I went to a bigger school. All cliques were represented. You had your gangsters, goths, vampires, preps, nerds, and of course, your jocks. Since I was a shy person, I didn't fit in very well. I tended to keep to myself, and that seemed to work well for me. I was just ready to get out of there. Of course I miss the good kids. The ones that weren't afraid to be themselves, those were the people I cried for at graduation. The people I was glad to see leave though were the obnoxious kids. You know what I mean? The people that always think they're better than you, but I didn't let them get to me. Those people that drank, smoked, did drugs, and cheated.. Those people never got to me. Their ignorant choices were their own, so I just let them waste their life. Just like Jerrod Finlay, the all-star quarterback on the football team. Everybody loved him and though he was cool because he partied with his older brother all the time while getting drunk. All that partying caught up to him though. I remember the event like it was yesterday, but only by choice..


The class was pre-college algebra. It was actually really simple if you listened to the teacher. Heck! Even the slow kid got it because he paid attention, but Jerrod always came to school hung-over, so when first hour math rolled around, he never listened. This of course made his grade drop to a low C, but what did he care? He was still school eligible to play, and state football was coming up. He barely got by, until the day of our semester final. The teacher had waited to tell him that if he failed, he wouldn't be able to play in the state game. We all knew what was coming next. Jerrod moved to the table with one empty seat, with the other being occupied by Jenna Birch, who was better known by the "cool" kids as the "smart freak". He knew that this had been a semi-difficult class, but since he spent his time in class sleeping, he was about to fail, but he knew he had to pass.

About halfway through the test, I decided to look over at Jenna. You see, I kind of had a crush on her. She just had the prettiest eyes, but I digress. Immediately, I noticed how close Jerrod was to her. It only took a second to take note of his head peering down at her answers. Of course he was going to cheat. He wanted to leave our senior year with a bang as state champions in football. Truthfully, I could care less about that stupid sport, but that's just me. At first, I wanted to stop him and offer to tutor him so he would understand the concept and be prepared, but then I remembered his lifestyle. While it was tough to watch this kid pass even though he didn't know a single thing, I just did not care, but I decided I would think about it when I got home.

That night, I thought and thought and though. I weighed in how his parents still pressured him to excel in sports, how this class isn't important for him, and even how Mr. Jones, the math teacher, didn't seem to be too fond of Jerrod. Once I scaled this all up, it still amounted to him making a stupid choice which could have been avoided. If he thought he could do this, then go to school on nothing but sports, then I was going to let the cruel reality of life after school show him how bad he messed up. It seemed that the right thing to do was to do nothing at all.

Jerrod passed the test. He went on to play and actually win the state football title. They say it was his last second, perfect spiral Hail Mary all the way across the field in overtime to push us up 28-21 over Eastridge High that won the game. He became a town hero. A D-II college took notice, and he was offered a full ride scholarship to play. He truly thought he would make it to the NFL. That kid graduated without knowing a single thing about math, and thought he would not need to know it. Reality was right around the corner, though.

By the end of our senior college years, while I was at Boston College and he was at a neighboring college, we thought we were the next big shots, but I had the true upper hand. Using all my skills from school, I became an engineer, with a job offering all ready to make a six figure salary. Rumors were floating around that Jerrod might get drafted into the NFL, but I knew it wouldn't happen. He did have an opportunity to get to a D-I school to play there, but the full ride scholarship seemed to be the deal breaker for him. Plus, the classes were easier there, and while any semi-intelligent person would realize that an easier class really only leads to a second class education, he didn't take the time to consider that.
When draft day rolled around, everyone in my hometown had their television set turned to the football channel, to watch one of our very own get drafted to the big leagues. Even I had my T.V. on, but only for the antithesis. We watched for hours and days to hear Jerrod's name, but it never came. I was right. I knew I would be.
Now a days, I'm the president of engineering for the new branch of factories in my hometown. Every once in a while after work, I like to get a drink at the bar, but that's not the only reason I go there, you see, that bar is now practically home for Jerrod Finlay. From sun up to sun down, you can find him drinking away his pain until somebody recognizes him by his too-tightly fit letterman’s jacket from our high school, and asks him what he's doing here. While he'll never answer that question, he will be sure to tell you all about that state football game, and the rest of the "Good ol' days." Some nights, I start to feel sorry for the guy. He was on top of the world in high school. I let these thoughts of pity and sympathy sit in my head, until that one memory comes back about when I contemplated telling him that cheating was wrong. After that, those thoughts all go away.
Afterword:
Every choice we make will affect our future. This is especially true in high school, but the one thing that always stays the same is the clear difference between wrong and right. While we may not be born with a mental power to differentiate between the two, it is a skill which is quickly picked up. After we achieve that level of thinking, the choices we make will put a bigger weight on our shoulders, that is if you choose wrong instead of right, and it does not matter what clique you're in, how cute you are, how strong you are, or even if you won a state football game, when we continue to make wrong choices every day, that weight on our shoulders will get heavier. With this in mind, we can realize that Jerrod might have felt like Atlas with that big weight on his shoulders, but Jerrod is only human, and every human has a breaking point. You might be able to calculate how much weight your shoulders can take, but that requires math skills. Too bad Jerrod slept through that entire class.