Courage

When I think about when I had courage not a lot comes to mind, except football. I didn’t play football in grade 11 or 12 because of an injury I got and because one of the coaches on the team made it unenjoyable for me. I had courage in football because I played a lot of games with a lot of injuries. For example I played a whole season with a broken hand and played a lot of games with bruised ribs and with sprained ankles. I only sat out of games because of my mom caring about my health; if it was up to me I’d play every game.

When I first started football I was scared of contact, too scared to hit anyone because I didn’t like hurting people and I didn’t want to get hurt myself, but after about a week of being there it started to become fun and a passion of mine.  I started to enjoy contact more and more; it was a way for me to get my anger out by hitting people - who wouldn’t enjoy that? As I got older and played longer the game starting to mean a lot more to me, when I got to my finale season of bantam (grade 9 year) I got a whole bunch and of guys to join. I had a ton of friends and a ton of great players but that was the year we got new coaches. The head coach would come once and a while but he was pretty busy, so another guy took over for him. This guy was mean, rude and no one on the team really liked him. 

I liked playing; it was fun to wake up every Saturday and know I was going to go play a game that day, plus I was one of the oldest and the strongest so that made it a lot more fun. I remember I was even named one of the captains for the team and I looked at it as a sign that I needed to step up, and show the guys that I was going to give them my all, but in the first game of the season that’s when I bruised my ribs and it was just uncomfortable to play. I remember my mom asking the actual head coach to get me a rib protector because my mom didn’t want me in pain anymore. One day in practice I don’t know what the coaches were trying to do, but they were making fun of me for wearing it. They were telling me I had a nice bra and telling my mom she was babying her son too much and that’s what got me going. I then started to play to show the coaches that I was meant to be a starter on that team and that I wasn’t going to let an injury hold me back and not play. So that season I maybe sat out two games because of my rib injury and whenever I would get hurt I'd just put it in the back of my mind.

Now that I think of that it is the stupidest thing ever! I basically just made myself more sore and in more pain because I didn’t sit out and wait until I got healthy again. That is the only time I can think I had courage because at first I was scared to get hurt then I was starting to play with injuries. 

By Daniel Coatney