I am in highschool and I play high school sports, one of those sports is football.  I love football, I love the pain and the rough and tough style of the way the sport is played.  When i’m on the football field all my worries just wash away and all I focus on is the other team and victory.  I play 8 man football, and in 8 man football there is a mercy rule, the mercy rule is called getting 45’d because once you get 45 points ahead of the other team the other team loses instantly.  It’s one of the most humiliating things that can happen in 8 man football.  Well in this sport I love the team I play for got 45’d, and let’s just say my coach was less than happy with our participation.  On the monday following the loss our practice was lackadaisical and it seemed that no one was in the right mindset, this made our coach furious.  On tuesday he decided since he didn’t get 48 minutes of playing time out of us on the game field, he would get it out of us on the practice field.  We all came to practice unknowingly what our coach had planned for that day, we warmed up and stretched as we normally did but once it got time to actually start practice our coach brought us in a huddle and said,

“Now I know we are all still dwelling on what happened friday, but that can’t happen and in order for the team to perform I need everyone to have their minds on the future not the past.  My theory on why everyone is stuck on friday is because we didn’t play a full 48 minutes of a game, now i’m gunna get a full 48 minutes out of you whether it’s on the game field or its here on the practice field, now every one go and get the five man sled.” 

For those of you who don’t know what a five man sled is, it’s this thing with five pads on it that five players come up and hit and drive down the field.  On a normal five man sled there are cushions up front that are supposed to soften the blow and make it not feel like you're hitting metal straight on.  Not only were there cushions but there were springs located on the back of the metal holding up the dummy, this was supposed to give the dummies some leeway so you weren’t hitting a solid object.  Our five man sled was special, the cushions that were supposed to soften the blow were so old and hard that there was no cushion to them, and if you hit the dummy just right some of the cushion would crush into dust and you would get a face full of that dusty old cushion.  And the springs that were supposed to give you some leeway were so rusted from being outside and getting rained on, that there was no give to them at all.  Well it was a given that we all hated using this monster of a sled.  When we finally got the sled pulled out and positioned on the practice field so we could push it, as a surprise both our head coach and the assistant coach hopped on the back and stood on the sled while we pushed it.  Combined our coaches probably weigh 550 pounds, that added onto the 500 pound sled made it extremely difficult. 

Pushing the sled was not that difficult at first, but after the first 150 yards it became one of the most difficult things i have ever done.  The day didn’t help either, it was hot and humid, a deadly combination.  With the heat beating down on us we pushed the sled as hard as we could, we would push the sled with 4 groups of 5, 10 yards a piece.  When it would be my turn I would get down in my stance, face up the dummy, and hit it with my shoulder as hard as I could.  We would push it ten yards and then people would fall over, others would run to the back of the lines and throw up.  This happened for a whole 450 yards up and down the field.  When we were done, and I heard how long we had pushed the sled for, I was mad that we had to do that in the first place, I was impressed that were able to push the sled for 48 minutes and 450 yards.  After we were done everyone was on their hands and knees, exhausted. 

After we were finished our coach told us to get water.  After we got water our coach gave a speech, “I hope your ready” he started, “ I hope your ready to show that we aren’t the same as we were before.  We are better than getting 45’d, and we are better than this team coming up, we just have to be mentally prepared, and what we did yesterday was not getting mentally prepared, now, show me that you are ready to start winning and showing that you are better and more of a family than you were before.  Now first team D get out there.”  After that I could tell everyone wanted the same thing as a family, we wanted victory and we were willing to work for it.  We won the next game against a team that I had already lost to in the past, and we 45’d them and proved we were stronger both physically, but as a family also.