My Son's First Touchdown! · 11 October 2009
His stats will not show up in any newspapers, but my oldest son, Zachary (formerly known as Thing 1), scored his first high school football touchdown! I was ecstatic!
The reason that the statistic will not show up in any newspaper or be shown in any sportscast is because the score happened during a Junior Varsity (JV) game. Zachary is a senior, but just a first year football player. I told him he would not see much time in varsity games and probably not be allowed to play in JV games. But his coaches allow him to play in the JV games, which is great for me because I can see his home games before I go home. I was glad that I got to the game last week before he scored.
The touchdown pass came at the end of a fairly long drive. The ball was on the opponent’s 12-yard line. Zachary caught the ball on about the 3-yard line. Two defenders made contact at the 2-yard line but Zachary kept his legs driving and scored the touchdown! I was so excited to watch it happen. I was jumping up and down inside. My son scored a touchdown! I was excited! I was proud! But I just clapped a little more enthusiastically than normal because I am not one to show much emotion as a spectator. Because that is how I imprint the moment in my mind. Because everybody would have stared at me instead of him if I had yelled too loud.
That evening after the game when Zachary got into the truck, he was pretty nonchalant about his score. He might even have been a bit down on himself. He was sad because he fell down on defense one play and a pass over him scored a touchdown. He was disappointed that he and a teammate collided on defense and he missed a chance for an interception. He was focused on his mistakes rather than his positive contributions to the team. I tried to let him know that he had done a good job. That his couple mistakes could not overshadow his positive contributions. That his touchdown mattered. I do not know if it helped him much, but at the very least, he knew how I felt about his performance in the game.
I will probably never see Zachary’s football statistics in any newspapers, but I will remember his first touchdown for the rest of my life. I am proud of him for all his accomplishments in life so far. As a parent, I hope that I can downplay his mistakes while uplifting and praising him for his positive performance on and off the field, but I know I still have lots of work to do in that area. Still, if you see me in the next few weeks, I will probably have a big goofy grin on my face. That is because I am still basking in the glory, jumping up and down inside.
My son scored his first touchdown!
© 2009 Michael T. Miyoshi
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