Tuesday Night Lights

Tuesday Night Lights



Tuesday was my son's first Football game. He has had several practices and scrimmages, but tonight was the real deal. He's in 1st grade, and this is his first year of Football. It's Flag football, although he desperately wanted to play tackle football....which he can't do until the 3rd grade.

He plays Quarterback and Running back on the offensive side of the ball, and Safety on the defense, and he wears # 3. In this first picture, he is getting the play from his Coach and then heading to the line of scrimmage.

The first play was a pass, a beautiful spiral that went about 10 yards, unfortunately the receiver only went about 5 yards....incomplete. The second play, he was the running back, and he took the handoff as you can see in the second picture:

He took the handoff and ran off the left tackle for a 45 yard touchdown run! He was excited, but rest assured their was no "sharpie" celebration, no "Hall of Fame Jacket" celebration, not even a Riverdance with his teammates. He just handed the ball to his coach, and headed back to his teammates, looking determined to help his team win. It was his first touchdown in a real game, I'm not sure how long he'll remember that first play, but I know that I'm going to remember it for a long time.

After a short time out and substitution, we started play back again. We kicked off (an 8 yard kick) and the other team had the ball for the first time.








So, next up was their first Defensive series. Let me remind you, he wanted to play tackle, not flag football. On the first play it was a handoff to the running back and he came around to the opposite side that my son was playing, so he followed him, the RB then turned around and got around the corner for a 20 yard gain until he was finally caught by one of my son's teammates.



The next play, he chased the kid out of bounds, and the kid "fell"...he promises he didn't touch him. lol



Then, on the next play the opposing team ran in for a Touchdown to tie the game at 6-6. They took over on the 35 yard line (it's an 80 yard field) and on the first play my son handed off to the RB and he took it to the house, which put us up 12-6 (no extra points in flag football). The other team tied the game on their next possession....as you can see, both teams struggle a little bit on defense.



The next possession my son hands off to the RB, and he runs about 15 yards. This kid is pretty good at cutting back and running right where the defense isn't. On the next play, my son faked the handoff and ran around the right side for a 25 yard TD. That put us up 18-12, with about 5 minutes left. The other team scored on their first play, to tie the game at 18-18. On our next series, we drove the ball all the way down to the 10 yard line with about 2 minutes remaining. We failed to get into the endzone this time, as one of our RB's was stopped at about the 5 yard line. The other team took over and was driving down the field. With about 5 seconds left, they snapped the ball and ran a reverse....totally faked out all of our kids, except one. He's #5, and I can't remember his name right now, but either he wasn't fooled by the reverse, or just didn't want to run to the other side of the field...lol. Either way, he was standing right there, waiting for the RB as he came his way. He grabbed his flag, which ended the game in a tie.



So, after a hard fought game, we ended up with a tie. The good thing is, no one went home with the feeling of losing their first ever football game. The whole team played great, and they really started to play better as the game went on. The offensive line started blocking, the defenders started playing their positions with a little more attention.

It was a great night for some football. Like I said earlier, I'm not sure how long he'll remember his first game, but Dad's never going to forget that first night under the lights.