Love

“Football is unconditional love.”

– Tom Brady

I love this game.

It was around this time of year, as excitement for the upcoming season begins to blossom, that I first decided to play the game.

I can remember tossing the pigskin around in my backyard one July afternoon, most likely pretending to be Vinnie Testaverde and Pepper Johnson, when I must have decided that I wanted to do more than just pretend.

Later that same day I informed my parents of my desire to play football. I don’t remember their reactions, but I do recall never feeling pressured, expected or forced to play. And I know that a few weeks later I was awkwardly suited up in pads, struggling to get this terribly stiff and uncomfortable football helmet onto my head as I nervously jogged up to the middle of the high school track, where my A Squad (Youth Football) team practiced.

20 football seasons later (I’d like to think football helmets are still as stiff and uncomfortable to wear the first handful of times to start a season), I find myself entering a football season without a team.

Don’t get me wrong… I’ll be watching and rooting for my teams this fall. But for the first time in two decades I will not be on a team. I’ve spent the last 11 seasons coaching college ball, played 4 years of college football prior to that, represented my home town for 4 years and of course there was that first and only year of youth football. Now, here I am a free agent.

As people ask (many assuming) as to why I won’t be on a team this fall, I find myself not having a good answer or perhaps having too many answers.

As I have hopefully already made clear…I LOVE FOOTBALL. So why not continue to be a part of a team? Why not stay in the thick of it? I don’t know. Or maybe I do. What I know for sure is I am going to spend this season welcoming you, my baby girl into the world.

Football is unconditional love. Old or young, boy or girl, win or lose, player, coach or fan. There are no limitations or conditions.

Over the course of this, your first season, I plan to share with you what can be learned, seen, felt and experienced from this great game, as a player, coach and fan.

Love Unconditionally,

Dad