Football with the boy

Since my son starts Flag Football in a few weeks (as listed below), I've been playing in the backyard with him. He's fast and extremely competetive, so once I taught him about making people miss he's been quite hard to catch. I let him by me a few times to build up his confidence, and then after that he got by me twice with me giving my full effort.

Now, I know there aren't many passes in flag football...or even pee-wee football, but we did work on throwing the ball back and forth. He seemed to be afraid of the ball, because even though he would catch most of them, he would be turning his head away as the ball got there. I asked him why he was doing this and he finally admitted that the football is big and it would hurt if it hit him in the head. So I told him that he would be wearing a helmet when he played, so the ball couldn't get to his head. Unfortunately, I don't have a helmet that fits him, so we used a Catchers helmet and mask from his baseball supplies. Worked great! He stopped jerking his head around and was watching the ball all the way into his hands. Turns out he can throw pretty darn good as well. He has a competitive fire that drives him whenever he is playing a sport, and he'll keep at it until he gets it right.

It was a fun day, he was running little 5 yard curls and I would throw him the pass, he'd catch it and turn around heading for the "endzone"! Then he'd head back the other way and try to "Juke" his way around me....and many times he could. I'm so glad he loves playing sports, I'm even happier he enjoys doing it with me.