Mijo has always been a very confidant boy, Sometimes I even think his ego might be bigger than mine. After coming home from practice and being told he was on the varsity squad for football, he was pretty excited, mostly because he got the fancier helmet he had been longing for since the previous year when he was given an old helmet his freshman year. He still managed to complain because he knew he wouldn't be a starter and suddenly he started realizing he isn't the big bruiser he had thought he was.
Poor guy was given a glimpse of the real world, first off, he was not able to play peewee football because he was such a husky boy, there was a while there when we were really worried he might become too obese even, but then he started playing football and he grew into his body just right. While he played football in 7th through 9th grade, he became a team leader and hardly a day didn't come when he didn't have a story of pushing this guy or that guy around. They even manage to go at it in the lockers and even so far as to tell me stories of getting into it like rams in science class, where the teacher seemed to encourage them, she is a big fan, we saw her at a few games.
This year, he was promoted to the varsity and with that he is having to go against bigger, faster, and stronger boys and as he says, he keeps getting his ass handed to him. He is being double and triple teamed in drills, I guess so the coaches can evaluate him properly, but his only story line daily seems to be "I got my ass kicked around, but it was fun." His only concern is when the coaches threaten him with "you are going to go back down to the JV squad, if you keep making mistakes like that." I don't know if they mean it, or of that is their way of scaring him into working harder, but it is keeping him on his toes. We tell him we are proud of him either way, he is getting experience with the older boys now, but if he goes to JV, then he is going to go back to starting and probably playing on both sides like he was doing last year, so no worries, as far as I see it.
He made us laugh this weekend when he said that was the perfect example of how his life feels right now. Wife was scanning through the channels and came up on Happy Feet 2, the cartoon movie with the penguins and he said he felt like the krill that decides to take on a meat eater and gets taken for ride on the back of a seal. After the krill fall off and having had zero effect on the meat eater, the krill decides he won the encounter and starts singing "we are the champions" in full glory. This, after they were going through the game tape of their first scrimmage, the QB was complaining that Javalina was not doing his job of stopping the defender in front of him and the coach defended him saying look at him, he is about 200 pounds (really 235) and trying to stop a 300 pounder with more experience. I am sure my son will grow into his role, but it has to be rough on him before it gets better.
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