The other team lined up on their side facing their um ... goal? no, um, shoot, what's it called? I've totally lost the word ... is it "zone"? Anyway, they were facing the way they wanted to get the ball. Nathan and his team were facing them, all spread out on their side of the field, 5 guys lined up close, Nathan right in the center, and the other 6 spread out farther back.
Usually when they do this, the other team kicks the ball way over Nathan and the other 4 lined up front, and someone on his team behind him catches it and then RUNS toward our "goal" (shoot! what is that word?!?) and Nathan and the rest of his team are supposed to keep the other team from tackling our guy with the ball so he can get as far as possible. This means that Nathan just slams into the other guys one at a time, or even gets into one of those shoving matches where the other guy doesn't go down right away so Nathan just keeps him from getting any closer to our guy. I've gotten used to this one-on-one thing. I can handle this one-on-one thing. Nathan's been wrestling with Michael, who's always been bigger than him, his whole life - mostly for "fun" (boys idea of fun - weird huh) but every so often Nathan goes at Michael for real - and last year, middle school basketball got really rough sometimes too, so I tell myself, "at least this is WITH pads, on the SOFT turf, and WITH referees, and at least Nathan never has the ball so he'll NEVER be at the bottom of a dog pile - or worse, folded in half backward at the bottom of a dog pile - so I can handle this, let him play, breathe, it will be okay."
Until this week's game -
So anyway, they (this other team which our school has apparently not won a game against in 10 years) were lined up ready to kick, Nathan and his team were spread out ready for the ball, and their guy who kicked it, only kicked it a little, and it only went a little ways out, and they were flinging themselves toward it, and my Nathan flung himself down on it just before one of their guys did so he landed on my Nathan (dog pile beginning!) and then a bunch of them ran (WITH CLEATS!!!!) over them and landed on them and some of our guys crashed into it too I think - I don't exactly remember anything clearly past my Nathan's body sort of low "Superman flying" a short distance and diving onto the ball and INSTANTLY being slammed and smothered by hundreds of other football players in a HUGE pile (okay-okay- I know there could have only been 21 guys at most) and I panicked and wanted to rip them off my baby and wanted to know what had happened to the nice system of him NOT having the ball and him just slamming into one guy at a time and him NEVER ending up in one of those piles. Everyone in our bleachers was cheering and so happy. The announcer was praising Nathan by name and number (players who mostly just slam into one guy at a time don't get their name spoken over the loud speaker near as often as the players WITH the ball do). His team mates on the sidelines were cheering in their throw-themselves-against-each-other and excitedly-slap-each-other sort of way. And his coaches did not look unhappy either. In the second that all this happened, one thought, one fact that I'd seen for myself, floated in my head behind the panic, trying to get through - I'd seen him land nice and flat BEFORE the dog pile started, so he wasn't folded in half backward. Still, I said out loud, something like,"get off him!" or something like that because other women reassured me and young men in the crowd made comments like "they're just having fun" or something like that which showed they had no comprehension of carrying a baby in utero for 9 months and keeping him safe and wanting his delivery, and his whole life, to be safe and then seeing him crushed before your eyes. But they all got up off Nathan and he was fine ... and SO HAPPY.
And as Joni told me when I kept saying something like, "but he told me his position would never end up with the ball, would never end up in one of those piles," "you'll never convince him that he shouldn't have done that." And now I've witnessed him rise, unharmed, out of what I'd been the most scared about if he played tackle football, so I guess (maybe) everything will be okay, so, "I can handle this, let him play, breathe, it will be okay." right?!?!
and we WON that game! (watching 14 year old males celebrate is a hoot.)
Update - Nathan says he was NOT flat, that he was curled around the ball when they landed on him, that "it's better that way," he says they even saw it "on the tape." So, I just saw him dive for it and missed the moment of him curling around it before they landed/stepped on him. I think sometimes God lovingly gives us tiny moments of blanking out so we don't see/notice things which could give us heart failure. Well, if he had to be "folded" or "curled" or "bent" and then smashed, at least it was in a way that a body naturally "folds" instead of backwards.
