Falcon Football

As a number of Brayden's school friends have played football the past couple of years, he had been asking for a chance to play as well.  He really didn't know much about the game, having never really seen it played other than an Air Force Academy game when we all went up to my 10-year class reunion.  He was somewhat handicapped from the start given the complexity of the sport and a father who really doesn't ever watch or follow it.  However, he was undeterred.

We signed Brayden up for the 9-10 year-old YMCA league.  I tried to explain the idea of the sport and some basic rules, but there was still a huge learning curve.  From the beginning he felt like he was REALLY FAST (and actually is much faster than anyone else on the team except one other kid), but he says he needs to work on throwing and catching the ball.  He is the tallest boy on his team as well, though he doesn't have mass on his side.

He has really taken to it and has improved considerably in the short season.  On his second game he ran the ball twice, the second time 3/4 the length of the field for a touchdown.  He was fast enough that he was able to stop and look back three times to see how close the defense was.

At his most recent game he explained that Tanner, another boy on the team, was able to pull seven flags during the game whereas he normally only pulls two.  The reason, he expounded, was that his father had offered him $2 for every flag he pulled and he had a lot of motivation.  This was obviously going somewhere.  Just think how many flags Brayden could pull if he were more properly motivated, he suggested.

When asked about the season, football is the sport he has enjoyed the most so far.  Baseball was also fun, but basketball not so much.  There are also some sports he has not played yet, like "hockey in the sky", which on further investigation I discovered to be lacrosse, and "swimming soccer", or water polo.