Running The Miles

Chapter 14

I dont really know what they do in NFL tryouts. I'm winging it.

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        My face on sport's magazines, everywhere. I'm asked to several interviews and TV news channels, including talk shows and football conventions. Everytime I walk around a store, once in a while a group of people would come up to me with cameras and pictures of me on the front of a magazine. It was kind of awesome, but it got a little irritating at times when the people just kept coming. 

        As the days kept going by, the football tryouts came nearer and nearer. I trained after work at the marine biology facility. Sometimes I'd ask one of my highschool football team mates, or all of them, to come and play some football with me at the fields, or something like that. Luckily, they treated me as if I was the most annoying person there, but in the funny way. I'd joke and say "I'm famous now!", and they'd give a come back like, "Shut up, no one cares about you, bow hand over that pizza!"

        My parents dont mind. I'm finished with school, I have a job, a Jeep, and I'm so close to affording a house finally. We'd discussed the possible outcomes of joining a NFL football team, which would be having to rent a hotel in Indiana, ot some place near there, I'd have to wait a long time to buy a house, they sulked that I'd be really far away from them, and then I said they'd get part of my pay check, which was, as you could say, quite a bit, that shut them up. 

        On the day of the try outs, as I was walking to the stadium where you were supposed to go, cameras and people surrounded me. I was tempted to push them away. I just kept walking and answering brief questions along the way. I was kind of selfe conscious as I walked into the stadium filled with bulky dudes pushing body weights, running in place and doing push-ups, running laps, it was just weird. I was so used to seeing people my own age, my own height, and people that I knew.

        And after looking at all of these fit people, the one thought that crept into my ind was,

        I'm screwed.

        For the try-outs, some of the exercises we did were individually done at a time, and then some we did all together, for example speed. I crushed them all in the speed. When we did the weights, I was second place, but not far behind first. We had to see who could cross the line first with the body weights. 

        When we did the field goals, I kicked the farthest, and made the goal kick every single time coming up to the longest kick, which I made, unlike others, who missed a couple of kicks now and then. And then it was time for the passes and throws. We had to see how far we could throw, how straight we could throw, how fast, how accurate, how good of a spiral, all of the technicalities. And then we had to catch the ball. Still, and moving.

        I did above average for the other drills, but I wasn't the best. It didn't beat down my confidence, but it let me know that I could be at eye level. 

        During the catching and throwing drills, I caught every ball, and I threw every ball in a perfect, fast, straight, perfectlt spiraled path to every person. 

        When we did a form of scrimmage, I asked if I could take quarterback. They were a little reluctant, but they budged. I was passed the ball, and then I looked, there were two open people. One of them looked like they could make it, but there was an opponent to the far side who would take him out, so, I threw the ball to the other person, in a perfect spiral, they caught it, and then they made the touchdown. 

        We did this a couple of times. Sometimes I was quarterback, and sometimes I ran to open field to recieve, making a touchdown everytime. 

        At the end of tryouts, we all packed up, went home, and waited till the next day to see the results on the sport's news.