Ammon Football

Ammon just finished another year of football. We tried something different this year, which I swore I never would do. Michael played club football in 7th grade, and it was a pretty bad experience. They were out sized and got killed every year, and I swore that we would never do that again. Well..... Ammon was asked to play on a club team this year, and we relented. Ammon has played city league the past 2 years, and last year he was too big to carry the ball, an "X" man because of the big X on the helmets of the boys ineligible to carry the ball. Ammon is big, but not lineman big, so we let him play on a team where he could play all positions. So, he played for the UVFL Falcons.

The team did fairly well in regular season play, 3-2 in the season after losing both of their pre-season games. Ammon played a lot, and personally he did very well. He scored in almost every game, and was a key defensive player. The problems came when the team was losing games and the coaches couldn't control their tempers. One week it was so bad, one of the coaches got ejected from the game. Now, I understand that there is a certain amount of yelling in football, I'm not completely ignorant. However, when the screaming becomes derogatory and degrading and abusive to the boys, I have a problem. Ammon played his heart out every single day, and he was ready to walk away and quit the team. We were behind whatever his decision was, I was ok with hanging in and finishing the season, but if he didn't want to subject himself to the abuse, I was ok with that too. Ammon decided to quit the team, the coach found out and called him to find out why. I was so proud of Ammon, he stood up to his coach and told him that all the yelling took the fun out of the game and he didn't want to play anymore. The coach promised that he would stop yelling if Ammon came back.

Well, they ended up losing their next two games and getting eliminated in the first round of play-offs. I was proud of Ammon for not puttting up with the abuse, but also for sticking it out and finishing a tough season. Good job Ammon, I love you!! Go #20!