3-2-1-0, No Football?!

Football season is starting and somehow, we have no players.  What?!  But we have three boys who have always loved football!  How can this be?

Here's how it shakes out...

We lost Joey as a player last year when, after 9 years of playing, he decided he was done.  Ok, we get it.  If you're happy, we're happy.

Tony decided to take a break from the Rebels after learning his team would start practicing earlier than ever.  We get that too, the kid wants his summer.  We are pretty sure he will get back to it in the future after a bit of a rest and an anticipated growth spurt.

But Sam?  Sam was quite enthusiastic about football and practiced all summer with the Paraclete High School JV team.  As an incoming freshman who has played every year since he was seven years old with the Rebels, he was ready to go.  After conditioning all summer he finally got in pads and spend two glorious days ramming into kids and demonstrating his true love for the game.  We were all looking forward to his first game just a few weeks away.

As an aside, several months ago, Joey began dating a beautiful girl named Rylee.  We love her and she fits right in to our crazy family.   She shares his love for Jeeps and classic cars in general, and they have a lot of fun together within a larger group of really great kids.  We have gotten to know her family and the families of her friends and we feel very blessed to have new friends in our own lives.

Rylee brought over her ATV a few days ago because Sam challenged her to a race against his Pocket Bike.  Somehow, Sam ended up riding on the ATV (even though he knew he wasn't supposed to) and here is how it went...

When his turn didn't go as planned and he couldn't find the brake, he froze with the throttle on full.  If he had just let it go, all would have been fine.  But instead, here we are:

Wedged improbably in between the house and the palm tree, his friend Noah trying to assess the damage to the house (minimal).  By the way, the video above is courtesy of Noah.  He missed the very end because he was running to see if Sam was OK.  Here is the partial result of the crash...

                                     

There are three cracked metatarsal bones (fancy word for upper toe) which you can see pretty clearly here and two other small chips/contusions on the ankle and tibia.

Poor kid.  He may have parked his common sense by getting on the ATV, but I know that panic is a real thing (whisky throttle, look it up!) and he is suffering greatly for missing out on his first high school football season, not to mention the pain and swelling associated with the breaks.  I am so grateful he was wearing a good helmet as his head took a pretty good blow into the house.  I was out with the girls when it happened, but Jay was upstairs working and told me it was the loudest sound he had ever heard.

Luckily, it is Sam, and nothing keeps Sam down for long.  He continues to go to practice in hopes he will get cleared for at least part of the season (a real possibility).  He has been generally cheerful about his loss and doesn't complain about his crutches and boot, even in 100+ degree weather.  He tries to do most things on his own even though we are all willing to help him with just about anything.  Tomorrow he will go to his first day at Paraclete High school in all this glory, God bless him.

Perhaps its a good thing that summer ends today...