Football Teaches you how to be a man
...had the ball. I saw a yellow blur out of the corner of my eye. I’m still not sure, but I think it was one of their linemen who dove at me. Regardless of whom it was, his battered helmet crushed into my shoulder like a school bus hitting a brick wall. The pop I heard still sends chills down my spine. I didn’t cry when my grandfather died, I didn’t cry when I broke up with my first true love, but I had tears rolling down my face like a child who just had his only toy stolen from him. I knew that much like that child, this crushing blow had taken the rest of my senior year from me. I lay on the field in anguish. My coach was the first one at my side, yelling, “Gamer, what’s wrong? Where does it hurt?” I replied, “What happened? I think it’s broken.” As I lay there, a trainer at my feet shouted, “Stay down! Don’t move!” I laid there in pain and fear not knowing what happened or what would happen. As I sat up and someone pulled my helmet off, I could feel black eye paint and tears running down my face. I walked off the field, as I heard the only cheers no player ever wants to hear-- the ones politely directed at someone who is hurt. On the sideline, the trainer and doctor sat me in a golf cart and drove me up to the locker room. On the way up I heard my parents names being called on the loudspeaker although it was pointless because my father would be in the locker room before I even got up there. Once in the locker room the trainers started to remove my pads and I heard the door slam open. “Stush, where are you?” my dad said as he went walking past the office that had been turned into a mini emergency room. One of the trainers must have gotten him, and before I even had my pads off, he was standing there. “What did you do, Stush?” my dad asked. Before I could say anything, a trainer replied, “It looks like he has a torn rotator cuff, possibly a separated shoulder. We won’t know until we schedule a MRI.” About that time, South Park’s team doctor picked up my arm and pushed it up. I remember hearing a loud pop and I began to scream profanity. While I was on a tangent the doctor was moving my arm. “No, I don’t think he tore anything, but I’m pretty sure it separated,” he said. I heard the PA announcer yell “touchdown” and knew that we were down 21-14. Conversation between my father and an EMT outside caught my attention for the moment as I felt no pain, not because it didn’t hurt, but because I knew that my team needed me on the field not in a hospital. What further separated me from the pain was clearly hearing the EMT say, “We don’t advise he continues to play football this evening. We would like to take him to the hospital.” And our team trainer saying, “Mr. Patula, I want to make sure we have all the correct medical information on your son.” By this time I heard some of my teammates steal spikes clattering into the locker room. “I think I can play the second half,” I insisted. “We don’t think that’s advisable right now, Joe,” said the doctor. “But I heard the guy in the hall tell my father it wasn’t a good idea. That doesn’t mean I’m out,” I said, angrily. My coach walked in and I saw him talk to a trainer. “Coach, you know me. I’m tough. I can play,” I said. I was saying whatever I could think of at this point, trying to get someone on my side. Hearing the commotion, my father walked into the room. “Stush, what’s going on?” my dad asked. “I want to play. I know I can play one more half!” My sentences began to turn into therapeutic pleas for someone to let me back into the game. “Gamer, we all know you’re tough. You don’t have to prove it to any of us,” my coach said. My father and my coach went outside into the hall and the door shut. I felt like I was in a cage; no one was with me. It was ...