10/4/18 Paredes Paddled Our Boys Hard?

    At the beginning of the season I worried about the boys needing to be grounded and that a few losses mixed in with a few wins makes for good overall learning.  I know I sound like some lame hippie type, but I just see all these middle schools becoming parts of each other as they fill out the local area high schools and eventually most rivalries right now will be teammates in a year.  What is the point of letting one school "beat" on another to the tune of 40 to 0?
    My worst fear came to light after the game.  Javalina looked to be the center that was screwing it up a few times.  More than once on third and long, while in the shotgun formation, he would overthrow the QB behind him and cause the QB to have to run back and get the ball or he would roll it to him again making the QB have to bend down and scramble to get the ball.  My first question after are you thirsty? was "were you the center....?" not wanting to say that messed up so many times.  He said "yeah, and I don't even care."  He said he told the coaches he didn't want to be center, that he would prefer to stay only on defense.  Again this week he pretty much stayed on the field for every play, even kickoffs which he had to rest last week, but there was communication errors and he was told to just stay in.
    He seemed to be in a little shock as we drove to IHOP telling me if I had seen how the defensive lineman had grabbed him by the shirt and tossed him to the ground and he bounced spun and managed to roll himself back up in one motion.  He said this was the first time he was battling someone that was bigger, faster and stronger.  He said he wanted to be like that kid, that is all he cared about now, was to get stronger for the next time he meets up with this one kid.  He said the kid was complaining to the umpire or one of the referees that Javalina was holding him.  He never got called for holding, I told him and we practiced what is nowadays acceptable, you can use your hands inside the chest, so my boy was kind of controlling him as best he could by grabbing on the inside of the chest, once you wrap the guy, then it is holding.
    I don't know what happened, the whole team was much faster, and at every position seemed taller and faster.  Our boys could not find the line of scrimmage, yet we beat this team last year.  It was their worst performance by far.  I can see Javalina is wearing himself thin playing every play, and even though his teammates said he wasn't doing enough last week, he did get player of the week for last weeks game.  He said this bothered him too, he kept thinking about trying to play a perfect game and that is near impossible.  He said hopefully the coaches see that I am not a good fit at center and they'll just let me focus on defense.