The light at the end of the football tunnel

I'm up very early on a Monday USA holiday (and I think a holiday elsewhere maybe... I should look that up) where most people have the day off but some, like my husband do not. I always like Monday holidays, because they make that lovely weekend thing extra long.

I'm actually going into work but not until later. Geoff's football team has a game at 10am at another high school, so I'm going to go to that game and leave straight from there.

Geoff hasn't fared very well in the last couple of weeks with football. He was off to a great (and impressive) start and just sort of self destructed. Twice now I've been called and asked to take him home from practice, the second time was bad enough that he asked to go see his psychologist, whom he rarely sees because he says he just "doesn't need to."

I'm incredibly glad that Geoff recognized in himself that he needed to go talk to someone, and made the request. The season hasn't gone well, mostly because he kind of feels he doesn't have a place. The coaching staff, or maybe the school district, made a weird choice about teams. There is usually a Freshman team, a JV team and a varsity team. They didn't have enough kids to field a JV team, so they put all the 10th graders on Varsity (and hardly any of them have had a chance to play) and Geoff got assigned to Freshmen, which pissed him off to no end.

Turns out that was a good choice, for Geoff. Which is why he was doing well. He knew the drills, knew what to do, and kind of at times exhibited some leadership, according to his coaches.

But in the last 4 weeks they've been playing JV games with other school districts who didn't field a Freshmen only team, or schools that had enough kids for JV and Freshmen. So the JV guys are getting to play, and the Freshmen, who were doing well and getting gelled together and stuff, are now standing on the sidelines. Geoff gets to play one or two plays in a game so he feels like he's taken a step back and it upsets and frustrates him..

And I think this and the season and the whole thing has worked his last nerve. He's sick of it. He's incredibly sick of it all. He's sick of practice, he's sick of the guys, he's sick of running, he's sick of drills.

He started working out for this season at the end of June, so I can see why he's sick of it. But there are only two weeks left, and it isn't worth self-destruction to get out of things at this point. Just... see it through to the end and the light at the end of the tunnel is not a freight train coming your way buddy.

I've been kind of disappointed too, but I'm also incredibly proud of him. He's done great work. He has hung in there, made some new friends. He looks great - dropped about 20 pounds and looks kind of super. He's kept all of his school work organized and his grades are doing well, so he's managed to balance everything he needs to balance in order to be on a team, dedicate 3 hours a day during the week and most of his entire Saturdays or Friday nights to, and done a good job of it.

But... I don't know if it is all worth it though. For the same amount of money he could have joined the YMCA for a year.

He told me there is "only a 70% chance he'll play next year" the other day. I told him not to think about next year, but get through this one. I am taking my camera to the game today, and since Doug is not with me I am not compelled to sit in the stands with him.... and I can prowl and take some pictures.

It is a beautiful day out so ... let's seize it.