Thanksgiving Day is known for a variety of things from dinner with your family to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but for me and my team, it means one thing, Medfield day. This rivalry has been going on ever since the school even had a program. For me and my team of twenty-eight, this is always the biggest day of our season. We have won my entire high school career and now that I have finally made varsity it was my time to shine. It was my sophomore year and after a bone-shattering performance on the JV team’s line, I was upped to the Varsity team. As soon as I got that Royal Blue jacket, I knew I would not stop playing football until my body gave out. 

“Mr. Baer…. Mr. Baer!” yelled my teacher.  

“Yes?” I inquired snapping out of my daydream. School today was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, not a single student could keep their minds off the freedom of having no school. 

“What is the answer to this question?”

“Uhhhhhh” I mumbled reading the question, “Fifty-Five!” I said before quickly realizing I had mistakenly shouted out my jersey number.

“Outstanding Mr. Baer,” my teacher unenthusiastically uttered.

I had been fortunate, if I had gotten it wrong my teacher would have reported me to my coach, who also happened to be someone very close to me, my father. Mr. Baker would have told him I was distracted in class and wasn’t paying attention to his directions, a surefire way to ride the bench and get extra laps at practice. 

After another painstaking 50 minutes of listening to Mr. Baker yap about the uses of the Pythagorean theorem, it was finally H-Block. Although I was way too focused about our upcoming game I couldn’t get anything done at all. 

I woke up early the next morning having forgotten to turn off my alarm. The break was finally here! I tried to get some more sleep before our early morning practice at 7:30 but it was a no-go I decided to walk to the practice field and maybe get some extra conditioning in.   

“Mornin’ Baer!” said a familiar voice

“Hey Coach, how is it going,” I said grinning at the southern twang of my favorite coach’s voice. Coach Hughes had lived in Massachusetts his entire life, there was no reason for him to have an accent. Coach Hughes was my favorite coach for a variety of reasons but for the most part, it was because he was the perfect balance between being hard on you but also helping with your mistakes rather than just yelling at you. He also had a great sense of humor. 

“Good,” he said, “So why are you here so early?” he said with genuine concern in his voice. 

“Woke up and couldn’t fall asleep,” I told him, “Nothing to worry about.” After saying this the worry instantly disappeared from his face. We began chatting about football and his “glory days” until practice officially started 

We started with a light jog of two laps around the track, whoever was late had to run four, I was late once and it had never happened again. Then we separated the linemen and the specialists to do one-on-one practice. This usually took thirty to forty minutes. Then came my favorite part, hitting. Being one of the strongest kids on the team had its perks. I loved seeing the kids change their position in the line so they didn't have to go up against me. After around 40 minutes of hitting we moved into the most boring part of practice, team practice, where we ran plays

The next morning I woke up and instantly downed six eggs, two pieces of toast, and ten breakfast sausages, the standard gameday breakfast then went for a quick jog to warm up my heart. 2 hours before the game I started blaring music into my ears. I had to get my mindset right. My friends and I decided to get to the field thirty minutes early to get ready, it was on our home turf. When the Medfield bus rolled in the fans started going crazy boos were coming from everywhere and the Medfied side was responding. The grass fields are overrun with elementary and middle school kids playing football trying to replicate the plays they saw on TV. It was all a blur I hadn't even realized the national anthem was playing until Coach Hughes cleared his throat and kicked me until my right hand found my heart, and then before I knew it the first snap was off I was firing into a right guard.`

The first quarter was a blur we were scoring touchdowns left and right but so was Medfield, we had only gotten the upper hand because I had gotten a sack mid-quarter at the end line, I had to keep that mentality up, but then…

“BAER YOUR OFF!” yelled coach Daly. this struck me with so much surprise that I hesitated before immediately hauling butt over to the sideline.

“You looked like you could use a break”, said Coach Daly 

Then suddenly the adrenaline from being in the game began to wear off and I felt a sharp pain in my wrist.

“ARGGH!” I exclaimed as the pain rushed through my wrist up to my elbow

“You okay kid?” Coach Daly asked with worry in his voice. 

“Yeah, I'm fine.” I winced as I walked to Coach Hughes. 

“Coach”, I whispered, “where is the tape?” Coach quickly handed me the tape without asking any questions, he knew the answer, I was injured and still wanted to play, it was the biggest thing about being a football player, playing through pain versus injury, you had to know the difference, I hoped it was the ladder and so did Coach Hughes. 

