• Well, I haven't been typing an awful lot in my journal at all, but that's what they're here for so I might as well use them. I just want people to know what I'm up to when I'm not online, a little about my life. Most people may not know, but football is a large part of my life. I rarely miss practice and I give it my all to the point where I can barely stand at times. I'll use this entry to share the progress of my team and maybe even my own skills. I'd like to let everyone know right now that I am part of a struggling team, but I feel we'll get better. Numbers are few and not many people are dedicated, as a matter of fact when I was a freshman and sophomore we didn't win any games at all. All I can do is make myself better though and hope the team follows, I'll update this journal as I play the games, so check often if you're interested.

    I would love to predict that we would go 7-2 or something, but in reality I'd be happy if we had a winning record of 5-4.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 0-40 @ Andrew Thunderbolts
    First game of the season, after all of the long off-season practice and reps in the weight room. Not many showed up to conditioning in the off-season, whether it was weight training or cardiovascular, but everyone that did come jumped in strength a lot. I actually lift 225 lbs. a few times now, when I used to struggle with 100. That's just what football does for you. Practice over the summer was rough, but I came every time I could. Compared to freshman year when I knew nothing about football, I've gotten much better. But I still have a long way to go. The practice of the week before the game didn't seem too good at all to me. Suddenly people were getting injured at the end of the summer before the game. It was really weird of that to happen and I wouldn't want to think they were faking. After a bad week of practice, a loss like that was unavoidable.

    Andrew is a fundamentally good team, they have focus and discipline. If we only had better discipline we could have beat them with our athleticism. But, we're not focused enough yet. Defense did a decent job at the beginning, but offense gave us bad field position every time. Throughout the whole game, we only made two first downs. That's how bad the offense played. In the end defense pretty much either gave up or was too tired. If I remember correctly by halftime we were losing by over twenty already.

    I wasn't put in until the last play of the game, even though I'm one of the better defensive ends on the team. This is probably why defense was tired, also because offense wasn't out too long at all. I was pretty mad about not getting much play time after all of my hard work, but I got over it by the next game.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 25-24 T.F. North Meteors (OVERTIME)
    Second game of the season. I'll admit, from the week of practice we had before-hand it seemed like this would be another game we would lose. No one seemed to be serious or focused enough to actually get any real practice done. On top of that, there was a holiday so we got Monday off and it rained on one of the practice days. We still practice in the rain, but not as intense. Saturday morning, the day of the game, I came into the locker room to get ready and was one of the first people there. Everyone else came and we were quiet for a while but then we started joking around. It's really fun but it's not the best thing to do before a game. lol

    It was the first home game of the season, and my first Varsity home game. Needless to say everyone was pretty hyped up. I invited more people then usual to the game, even though I wouldn't be in too much. When the game came I remember us scoring the first touchdown early in the first quarter. We couldn't kick in the extra point though.

    T.F. North was a terrible team, so even though it was a win, we should have won by a lot more, without having to go into overtime. Our defense was able to stop the run with ease most of the game. Our offense did pretty good too, specifically the offensive line. If we would have made more catches our score would have been much higher. Our quarterback was performing much better than the previous game, so he was throwing great passes. There was a point in time where they were ahead in points, and it took a while to even the game up again. Late in the fourth quarter both team's offenses began to take control with the passing game and scored touchdowns. However, throughout the whole game no one could get an extra point. Our kicker was missing for some reason, maybe a little nervous. And they didn't have a kicker so they were forced to go for two points but were easily stopped. They wouldn't have scored much at all if one of our cornerbacks were a little more experienced.

    Throughout the regular game, no team scored an extra point, but if one team would have, then it would have been over. Luckily for us the other team didn’t have a kicker. In overtime we got the ball first and managed to score and then kicked in the first and last extra point of the game. The other team scored too, so they got their chance to score extra points. Since they had no kicker, they were forced to go for two points. This made it a win or lose situation for both teams. In the end, they tried a screen pass that failed, they were tackled before scoring like before. The Junior group of Varsity, including me, won our first game since starting freshman year.

