The First Big Game

Gabe loves all things sports. From a very, very young age, his love of sports was apparent to us. I have picture after picture of Gabe with baseballs, basketballs, soccer balls. And then there are the footballs.

For those of you who don't know, Gabe's dad played football for the Iowa State Cyclones. So, of course, Gabe has long waited to play on a football team himself. That long-awaited day came yesterday, with Gabe's very first flag football game.


{Above is our team, the Kansas State Wildcats. Gabe is in the first row, second from the left.}

The boys on the team are first and second graders. And with only a handful of practices under their belts, you can imagine that some of them were completely clueless.

Well, I guess I should clarify and say most of them were completely clueless...


This, mind you, is coming from a completely clueless mom when it comes to football. But even I knew that all the boys pushing on each other was not really the point of the game.They all knew that they had practiced how to block, so that's what they all did for the first several plays of the game. Never mind the fact that they were suppose to be on defense at this point...



They just all kept blocking each other while one guy ran with the ball. It was quite humorous.

When they weren't blocking each other, they just kind of stood around waiting for the coaches to tell them what to do next. Jason was recruited by the coaches to help too...



Gabe once again demonstrated his strength. He's not one of the biggest kids on the team, but he can go up against kids much bigger than him and push them out of the way. I don't understand it, but he's always been a little bull...



It was great seeing him block so well.

But then, he got the ball.

As Gabe explained to us after the game, everyone was running at him so he just ran the other way. Unfortunately, it was the wrong way, towards the wrong goal, trying to avoid the other players.

Gabe lost several yards. But, he was fast...I can say that!

And he had fun.

And when you're seven, that's all that matters in the end.

Unless, of course, you're a competitive boy like Gabe is. And then it also matters if you win or lose ;) It's funny how there is no official score kept, yet all the boys know who wins and who loses. This game finished in a tie, however.



After the game, we asked Gabe what he thought. His response, "That was awesome!" Like he said, he gets to play with his best buddies and hit people. Oh, and there's a ball.

I can see many, many football games in our future. I guess I'd best learn the rules of the game, so maybe I don't sound so clueless.