Our son, Ryan, is 21 years old. From the time he was old enough to talk he wanted to play football. Tackle football. Ryan hasn’t played football for several years, but I believe that he is the man his is today because of the years he played. 
Every mom thinks their son is great, but there isn’t a mom in the world who thinks her son is more perfect than me. Ryan is strong, compassionate, driven and he cares deeply about others. He is a hard worker, willing to try anything, and he never gives up. All of Ryan’s best qualities can be summed up in one sentence: Ryan is the ultimate team player. And that is a quality that will serve him well his entire life.
From that day when we picked up his pads and helmet in second grade, he was hooked. While he was buzzing with excitement about his new equipment, we wondered how much of that would fade as practices continued in the heat, the cold and rain, in pads, multiple times a week. Answer: not one bit. Each and every time he came off the field more excited than when he started. Not because it was easy, but because he was learning the value of hard work.
Ryan’s first coach was a great guy who had played at the college level for a college Hall of Fame coach. One evening at practice, early in the first season, Coach Wayne looked at our son and said “You got a lap after practice.” Immediately I assumed Ryan was being punished for something and I was ready to tell this coach a thing or two, but in fact, the lap was a reward — an honor lap. If you worked really hard you were rewarded with an extra lap at the end of practice and your teammates stood and cheered you on.
Lesson: Working hard gets you recognized and winners always keep trying harder. Each and every practice he pushed harder to get the extra lap at the end.
Ryan wasn’t a big guy. In fact, he was on the smaller side of his teammates and almost all opponents. He was never discouraged by the size differential, because he didn’t believe it mattered. His motto became “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” He wasn’t always able to do things the easy way, but he thought outside the box and got the job done. He quickly learned we aren’t all equally gifted, but we can all succeed if we work hard and try new ways to achieve our goal.
Football is unique in several ways. One of the things that sets football apart is the range of playing conditions that players endure in one season. From those first practices at the end of summer to playing in pouring rain to those last games in snow and cold, Ryan learned so much.
One game when Ryan was in fourth grade, it was pouring down rain and around 35 degrees at kick-off. The field was a mud pit. The boys were wet, filthy and freezing. Ryan was unfazed. As the game went on and the temperature dropped, we expected him to decide he had had enough. His uniform was soaked through, his mouthpiece was completely full of mud, and his cleats were so muddy he just slid around the field. But each and every play, he ran back to the line determined they would win the “Mud Bowl.” Ryan chose not to use the conditions as an excuse, rather a new obstacle to overcome.
Another major difference is that a football team has a lot more players and coaches than most other sports. More players equal more personalities. Ryan’s team growing up was good. They won almost all of their games, most by a large margin. When that happened, they were a happy team high-fiving, encouraging each other every step of the way. But when they faced opponents that challenged them, we saw Ryan set himself apart. As others became frustrated and angry, Ryan became an encourager. He was the guy trying to rally the fans, cheering until he was hoarse and putting out even more effort than normal. Ryan learned that in tough times, the X factor was his attitude. He refused to beat himself or let his teammates give up.
In the world of youth football, the bleachers are just a place to set your stuff down. Parents stand along the fence and move up and down the field centered at the line of scrimmage. One game as my husband and I stood at the fence, one of Ryan’s teammates came to us and asked, “Did you notice how great I’m playing?” We assured him that we were well aware that he was making MVP plays. He told us that the difference was that Ryan had noticed he didn’t understand some of the plays; so when the play was called, Ryan would explain to his teammate exactly what his responsibility was. He was achieving his best because Ryan helped him understand what he needed to do and why. After the game we asked Ryan about it and his response was that perfect kind of understatement, “Why wouldn’t I want to help him be the best he can be?”
As parents, we loved the boys who held the line to protect each other and who were willing to throw a block against Goliath for the good of their team. And we grew to love each other — the mom who loved candy corn and always had a bag to share along the fence, the family who was experiencing football intimately for the first time and learning the rules along with their son, the dads who kept stats and made sure each kid got enough playing time, and the equipment people whose job was to help the boys get out of their helmets and adjust their pads.
My role was photographer, always hoping to capture the moments for each boy that would make them proud of what they had done. At the time, my job seemed insignificant, but now that these little boys have grown into amazing men these photos take us back to a fence line packed with friends and family who didn’t realize that there was way more than a football game happening on that field.