I knew going up to Coach Daly and asking to be put back in was a death wish, he had been known to enter fits of rage whenever kids asked to be put in, so I patiently waited directly next to him with the hopes he would sub me back in soon, eventually my time came, it was the last four minutes of the second quarter twenty-one to twenty-eight, we were up by a touchdown, Medfield was on the goal-line, my specialty. 

“Baer, Get in there for Andrew.” Coach finally said.

The millisecond Andrew’s foot touched the white paint of the sideline I ran as fast as I could, the call was a “Meatball Bently” which meant I was in between the center and the guard, Coach was setting me up for success here the only thing I had to do was stay low and go through the gap, easy enough to say but harder to do in real life. I got in my stance and kept my eye on the ball tuning out all the noise, I learned to do this after jumping offsides many times throughout my career.

“DOWN… SET… GOGO!” yelled Medfield’s quarterback my target for this play. I knew the sack was in the bag the minute the guard lost his balance. I pushed him down and tackled their quarterback for a loss of 7 yards, just as we were about to get set for another play the scoreboard screeched indicating that it was halftime. 

We all rushed to the end of the field to huddle up to hear what the coaches had to say, and surprisingly they just told us to grab water and stretch while they talked, we needed to stay loose and refreshed when the second half came into play. 

“You men are having an outstanding game today”, Coach Baer told us, “I wish I could be out there with you, keep up the tempo and keep pushing.” 

Hearing this flipped a switch in my brain and the only thing I could think about was winning suddenly my wrist didn’t hurt, my sweat dried up, and my breathing was less labored. I had to win this, not only for me but for my school. 

The scoreboard screeched once again and the next thing I saw was the facemask of my opponent, I stared emotionless for the rest of the quarter, as soon as I had lined up my face was stone cold, I couldn’t let him see how tired I was, or how much pain I was in, for the rest of the third quarter I kept this up until the words I least wanted to hear entered my eardrums. 

“COME OUT BAER!”

I started mentally beating myself up as I sprinted off the field, wondering what I could have possibly done wrong when Coach Daly said something I would never have expected him to say.
“Anytime you want back in this game you tell me, but not until you wipe that expression off your face, this game is about having fun, it's more fun to win than lose, but you might as well enjoy yourself while you're doing it.” 

“Yes Coach,” I said smiling, “the next play would be perfect.”

The moment I stepped over that line I had a completely different attitude, I was smiling at my opponents, which actually got into their heads more. When I pancaked a kid, I picked him up, and I kept this up the rest of the third quarter. At the end of the third quarter, we started to pick up steam we were ahead by two touchdowns now rather than one and we were at the goal line almost every drive, medfield was catching up though, it was a tense game. 

Mefield now had possession of the ball on our forty. They threw a deep pass to a kid wearing the number 9 and he easily burnt our corners scoring a touchdown

We now had possession of the ball but we gave it up early when we couldn't make it past the fifty-yard line, we were forced to punt, and when they returned it they got to the thirty-five before we finally stopped them. They pulled the deep pass stunt again this time to number 12 and got yet another touchdown bringing the game to 35-34, we had a one-point lead with 2 minutes left on the clock. Medfield had decided to go for a two-point conversion, little did they know this would turn out to be their worst mistake. 

All the pressure was on us, for the first time in maybe a decade the high schoolers in the fan section were completely silent, it was up to us. 

The ball was snapped and the Medfield lineman dropped into pass protection, I knew what I had to do, the moment I put my head up to find the ball I saw the quarterback throw it in my direction, I could see the horror in his eyes when he realized the ball was not in his receivers hand and instead in mine. I didn’t even wait to get a good grip on the ball, I ran, when I realized I had made it past the fifty I chanced a look behind my back, the nearest defender was twenty yards away but he was gaining speed I felt a rush of adrenaline and I must have gained an extra 5 miles an hour to my running speed because before I knew It I was at the twenty then the ten then, “TOUCHDOWN RAIDERS!” I heard the fans going crazy banging on the bleachers, cheering, and shouting my name, when my teammates caught up in the endzone things got crazy, a massive moshpit surrounded me, this was the happiest moment of my life since I had made the varsity team in the first place.

The final buzzer sounded and I was overcome with joy, we had kept our win streak all thanks to me, I collapsed in the endzone exhausted as my teammates carried me to the sidelines. The rest of my team lined up to shake hands with Medfield as I lay there, overcome with pain and exhaustion my dad suddenly appeared in front of me and said, “Good game son.”