It was now dinner time and the family was all gathered around the table quietly.

A few hours earlier, the shouting in the house could have been heard two blocks away. An initially innocent conversation from a few days ago had sparked this conflict, and now both sides seemed incapable of giving ground to the other.

The conversation had started with John’s father harmlessly asking him, “What are you going to do with yourself in high school?”

There seems to be something universally adverse about this question among soon-to-be high schoolers. For teenagers, it is always a shock to discover that there is such a thing as a future. Accordingly, John responded largely by throwing up his hands and muttering something under his breath, of which his father was able to make out a single word, “football.” His father had an astonished expression on his face for several seconds, then slowly shook his head.

“Football is an extremely dangerous sport. Do you know how many studies have been done on concussions resulting from violent contact? I know you like to watch it on TV, but actually playing it on a field against another team is a completely different story.”

John sharply looked up. There was much that he was indifferent about, but he had a remarkably strong passion for football that dated from his youth. He protested that football was his only serious athletic interest and that it would improve his fitness, reassured his father that he would have absolutely no problems in both playing football and keeping up academically, and even had the nerve to trot out the hallowed “what colleges want” argument.

The bringing up of arguments and counter-arguments on the topic of playing high school football ensued over a period of several days. Eventually John dragged both his sister and mother into the argument.
“Don’t you think I should play football?” he would ask his mother.
“Well…” his mother would thoughtfully reply.
“See? She thinks well of my playing football,” he would triumphantly declare.
Inevitably, these conversations culminated in the shouting match that had flung a shadow over a bright, cheerful summer afternoon.

At the dinner table, John’s father cleared his throat. “I suppose…I suppose I could let you play football. But only if you’re very careful not to –”

John interrupted. “Dad, it’s football. There’s no such thing as being careful. Football is when I can let everything out. Playing football is the one time I feel comfortable, the one time I can feel at home.”

“You don’t feel at home with your family?”

“My family doesn’t even apparently support my own interests and I’m not even allowed to do what I want to do. How am I truly supposed to feel at home in this restrictive atmosphere where my thoughts aren’t even respected?”

John’s father was earnestly and somewhat anxiously gazing at John. “John, you must know that I’m just looking out for your general welfare. I just want you to be safe. I respect your choices, and so if you really want to play football, by all means, do it. I’m not going to stop you from doing something you’re so passionate about.”

But John was looking away, not listening.
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During football tryouts, John proved to be a natural, instinctive runner. The coaches, astounded by his ability, proclaimed that he had the greatest raw combination of speed and agility they had ever seen at the school. John made the team and was immediately promoted to the varsity squad, but out of deference to the experience of the two senior running backs whom had been on the team for two years, was not expected to play much.
As the high school football season loomed near, John spent every day of the summer exerting full effort, focusing on the cliché of “getting better one day at a time”. The coaches noticed the strides he was making, and privately informed him that he was already undoubtedly better than the two seniors. Armed with a new confidence, he often brashly laughed about his father’s foolishness with his friends on the team. When he returned home, he would pore over the small playbook binder that was his prized possession. He was still irritated by his father’s initial attempts to, as John put it, “hinder his dreams.” Whenever his father approached him, he would pretend to be absorbed in the playbook, tracing with his finger all the little lines scrawled on the page, so that his father would walk away, disappointed.
The week before the first game of the season, John received news that he had impressed the coaches enough to start. He received votes of confidence from everyone from his coaches to his friends. When his father softly wished him luck, John turned away, pretending not to hear. He was still unable to shake off an uncomfortable feeling whenever they were in the same room together.

On the day of the game, the sky was partly cloudy, and there was a buzz in the packed and newly renovated home stadium – no freshman from the school in living memory had ever outdistanced one, much less two, seniors at the running back position before. “This is it,” John told himself. “This is what you’ve been preparing for the past few months.” There was no doubt in his mind he was going to perform well – but there was a strange nagging doubt about another topic, one that had an identity he was not quite able to determine.
John exceeded even his own expectations. On the first play of the game, he ran for an 80-yard touchdown, causing the crowd to erupt. Wearing down the defense, he finished the game with a whopping 273 yards and five touchdowns en route to his team’s thirty-point win. Every time he scored a touchdown, his friends thumped him on the back, wondering aloud how any thought of John not being allowed to try out for the team ever could have been entertained. Yet somehow, the jokes that had been immensely amusing a month ago could only elicit a small, painful smile now. Somehow, there was no state of bliss, no derivation of satisfaction. Somehow, John was only acutely aware of his own aches and bruises.
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After the game, in the commotion of the team locker room, John was presented with a game ball and was asked to make a speech.
He had admittedly fantasized about this moment for months, playing the entire scene out in his head, but seemed to have forgotten in his fantasies that a speech would require words. He had absolutely no idea what to say.
He thought long and hard.

John calmly quit the team and sauntered off to find his father, who had been cheering him on the entire game.