EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an open letter from a graduating high school football player. The letter details what the player’s four years of football taught him and how inspirational his coaches were in his life. Feel free to photocopy this article and pass it around to members of your staff. If you ever need a reminder as to why you chose to be a coach, you’ll want to see the impact that the game has had on this young man.

FOUR YEARS AGO when I talked to my head coach, Al Rabb, about playing football, I never realized that the lessons I would learn on the field would mold me into the person that I am today. Football has developed my character, integrity and work ethic.

Coach Rabb taught me that commitment isn’t just a promise to your teammates — that you’re going to give
110-percent every time you put on that jersey — but it’s a commitment to yourself and a proof of real-world dedication.

As an offensive tackle, I relied on the commitment of the guard next to me in the huddle and depended on him when he said he’d come down for a double-team. With that commitment, the play worked and we opened a lot of holes for our backs. Without that commitment, the defensive tackle gets through and stops the play. In the real world, you rely on commitments from friends — whether it’s to finish their end of a project or to pick you up when your car isn’t running. When you commit to something, on the field or in the real world, you must see that commitment through to completion. My coaches taught me this.

Unfortunately, people are not born with the responsibility to see commitments through. Responsibility is a trait that you must learn. In football, no matter what position on the field you play, you’re responsible for carrying out your assigned task. If you’re the defensive end and you have responsibility for the pitchman against the speed option, but you instead go after the fullback and try to make the big play yourself, then you aren’t being responsible, and the play will most likely be a bust for the entire defensive unit. Responsible actions on the field are what make great players. Football has taught me this.

Determination
My back and legs were throbbing with pain. It was late on a Friday afternoon of the final weight room “max week” of the year before school let out. My goal was to max 500 pounds on the dead lift. I had managed to hit 450 earlier, but I wanted 500. My body was hurting and I just wanted to shut down, go home and relax.
Just when I was about to quit and settle for 450, I thought about a trip our team would be making to the Houston

Astrodome the next fall to play a top-rated playoff-caliber team. I knew it would take little things, like me getting those extra 50 pounds up on the dead lift, to help my team win that game and make the playoffs. Determination and dedication made that 500 pounds seem like nothing and I did it! I maxed at 500!

I soon discovered that this same determination also applied to the classroom and it helped me become a good student. I didn’t just wake up one day and suddenly do well in school. I had to work hard, stay focused and remain determined — and it got me into the top 7 percent of my graduating class.

Courage, Mental Toughness
It takes a lot of courage to say you are proud to play football. I am proud to say I am a West Brook Bruin and to wear my letterman’s jacket in public. After a tough season in which we struggled, I watched a few players put their heads down, leave a conversation or even quickly change the subject to avoid saying that they were on the football team. These are always the same people that can never manage to show up to practice.

It’s hard to show up every day in 100-degree Texas weather, put on 20 pounds of pads and go beat up on each other for 2 1/2 hours every day. Football has instilled in me the courage to stand up for what I believe in.

It’s difficult enough to wake up each morning to go to school, yet alone knowing that you won’t see your bed again until at least 11 p.m., after school, practice, chores and homework. My coaches taught me that you have to forget how hard everything is and instead look at all the rewards you’re getting back from these efforts.

It’s about mental toughness. It takes mental toughness to pay attention to the snap count while a defensive lineman is taunting you unmercifully. Coach Rabb always said that if you’re physically and mentally ready, you’ll never give in to your opponent, no matter what.

The lessons learned in football stayed with me when I became a member of the Student Council Executive Board. There, just as on the field, we learned that teamwork is a must. We continuously faced decisions where we’d all have to voice our opinion so that we could settle issues. If we didn’t know how to handle things as a group, then the council would accomplish nothing. We needed to act as a team — just like the football team.

Above And Beyond
Playing any sport requires dedication. However, the dedication I have for football goes above and beyond what most people can ever imagine. I would do anything for any of the guys I have ever played with. When you enter a football program, you are not only a player, you are a band of brothers that will stop at nothing to succeed. Blood, sweat and tears have all covered my jersey, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.

I’d bet if you asked Brett Favre about his favorite playing days, he’d say it was during his high school years. When you are in high school, you don’t have to worry about endorsements or contracts. You just have to worry about passing your tests on Friday. There are no worries in high school sports. You are playing to have fun and learning to play the greatest game on earth.

The high school level is the purest form of the game there is. There’s no one spiking a ball in the end zone or pulling out a cell phone to call someone after scoring a touchdown. There is a sense of camaraderie among young men on the field that just can’t be explained to a person who hasn’t done it.

Confidence
If you walk into a job interview, sit down, avoid eye contact with the interviewer and mumble through your answers, chances are that you’re not going to get the job. Your body language in the interview will show that you lack self-confidence. My coaches taught me to be assertive and strong in everything I do. You have to believe that you can accomplish anything that you set your mind to.

Football is 90-percent mental. If you truly believe that you can knock down an opponent who’s twice your size, then the chances are, when the ball is snapped, you will put up a darn good fight. Confidence isn’t only measured by how you play football, or even how firm you shake a person’s hand, it’s how you handle and conduct yourself on a daily basis. I learned this from being a high school football player.

It Was An Honor
Most people would find it odd to walk into a fieldhouse after the last game of the season and see 20 tough, senior football players crying their eyes out, knowing that many of them will never play football again. This is exactly what happened after our last game my senior year. West Brook football became a part of my life and it was extremely hard to let that piece of me go.

As crazy as it sounds, I would do anything to push that sled just one more time with the rest of my offensive linemen.

When a group of teenagers go out of their way to pick each other up for practice just so that everyone can be there, you know they care. When you can look into your teammates’ eyes and know that you both will do anything for each other, you know you care.

Football taught me how to deal with life’s obstacles. Pain is one of life’s daily “reality checks” to let you know that you’re not invincible. Playing with pain comes with the territory. If you aren’t sore and banged up — both before and after practice — then you did not work hard enough. Playing with pain is what makes a player mentally tough and stronger. This toughness comes through at the end of the fourth quarter of a hard-fought game, when you feel like you have nothing else left to give. Fighting through pain, day-in and day-out, teaches you to push on.

Enjoy It, Relish It
As I walk down the school’s hallway toward the end of my high school senior year, I talk to all the underclassmen that are going to be the leaders on the football team next year. I tell them that I wish that I could be in their shoes, that I wish I had a chance to play again.

There is not a day that goes by that I do not wish that I were still a part of the greatest thing that I have ever done in my life — high school football.

I will always be proud to call myself a Bruin. And thanks to the great coaching and little lessons that each of my coaches taught me, I will be a better person for the rest of my life.

Thank you, coach, for being a mentor, a spiritual leader, protector and father figure to all of us players. I will never forget you.