Go Stallions!!

My little baby boy turned eight this year, he is in 3rd grade and with that comes new and exciting boy stuff! Last year he kept telling us he wanted to play football. After soccer when he was three, watching him run around the field with the cone on his head and growling at the boys that came near his little girlfriend Ashlyn...and then t ball where he spent more time picking the grass or throwing balls at the coach when he wasn't looking...we really didn't know that football was going to turn out to be such a good idea. But he really really really wanted to play. So after a week long camp and learning about helmets, pad, mouth gaurds and other kind of guards...we were thrown into the world of pee wee football. Our school had never had a pee wee football team before so this was the first year for our boys. On top of that, our school is fairly new so most of our kids haven't had the oppurtunity to really bond and get to know eachother. And on top of that...most of our boys were third grades. All of this compared to other schools that have been playing in this league for years with kids that have know eachother since they were in preschool and were mostly fourth graders. This didn't seem like the greatest thing for our team. And with the first couple of practices, I thought for sure we were in trouble. One of the greatest moments was when the team went to run through the paper banner we had made for them, and they hit the banner...tripped and then all fell down on top of eachother in a big pile of boys in pads that struggled to get up. It was one of those great images straight from that movie Little Giants with all the whimpy boys who cried when they got touched. Our poor coach! Which by the way is a coach that comes from one of these teams that wins the championship ever year. I'm sure he was wondering what he had gotten himself into as well! But thanks to this amazing coach these boys became strong little fighters with some great determination. I don't know how this coach did it but our team fought hard and played some tough games. Going into the playoff's, our team ranked high enough in 5th place that we were advanced right to the 2nd round of playoff's. At our playoff game we ended up losing to the team we had beat in our last regular game but in the end our boys felt like champions anyway. Watching Taylor play football has been so much fun but even greater has been watching him grow in his abilities. When we first started he struggled to get his gear on and off, complete a pushup and would rather curl up on the ground to avoid getting hit. In the end, he was so proud of himself for finally being able to pull that helmet off of his head, compete against others while doing pushups and worked hard to get through that line and tackle!

Tonight we had our banquet and the coach had this to say about Taylor:
"This kid reminded me that I am still learning and what I learned is that in the end this is a game and no matter what, we need to have fun. Taylor always has a smile on his face even when he is out there making tackles"

It's been great as parents to watch this team grow and work together. Our team compared to other's was out there running plays none of the other's team would even attempt. Come next year when we're a little bit bigger and stronger-those teams will need to watch out because the Stallions will be coming!!