9/1/22 Team Seems To Be Falling Apart?

     I don't even know who will be on the field tonight for the second game, considering how fast the boys seem to be disappearing.  Mijo is still out, although we do have the results of his MRI later today.  He is a guard on the line.  The two tackles, his close buddies, are injured as well, one in the arm and now shoulder, the other has a bad back that is preventing him from playing all game long.  The other senior on the line was demoted to 2nd string because of lack of conviction.  For the first game, they were going with up to four new freshmen and sophomores at times, which is a lot of inexperience.

    This week, the coaches did a sweep of the lockers and although nothing illegal was found, they did confiscate the protein powders and stuff like that.  This caused another of Mijo's senior friends to throw a tantrum and quit.  This kid talks non-stop of making gains and trying to get stronger even though he seems to stay a constant 150 pounds.  He still is a good player and fills one of the starting linebacker roles.  I don't know if he will come back to the team or if he is done.  My son is close to him, but he could not find him yesterday to talk to him, either on campus or on the phone.  His reaction was a very emotional immature one, I am sure when he cools off, he will fill remorse, but ego might also keep him from apologizing and coming back.  Who knows, the coach might not want him back, he has done stuff like this before, last year he quit on the wrestling team, although we blamed it on what was going on at home.

    Mijo had also said that if he quit, the seniors would all follow him.  This pissed me off, that he is even entertaining these types of thoughts, to which he said he wouldn't, and it was just his teammates joking around, although he has mentioned it a couple times now.  According to him, now that several seniors got cars over the summer, they would prefer to be working so they can have gas money and enjoy their cars.

    It is a rough feeling, the varsity team is only about 45 kids, which doesn't leave a lot of extras floating around and honestly, not all are really even varsity level kids.  One of Mijo's closer friends who is a sophomore is being promoted up to varsity when the district games start, because he is such a hard worker, but the aunt texted us, that he seems to be faking injuries, they took him to the doctor for an injury, and the doctor said there was no indication of a bad arm or whatever it was and even the last concussion seemed to maybe having been a faked one.  The kid is severely undersized, for a lineman, I wouldn't want to go against some of these animals on the line, if I only weighed 180 pounds.  Even Mijo, who seems small in height, is still a solid 260 pounds right now and hits like a brick.

    Football is glamorous in some respects, but never forget that first and foremost, it is a violent sport and people that play it must do so at their own will.