Tigers Scrimmage vs Vikings

So my son Tommy decided to join Tackle Football this year…he plays for the Tigers along with his cousin Damien. For the first two weeks he just about cried at every practice. Why you ask?  It was for various reasons – his head hurt, he felt like he couldn’t breathe, he said he was hurt whenever they practiced tackling and blocking… he finally started getting better at last Friday’s practice and then went back down again in the beginning of the week. But he was getting better at doing his job while crying so it wasn’t too bad. Then his first scrimmage game came up (which was yesterday) and I really felt bad for my kid. I was scared for him cause I knew he was nervous and scared of getting hurt. His dad and I both talked to him about that and just told him to go out there and focus on doing his job for the team. We told him that it was okay if he was scared but he can’t let the other team know… he has to believe in himself and tell himself to block or to get them out of his way while he tries to get to whoever has the ball… I tried siking him up the night before and when I yelled “WHO’S THE BEST TEAM?” He said “I don’t know we haven’t even played anyone yet” I couldn’t help but want to giggle a little…my boy and he’s over thinking mind…just like his daddy… I was able to finally get him to yell that the Tigers are No. 1 and that he’s the best and that they’re going to win and I hoped that it boosted his confidence up a little bit more.

It was finally game time and he seemed a little nervous and I seriously was praying and hoping that he wouldn’t cry and that he would try his best to tackle and block the opposing players. Then at the last minute before we got there…I offered tommy money for each tackle and for each time that he got tackled and got right back up without crying… $1 for each. I’m not sure what exactly helped him do as well as he did yesterday, but now I owe my son $20 bucks and I was just so happy when I saw him complete his first tackle…and got extremely happy when the other player hit him pretty hard (you could hear the helmets hit each other) and he got right back up and got ready to do it all over again J That had to be one of my proudest moments for him. He managed to put his fear to the side and play Tackle football! GO TIGERS! Oh and he can’t wait to do it again at the next game J