Football defines me as a person today. Football gives me an identity and a belonging that I otherwise did not have before. Football, the fulcrum at which I credit my stature today. Football, football, football, one may think it is my whole life and it has been; however, without my begging and pleading it may not have happened. I suffered with the distaste of my lame karate class that my mother insisted on being trendy. “It’ll be fun...you’ll learn character.” Every kid in the third grade wants that, right? Not exactly. Classes took place on Tuesday nights after school, a smelly, stuffy upstairs space above a gymnastics studio. This was the place where I was when every other normal male that I was friends with was at nothing other than football
