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Student Opinion Column: The Unique Football Experience

By: Cort Pokorney, senior at Leigh High School on September 24, 2018

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Now that I’ve entered my senior year of high school, I find myself constantly jumping ahead to the future, my thoughts consumed with all things college.  Scholarships, college applications, and a lot of late nights are already beginning to consume my time. I’m excited to move on to this next chapter in my life, yet everyone keeps telling me I’m going to miss high school one day.

I don’t know if I will miss the entire high school experience, but one thing is for certain...I’m going to miss playing football. Football is definitely my favorite part of high school.   I can attribute that to my dad, my older brother, and my coaches for teaching me to love not only the game of football, but to love everything that comes with it.

I currently don’t have any plans to play sports in college.  I’m just excited to finish my senior year and focus on the next chapter in my life. But that means that these are the last few times I get to take the field with my teammates.  Football is unique compared to other sports because it really exists only in the here and now.  Basketball, volleyball, and even baseball and softball are still played by adults all the time, but not football.  Twenty years from now, I won’t be able to get my almost 40-year-old friends together, throw on shoulder pads and a helmet and play a game of full-contact football. Well, not without injuries anyway.

Playing football is only a memory for most people after high school.  As I’ve realized recently, my “football clock” is running out of time, and I can’t ever flip it over and start again.

*This article was originally printed in the Norfolk Daily News “20 Below” section featuring talented student writers in the area.