    This game was much better for me, considering we won. I didn't get in at all in the defensive end position but I was put on kick return, which is a lot of fun. Though the plays seemed over and people were walking, I just hit people until the whistle was blown. lol With the combination of kick returns, I played more than I did in the first game anyway. For me, that's enough to be happy about.

    The coaches were angry, and for good reason. As I said before, T.F. North was a bad team and the game never should have been that close. They were happy we won, but disappointed with the way we played, and they let us know that right after the game. They said we would have to focus in on practice if we wanted to beat any more teams. There are tougher, stronger, and more physical teams that we have to practice hard to even compete against.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 22-28 @Rich South Stars
    Well, the beginning of the week of practice was the worst by far. On top of this, it came right after a win. Monday it was raining all day, so we couldn't do too much of the practice we wanted too. Not many people came to practice, another bad sign. We still went outside and ran, pushed the sleds too. Since it was raining we slipped a lot, and eventually I could barely stand up because we did it for so long. I wasn't the only one though so I kept going. I really need to work on my leg muscles. XD This day of practice wasn't terrible, but I don't feel we got much of anything done other than a workout. The next day of practice was the worst.

    Going down into the locker room Tuesday after school it was like it usually was, that is, very few people in there ten minutes after the school bell rung. Then people finally started showing up (it was very few because not many wanted to come to practice after the rainy day). When people did come, they were giving each other haircuts and stuff. I have no idea why they were doing that at all. I came outside a little earlier before practice so I could do some pre-practice. We have a set time where we start stretching, but only about 15 people were outside at that time. And ten minutes later there were few more. Once people started actually showing up, coach made the whole team run laps. That's just how football works, the whole team has to suffer for what some people do sometimes. We ran a couple of laps around all the fields, there's about three of them. Then we ran some gassers, those are about 200 yards with a few cuts. Then we ran 200's from one goal-line to the other and back again. Then we did up-downs, that's falling and catching yourself and then getting up again and chopping your feet until the whistle blows again. After all of that the coaches made us run another lap around all the fields. So after all of this he told everyone to go home, but we still had an hour left. Some people left immediately, but the rest of us stayed and tried to practice. There was no organization, and no water outside because coach told the trainer we couldn't get any. We were able to go through a few plays but in the end we decided it was better to just get dressed, go home, and start over the next day. Everybody was pretty disappointed, including me, but we had to get over it.

    The next day everyone decided to forget about what happened the days before. Once we did that we had enough focus to actually practice. We picked up the intensity and learned what we would need to do. Unfortunately we hadn't done that earlier in the week. We had to practice full speed the day before the game to make up for what we missed. Those are usually the days where we walk through and make sure we know our assignments. I guess I can say I was feeling a lot better about the game by the end of the week.

    So, the day came. It was another Friday night game, second out of four in the year. We won't have any at home because we have no lights. The weather wasn't sunny and nice like the first two games. This was the first game that was rainy, it had been raining the whole day and was steadily raining throughout the game, sometimes worse than others. So we were going to slip sooner or later, but so was the other team. We couldn't use that as an excuse. The first half ended up like the first half of the week in practice: we played pretty badly. They made a touchdown at the end of the half that I felt won them the game. I feel if we were more focused we could have stopped it. And they had no kicker either, so they always had to go for two extra points. They got both extra points on two of the three touchdowns they made in the first half. By the end of the half I think the score was 6 - 22, with them up. So we came back out and got focused, much like the end of the week of practice. Unfortunately it was too late by then. They scored again, but we fought back. And in the end we made an interception and possibly could have scored, but they called pass interference on us. After watching the tape again, I didn't see it. That gave them a first down, so all they did was run down the clock winning them the game at 28-22. If we would have fought earlier, we could have easily won.

