Blog
Youth Voices: A Football Experience
Each summer, ASCI gives school-aged students the opportunity to get hands-on internship experience at our agency! One of our fantastic interns gave us personal insight on why he’s passionate about playing football.
By Kelsey Hundley
When I first started playing football in the 8th grade, I thought it would be fun, but I never would’ve thought it would take me this far.
I found out about middle school football from my friend, Marc. Marc played for the team in the 2018 season. Because I always wanted to play tackle football, I asked Marc about it towards the end of the year when football conditioning started for the 2019 season. Marc told me about the days they had football practice, and I went to the conditioning. It wasn’t really that hard besides running and working on the plays. Eventually, we got into the 2019 season and we won every game we had, ending the season with a record of 9-0. Unfortunately, there aren’t playoffs in middle school football so we could never experience those real meaningful games, but it was okay because we still won.
Months passed, and it was time for high school conditioning. High school football is another kind of intensity compared to middle school. But I couldn’t get a full season my freshman year because of COVID. So, when school was over and football summer training started back, I had no idea what was about to come, but I knew I wanted to do well. My first day of summer training was probably one of my worst days because I wasn’t in shape for the kind of things we were doing. I had to build some strength and get conditioned for it.
Then, two to three weeks passed and we were still doing the same thing; working on plays, running, etc. Then one day at the end of practice, the head coach said he was putting together a list of guys’ names who he wanted to have a morning practice with. I wanted to be on that list so badly because the best players on the team were going to be there. The list came out the following day and my name wasn’t on it. After that, I knew something had to change. So everyday after practice while I was at home, I would eat more than I would regularly eat and I’d workout really hard – like doing 300 pushups everyday. It may sound crazy, but in a way I liked it, and it felt like it was pushing me to be my best and become better and better everyday. Eventually, coaches started noticing my progress and started giving me more respect and playing time.
Months passed and the season ended, but that didn’t end the training I would do every time I would get home. Now, it’s the 2021 football season and I’m now starting varsity. This proves that all my hard work didn’t go to waste. That’s the reason I love football more than any other sport because if you put in enough work, you’ll become better than someone who may be more naturally talented than you and it’ll push you to become a better you than you already are.