Final day of the season
Two stories to tell about this fall season of sports.
The first is about Christopher, and his first season of
tackle football. One night at practice,
Chris’s team was scrimmaging another
team, and Chris was lined up in the defensive backfield as a safety. This
division is for 2nd and 3rd graders. Chris is in 2nd grade, and is
probably the 3rd smallest kid in the division.
When the other team snapped the ball, they handed it off to a really big kid who came straight up through the middle. He broke through the line and linebackers. Chris took an angle to tackle him from the side. Had Chris missed, the running back was gone for a touchdown. Chris got his arms around the kid, but the kid was so big, Chris could not bring him down. That didn’t stop Chris however, as he reached up with my hand to get a hold of the kids jersey. He used that hand to leverage himself up the kids back with his other hand to get the back of the kid’s jersey around the back of his neck. He got his hand inside the jersey, and brought the kid down by a horse collar tackle (which is completely illegal). The running back’s knees buckled and he went down hard. He did not get up. He was in a lot of pain and they had to stop the scrimmage. All the parents went “ooooh” when it happened. It looked ugly. As two of the coaches tended to the injured kid, another coach had taken Christopher to the side. The coach got on his knee and it looked like (I could only see the hand gestures he was using) was educating Chris on what a horse-collar tackle was. After a few minutes, the injured running back got up. After the claps from the other players and parents, all the coaches got together and demonstrated what a horse-collar tackle was, and explained that it was an illegal tackle. Christopher was not in any trouble, because nobody had ever coached the kids that this was an illegal tackle. Its not something that normally ever happens at this age level, but because of Christopher, it is now something they have to educate 2nd and 3rd graders about. Well done, Chris.
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