    I only got in on kick return this game, but I did the most I could for my team, hitting people for no real reason sometime. One time they made a squib kick to the middle (a squib kick is when they kick the ball so it bounces on the ground and is hard to catch). The guy I was supposed to block ran straight towards it. Not wanting to waste my chance to hit somebody, I ran at his side. He saw me at the last second and lowered his shoulder, but he was lower than me. Usually being lower would be a good thing, but it was raining so I hit him and he bounced forward, kinda rolled on the ground still going full speed and got up running still. It was really weird. XD It was like he never stopped running in the first place. By the time he got up though the play was over, good thing, cause I couldn't stop him anymore. lol for most of the rest of the kicks it went out of bounds. So I couldn't do much but ram into somebody before the referees blew the whistle. Like I said before, I think we could have won the game, but we didn't fight until it was too late.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 26-42 Rich East Rockets

    Practice this week started off a lot better. As coach said last week, I was going to be practicing at right tackle from then on. I guess the one we had before just wasn't getting the job done. From what I've heard he hadn't been firing off of the line, which is very important. I can beat almost anyone on the team when it comes to firing off with speed. My power if pretty high too. The only difficulty I may have would be with my technique. That's what the coaches are for. They tried to teach me what to expect at the position and who I would be blocking. It seemed fairly simple at practice.

    So, something big happened. Coach decided to start me at right tackle in this game. It was my first time starting in my football career, and on the Varsity team at that. The rest of the offensive line is made up of seniors that weigh more and are stronger than me. I must have done something to impress the coach or something, otherwise I would not have been there. This showed me that all of the practice I put in at summer camp and the offseason was worth it, because coach wouldn't put me in if he thought I couldn't handle it. I would have to do my best to prove to him I was ready for the responsibility.

    We were playing a team that was coming in 3-0, undefeated so far in the season. This really didn't worry me at all. I just had to focus on a few people on the field, if I could be better than them, there would be no problems. The defensive end I was up against was obviously bigger, but I doubt he was too much stronger than me. Most of the plays wouldn't be coming my way anyway, since it was my first time I think. All I had to do most of the time was just intimidate him. I did that very well by beating him to the push the first few times. After that he used my speed against me for a while and used a swim technique to get past. Fortunately he was unable to make any plays at that time. I was soon able to adjust to the swim and continue to block him. It got pretty tiring, I have to say. But it was fun to finally be able to play football, though I made some mistakes. Around the end I messed up because I did not know the plays well enough, so they put the other right tackle in for the fourth quarter. The only bad part about the game for me was how much stuff the other team talked. The ones that talked it rarely backed it up either. And I knew for a fact they wouldn't say anything without pads on. XD I could only laugh at them.

    In the end I would say I did a decent job for my first time and against someone bigger than me. On pass protection he never sacked the quarterback, as a matter of fact our quarterback has only been sacked once in four games, and this is the game he was sacked in. My family thinks I did a great job, especially my dad. He was really proud of me, and I felt good to make him proud. Coaches say I could've done better though, and I can't agree more. If I just find out exactly what I have to do then I can do it.

    So onto the actual game then. This was a team that beat the junior class 60-0 in our sophomore year so it was our worst loss. Best believe I got in on kick return on that game. XD Like every ten minutes. So we were pretty much looking for revenge. After they scored two early touchdowns though, it didn't seem like we'd get it at all. Our offense always takes a while to get warmed up for some reason. Both touchdowns were passes I believe, our safeties and corners really need to pick it up. Most touchdowns against us seem to be passes. We came back almost immediately when the defensive line forced a fumble. They did this a few times during the game, so the whole defense wasn't bad. We were able to make three unanswered touchdowns, and missed one extra point. The score was now 20-14, with us up. I think it was around the middle of the second quarter. They scored maybe two more times and the half was over.

    In the second half the offense had trouble scoring again, even though defense gave us great field position most of the time. It just seemed like we couldn't pull it together. On top of that the referees were terrible. They made holding calls and even called a block in the back on me when I made sure to reach the guy's side. The play was going to put us in the red zone too. We scored again, but not until later. And when our tight end was passed to for the two extra points, he missed terribly on an easy catch.

