Living Laughing Loving Life: Football and Cheer

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" - Cade 2013 - Game Day

Cade LOVES football! He is, after all, a Carter boy! All of his uncles and his daddy played football in high school and part of if not all of college. It's in his blood! Cade is on the Longhorns team and he plays defense. HOOK 'Em Horns!!!

Watching Cade play football has been GREATNESS!
Watching ANY 5 year old sport is GREATNESS!
I thought the same thing when Cade played soccer and Lily tried softball. But football has been a little different.

Let's start with "Conditioning Camp" ...in the middle of August....YES, for 5 year olds...It is Texas remember! :)

Two coaches VS 10 five year old boys.

The coaches show the boys how to run the square at practice...I'm sure there is a fancier word for it but that is all I can come up with at the moment. So the boys line up....one boy at a time catches a ball that the coach has thrown into their arms...they run, run, run forward...then shuffle, shuffle, shuffle sideways to the left while trying to get low to the ground and keep the ball in their hands, then run backwards, backwards, backwards trying not to trip and keep the ball in their hands, then shuffle, shuffle, shuffle sideways to the right and pass the ball back to the coach .... WOW....I don't know what I expected practice to really be like but I did not expect to see The Dallas Cowboy practice moves ... these coaches are serious....Well, It is Texas I remind myself AND the boys are still just 5 so while they are waiting for their turn with the ball we see lots of tag, cartwheels, pushing, laughing, and a few tears! The rest of the time they practiced chasing each other in a circle trying to get flags off of each others waist. And if the coaches dared to chat for 30 seconds the boys took off across the field and had to be called back. It was a bit like herding sheep. The moms watching laughed. The dads ended up helping the coaches. It took all the man power they had to keep up with 10 five year old boys! The coaches got tickled at all of this too... so thank heavens it's not too serious....the coaches are laughing...phew...good sign!!

Two practices a week start after conditioning camp, YES, for 5 year olds! Chris and I take turns for each practice because it is sweltering and least I say miserable for an hour and a half for the adults. The boys on the other hand are having the time of their lives! IT'S FOOTBALL! They have a ball in their hand, they are with all boys, and they get to run, chase, and high five each other! It's a boy thing and I'm starting to understand the love of football! Starting...

Back up about 5 years. When we found out we would be having a boy one of the many discussions Chris and I would have would be about football. I had made up MY mind that OUR son would not play football. It starts too young, there are too many risks of spinal and head injuries, Chris and his brothers have had one surgery after the other fixing knees, rotater cuffs, necks...their bodies are just worn out by the time they hit their twenties. Nope...no football for our son! Mind made up. Chris never said a word. Never told me otherwise. Never agreed, argued, swore up and down either way. He just listened for 5 years and it stayed between us.

In the spring of 2013...just before Cade turned 5.... he said, "Mom, I want to play football." It took me about 5 seconds and I said, "You do? Well ok...you can play football." WHAT!! ....Did that really come out of my mouth! I swore up and down he would never play football and when he said that I melted....how could I melt!!!??? I looked at Chris and he looked at me and we both smiled. In that instant I knew that he knew I would come around when the time was right and he was probably thinking..."that's all it took" - lol. He just knew to let me be and listen and ignore. He is a patient man!

Sooooo....here we are today....playing FLAG football ....and Cade has "the best day of his life" every Saturday!

Tackle will be another story! Oh, Chris is already getting an earful about it. He's just listening, not saying a word...but yes, it WILL be another story....(at least I think so)!