Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Part 4

 

An ornament for winners

When Ethan was a youngster, he sampled all the sports: soccer, T-ball, basketball, even inline hockey. But the first time he walked onto a football field, everything clicked.

He loved playing the game, and I loved watching him.

When I was in the seventh grade, my mother – fearful I would be hurt – forbid me from coming out for football, this relegating me to geekdom in my football-crazy hometown. I harbored resentment for that decision for much of my life.

I vowed that if my son wanted to play football, he damned well would. Surprisingly, Marice went along with the idea. Ethan joined a flag-football league and was happy as a lark. During his second year, his team won the rec league championship.

I knew what was coming. “Dad,” he said some time later, “I want to hit somebody.”

So tackle football, here we came. Ethan eventually ended up on the Green Dragons, coached by a volunteer named Jeff Miller. Miller had three sons who went on to play varsity for Carroll. He knew the game, was a natural teacher and liked the kids. They, in turn, adored him.

By the sixth grade, Ethan was developing into a pretty good wide receiver until he received a hairline fracture of his forearm during a game. That’s when I discovered just how tough my son was. He prowled the sidelines, itching to return, which he did a couple of weeks later, wearing a green-colored cast. The referees made him encase it in bubble wrap to prevent him from using it as a club. (He would have, too.)

With his late-season help, the Green Dragons won the “Super Bowl” – the Dragon Youth Football championship played each year on the hallowed ground of Dragon Stadium.

Ethan went on to play football in middle school. In Carroll ISD, all schools at every level have the Dragon as their mascot. Moreover, the fundamentals and nomenclature that Ethan learned in the Green Dragons were the same ones employed by coaches throughout the program, from DYF to high school. Such coordination and continuity is rare. It’s one of the reasons Southlake has won eight state football championships.

For years, I had harbored dreams of joining the varsity fathers who are in charge of the huge, inflated Dragon helmet that the team runs through before each game and after halftime. That was not to be, however.

During the first game of his 8^th grade season, Ethan received a concussion when an opposing player kicked him in the head as he lay on the ground after a play, sidelining him for the rest of the year. He suffered post-concussive symptoms, missed two weeks of school and battled terrible headaches for months afterward.

He came back his freshman year and played the entire season, but his ordeal had robbed him of his love of the game. Ethan eventually traded his shoulder pads for a lacrosse stick. But that’s another story.

This ornament was made by a team mom to commemorate the Green Dragons’ Super Bowl win in 2006. I look at it with both sadness and pride. Sadness at the suffering my son experienced for a sport he once loved. And pride at the strength, courage and grace with which he endured it.