    Needless to say the coaches were disappointed. I was too, this is a team we could have beaten. One of the coaches said we should be able to win a game with 26 points, putting some blame on the defense, even though they made some good plays. A few stops would have taken some pressure of the quarterback, that's true, but it was everyone's fault altogether. So we missed our chance to even out our record, leaving us at 1-3. And we were defeated at home for the first time this season. Next week is homecoming, now we have to look towards that.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 6-48 Thornton Wildcats (HOMECOMING)
    This was probably the biggest game of the year. Homecoming against a district rival team that's ranked in the state. If we won this one we could've bounced back from our season, I think we could have. They even came over the night before the game and painted their initials on our field. This game was one of the craziest I've ever played in, all kinda of drama and stuff. lol Amazingly though, they didn't talk nearly as much stuff as some other teams.

    So I was working at tight end again all week, and once again to my surprise I was starting there. On passing plays I was not in though because I did not know the routes yet. But when we ran, I was in the game. I got a lot of playing time, especially in the first half.

    They ran their first kickoff back on us, putting us in trouble really early. I did my job right and almost even made the tackle to stop the return, but some of the other guys on my team did not keep contain and he ended up getting to the outside. I had to dive for him just to try to make the tackle. They made two more straight touchdowns against us fairly early. We were able to score before halftime.

    Not much I can say about the rest of the game, we played bad on both sides of the ball. And we got lucky on a fumble on kick return, they were pretty mad and I got double-teamed. Too bad I was stronger than both of them. XD Special teams even did badly in this game. All we can do now is build up from this loss. Our next three games should be wins for us, maybe we can start a streak.

    I did pretty good overall. While watching the film, coach gave me some compliments, I get off the ball quicker than any other tight ends and I do my job. And if I don't know exactly what my job is, I just try my best to knock somebody down. I plan to do the same thing in the next game when we take the long ride to East Aurora.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 0-14 @ East Aurora Tomcats
    I think it's pretty obvious what went wrong here. The offense couldn't score, mostly because of penalties that could've easily been avoided. That pretty much made the difference in the game. At halftime, the score was tied at 0-0. We shouldn't have even let it go that far without us scoring. Honestly, I really don't know what we were doing this game. Maybe we were off because of the two hour ride to the school on a Friday night. We played in our first cold game too. After waking up from a nap and going straight into the cold, it's pretty hard to play your best football. We can't use that as an excuse though.

    I have to say this was my worst game by far. I was blocking the wrong guy most of the game, but there was a reason for it. Every time I tried to it the linebacker, who I was supposed to get, he jumped in the way. So instead of getting the linebacker I pushed him instead, so I did something. We could've gotten more yards on several occasions if I had just followed my directions. I wasn't in for too much of the game either because we were passing a lot. I have no idea why we were passing though, the receivers hands were so cold they barely caught anything. And besides that, our running game was doing pretty good. It always has, our running back has over 700 yards for the first six games of the season. But we continued to pass. We should have won even with our passing though.

    The sophomore quarterback was moved up to Varsity, because the Junior one was messing up and not coming to practice. He has pretty good accuracy, but things change a lot in a game. A lot of times he threw at receivers that weren't really open. It was often incomplete though, since the corners and safeties could only knock them down. He was pushed pretty far too, since he had only a week to learn all of the Varsity plays. That's why I think we were a little bad too.

    No matter what though, there was no excuse. The team we lost to wasn't very good at all, and there was no reason for us to lose that game. I was pretty disappointed and I'm sure everyone else was too. We could've done a lot better than that, and we should've won the game in the first half. The coaches thought the same thing. The next game is against another district rival, Thornridge. We're better then them too, as long as we don't lose focus again.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 0-8 Thornridge Falcons
    The Falcons are a pretty weak team, not much size to them but a little speed. I'm really disappointed with this loss because it was a game we should have won, and not even by a few points. We should have won by at least twenty. Last week we went into a scoring drought and it lasted through this game too. It was their first victory of the season. Obviously the game was pretty uneventful, a lot of defensive stops and only one score in the whole game. They went for two because they don't have a kicker. If we would have at least scored once I'm pretty sure the game would have been over.

