Football: Let the Games Begin

Our son's first scheduled football game got cancelled after a tropical storm flooded out the fields, so the first official game the team got to play took place last weekend.

Go Chargers!

Well...technically the games began four years ago when football games required less equipment, fewer players, and only a short "commute" up to the 3rd floor rec room of our last house.

He was chosen to be one of the captains for his team based on his character, obedience, respect for authority, leadership, and team-building, so he got to walk out on the field for the coin toss.

Coin toss

He played cornerback for defense, rotated between guard or wide receiver for offense, and also served on the punt team. Notable moments from his first game included a nice open field tackle for a loss on the opposite side of field and forcing  a runner out of bounds to prevent a touchdown by the opposing team.

 

See that red cleat sticking up just over the top right of #63's helmet in the photo below? That's our boy, one of the team captains, making his first tackle at his first football game ever.

 

He had a scrimmage this past week, so my husband tried to take a few pictures (below) with our SLR camera. If our kids continue field sports, we will need a nicer telephoto lens.  Even his iPhone takes better action shots than the SLR.

So far, playing football has brought out more toughness, discipline, endurance, and speed from our son. He set a PR last week for running, coming in 2nd place. The other kid who beat him is in his 5th year of Pop Warner football, so for this to be our son's first year, I think he's doing really well.

After that game, and after weeks of trying to find sports drinks that did not have food dyes, corn syrup, excessive sugar or other toxic chemicals, I decided to make my own for the kids to drink the rest of the season. My batch included sea salt, organic coconut sugar,magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc, B vitamins, kale, chia seeds, and spinach. And as is typical of healthy drinks, it looks like bile. Did they drink it?

Our son liked it.  Our daughter wasn't too crazy about the gritty texture of the chia seeds floating around undissolved.  Oops!