucking with me.