    I played a pretty good game, other than slipping a lot. The field was muddy because it had rained the night before or something. Other than slipping a lot, I made some good blocks. And I even went for some passes because I learned all of the routes, and I was open for an easy touchdown once, but the quarterback didn't see me. It would've been my first reception in a game and it would've most likely been a touchdown. I'll have to wait a little longer though.

    Coaches were obviously disappointed, we lost against a weak team, and a division rival. There were people on that team that I used to go to school with. I really don't know what's wrong with the team, coaches are teaching us the right thing and it works, but sometimes they don't do it.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 2-34 Bloom Trojans
    This game had possibly the worst start in school history. We had the kickoff at the beginning and they ran it back for a touchdown. Then we had kick return where they recovered it deep in our territory. The very first play they scored with a run play. That put us down 14-0 in the first 20 seconds of the game. We put ourselves at a disadvantage very quickly.

    Not much to say about this one, we were able to get a safety against them, but our offense didn’t score again, even though we had a few drives down the field. By the end of the game the offense hasn't scored for around 12 quarters. Defense did a good job on most plays, but passing plays continually catch our secondary off guard. The next, and last, team we played was sure to take advantage of that.

    Thornwood Thunderbirds 8-41 @T.F South Rebels
    Possibly the most dramatic setting of all of High School football history. The only thing that would've made it even better is if both teams were undefeated. Unfortunately we weren't even close. It was a rainy Friday, last game of the season and we were playing at their school. When we got their it started raining even harder and lightning started striking. When lightning strikes they don't let you play football for about 20 minutes afterwards. We had to wait inside the school until they said it was okay to go outside.

    So when we did go outside we could only get some stretching done before lightning struck again. We stretched about 7 or 8 times, and the game was being pushed back constantly. Finally the lightning stopped enough for us to actually start, so we did warm-ups. It was so muddy, the ball was almost impossible to catch and you couldn't run full speed or you'd fall. Basically everybody wanted to play in this weather.

    So we kicked the ball off and our kicker, who hadn't been kicking too well, was able to kick it into the end zone. best kick all season from him. The other team started at the 20. An overall good start. Their first play was a pass and the receiver ended up running all the way down the field for a touchdown. Pretty much showed what would happen for the game. So after the touchdown lightning struck again and the game was rescheduled for the next day. Though I wanted to play in the mud I would get more time with my team this way, so I was okay with it.

    The next day came and it was turned into a Saturday morning game. Our cleats were still wet from the night before, a very uncomfortable feeling, and we would start the game with a deficit of six. The other team still had to kick their field goal and it went in. Now we were down seven but would have our chance to attack. The field was still pretty slippery, but we could deal with it this way. Since the other tight ends were seniors and it was their last game, I didn't play tight end as much as I did in games before. Instead a lot of the juniors wanted to stay in there position. I played a lot, just not as much as usual. XD

    So the game pretty much went like the one play did last night. They passed at least three more touchdowns passes it seemed to the same guy that scored the touchdown before. It was basically the same play from the same side of the field too. Whatever cornerback was supposed to get him kept getting outran. But in the end we ended our scoring drought of about 15 quarters. Our running back, Dairo, was able to run in, and he got his 1,000 yards for the season. Fifth best in school history.

    Final Thoughts
    Season didn't go nearly as well as I hoped it would. Seniors had to leave out with a losing record again, 1-8. It's all pretty depressing, but I'm so glad to know that I have another year left. I'm using this offseason to do everything I can to bring my team some wins, even if they don't do anything. All I can do is better myself and maybe I can make a difference by myself. I plan to make this last season the best season, not in winning record, but a personal one. And though I did pretty good this season, I can still get a lot better.

    I'll do the best I can to recruit teammates, though that hasn't worked at all so far. So I'll just have to push those that are already on the team to do better. We're losing some important people. Our running back, 4 out of 5 offensive linemen, the other two tight ends, the best linebacker, three defensive linemen, and even our best receiver. That's just the start of the list. If we want to get a better team than we had this season, then we have to make ourselves better. I don't see it happening without putting in the work.