Letters to my Stepdaughter III

I wrote this in December of 2012.  If you know football schedules, you’ll notice the reference to the Army-Navy game, which is traditionally played in December.

High school.  I still believed in magic.  I went to a school where football was practically a life or death matter.  Since I liked football and hoped to do great things, it was right up my alley.  And a lot of it was good.  But I was learning that much of it was dark.  Life, I mean.

 We had a sophomore team, and I started the season as the backup quarterback.  And I hated the starting quarterback.  It seems ridiculous now, but it’s the way it was.  I would like to think that I was above that sort of thing – jealousy, despising people—but, yeah, that was me.  It would be much later before I would learn the depth of my depravity.  That was not my concern at the time.

 We played 7 games that year.  Halfway through the 4^th game, against or rival Capital High School, the starting quarterback broke his collarbone.  So I got my chance.  It was not an impressive start. I threw an interception and fumbled twice.  One of the fumbles was recovered for a touchdown – for the other team.  But, we went on to win 14-12.  In fact we won all of our games that year.  I threw 4 touchdown passes during the season and the other quarterback didn’t throw any.  Take that, Bob Nowierski!

 So it was competition all the time, it seems, in one way another.  I had my first date that sophomore year.  I don’t think she spoke one full sentence to me the whole night, and I was too terrified to start a conversation.   It was a not a great way to start my dating life, but it least it started.  Interestingly, I discovered something else in high school.  Winter depressed me, especially after Christmas.  Truthfully, I was pretty moody.

 Another side trip. When I flipped on the Army-Navy game yesterday it reminded me that 50 years ago I watched Roger Staubach lead Navy to victory over Army. Roger became my hero as a quarterback at the time.

 Back to the “moody” thing.  It’s no use trying to compare myself with others. I thought I was the center of the universe.  And that, sadly, is normal.  I had not come to understand yet why that was.  I did not understand or even care about the seriousness of the fall, the rebellion of our parents Adam and Eve.  To openly defy God is a horrendous act, but that’s what they did.  And it affected every human being who came after them.  We all are rebels against God, coming into this world with the desire to submit to nothing buy our own desires.  So my real problem was not that I was moody.  It was that I was a rebel.  Life was not a mess because things didn’t go my way.  Life was a mess because I was willingly and shamelessly ignoring the God who created me, who is also the God who rightly claims authority over my life and commands that I place nothing before Him.  You know what? How important was that when girls, football fame, and popularity were desires (really, idols) to pursue?

So what else went on in high school?  I will be back.