Thursday, October 8, 2009

How?

He walks out of the tunnel. Then starts a steady jog as his adrenaline begins to pump from the noise the fans are making. He is confident yet worried. The team captain has more than just the duty of playing his position. He plays both sides of the ball and special teams. He leads his team with more experience and talent that they all look to in a time like this. Kickoff, he returns it to his own 42 yard line. He looks to the stands and sees a wild crowd, chanting 22!, wearing 22 on their face. He's ready for what could be the best game of his high school career. First play, the quarterback hands him the ball to the left, it's a run! He refuses to take minimal yards. He fights his way through 3 defenders and breaks lose down the sideline for a 58 yard touchdown! He is going crazy, his team is going crazy, the fans are going crazy. He scores 3 touchdowns in the game before it happened. His third touchdown would lead to the most devastating time of his life. 11 Spartan players came out for the extra point. The kick went up, it was good. Only 10 players returned to the sideline. Number 40, laying on the field, was holding his ankle. He immedeatly ran to see what was wrong with his best friend. 40 had a broken ankle in a few places, not a big deal. "I'll win this for you Mark, we WILL win this for you," Adam said. After the ambulance had left the game resumed. 22 would then go crazy as he collected 9 consecutive tackles on defense to lead the team with 16 for the game. 252 total yards and 4 touchdowns was the best game of his high school career. He called Mark's brother on the way home. Brother said everything was alright and Mark would be out of hospital in the morning. He had a bad gut feeling but he did not know what it was. He couldn't sleep that night, tossing and turning, he knew something was wrong. He woke up the next day and a meeting was called at the high school, on a Sunday, for the entire football team. Mark had died in the hospital of an overdose to pain medication by the doctors. He was furious, sad, confused, depressed. How?

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