Warrior Championship

We absolutely LOVED watching Noah's football team this year. 

He didn't play a lot. And he wasn't the star of the team.

But that's ok.

We loved going to every game, every weekend just the same!

They went the whole season undefeated!

The championship game was held at the Hansen Stadium against Cedar, November 9th.

They even brought around signs for the front yard.

It was freezing cold, but we weren't about to miss it.

It ended up being such a good game, (as far as the game goes) but I didn't pay attention to the score.

rocking back and forth together just before kickoff

I don't have a lot of pictures, 10 to be exact, and they pretty much all look like this one, 

and there's good reason.

As much as we loved this team, as much as Noah loved playing, and the kids he played with,

this game was actually a horrible experience!

[I honestly can't even believe I'm going to put this on here. But it's the journal!]

Noah didn't play. Not one play. Not one minute.

He didn't play. 

Period.

And to say I was pissed, is a HUGE understatement.

[even writing this now, my blood starts to boil]

I won't go into how the whole night went down, but here's a little recap.

When the game was over, the team went down to the other end of the field to get their trophies.

At this point I left my camera in the bleachers.

I didn't really care to take any pictures. 

But when I saw Noah, I wanted to still be happy for him. I had no idea what he was thinking or if he even cared.

(thankfully Sherie had her camera. I knew I would be mad about not having any pictures after all the dust had settled)

When they finally started handing out the trophies, and Noah didn't take his helmet off, I knew something was wrong. But I still congratulated him.

I mean, it was cool that they won.

Once they were all handed out, they took some team pictures.

Noah couldn't even smile. I mean, he did, but it was fake.

As soon as they were done, he came over to me, handed me his helmet, and immediately started bawling.

Bawling!!

[he doesn't really cry in front of other people]

He asked me to hold his helmet, and I asked him what was wrong. He told me he needed to go to the bathroom. I said Ok, but asked him why he was crying. I just wanted to see if he would say anything.

He finally said to me "I didn't get to play"

That did it.

THAT did it!

I said, "I know, let's go take care of that right now"

I walked him over to the head coach, said a few words, and walked away.

FUMING!

Right then Noah had decided he would never play football again. That broke my heart.

He loved football. He worked his butt off every night of practice, and never complained once. He would come home and kind of laugh while saying how mean the coaches could be, but he never complained.

I spent the next 2 or so hours literally shaking, blood boiling mad! Honestly, thinking of how I was going to get this settled. 

So...skipping through the madness,

the two head coaches ended up at my house a few hours later. They apologized to Noah, we talked about it all, the game, the whole season. And really, I felt better when they left.

I wasn't ok with it, I was still pissed at them, but I think I just needed them to acknowledge that they messed up, and wanted them to admit it, and to apologize to Noah.

Mission accomplished. 

I just wished it would have felt better.

Here was the kicker though...

A few weeks earlier, they had asked Noah to play on their all star team in a tournament down in Mesquite. So when this all happened, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. He had already said he never wanted to play again, and he had said he wasn't going to do the all star team.

I felt so bad for him. I knew he wanted to play, but they had ruined it for him.

We told them he would think about it over the weekend, and if he decided to play, he would be at practice.

It literally took the entire weekend, up until about an hour before practice on Tuesday for me to convince him to go to practice and see what he thought. 

Really, I just needed to lay in to 2 more coaches ;)

But he went, he loved it, and he played in the tournament!!

Now, let's just hope we get on a good team again next year, and that he remembers how much fun it really was.

Because honestly,

That's what it's about!!