My first year of teaching I coached high school football. Several of the players who were a part of my position group were everything you looked for in an athlete: hard worker, competitive, successful on the field, good students. But, they stopped playing after 9th grade. Why? They had been playing tackle football since 4th grade and were burned out. After a football career of 6 years, they had had enough.  I started playing tackle football as soon as it was available where I grew up: 8th grade. I completed my career after my 12th grade year and finished playing football after 5 years. By 9th grade, some of my former players had already played for a longer period of time than I had my entire life. I played for a pretty successful football program where I grew up and for the majority of my career I was a starter in that program. If I were just starting football again today in the 8th grade, I would have never seen the field. I know this because I have coached modern 8th grade football too. The players I have coached now are so much more skilled at the game in 8th grade then I was because most have already played for the same amount of time as my entire football career.

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