Last week was a big week for the NRHEG community. Specifically for football fans. For the first time in school history, NRHEG can call itself section champs in football. With the big win on Friday, the Panthers earned their first state tournament birth in over 40 years. The former New Richland-Hartland Panthers won multiple state championships during the 1970s.
During my days in school, I have a lot of memories from football. I remember going out for football in fifth or sixth grade and having a lot of fun. I remember quitting after my first year, and then going out and playing football again during my middle school days. It was during eighth grade where I suffered my first concussion.
It was not a pleasant experience. I remember the first day it happened. I was running to tackle the running back and that’s all I remember. I remember running and then I remember lying on the ground. I imagine I was only down for a few seconds, but it felt like longer than that. I finished that practice and didn’t give it much thought.
I remember we had another practice later that week. During that practice I may have made things worse. I was running to tackle someone and a lineman came over to block me. We were practicing against the 7th-graders, so it was pretty easy for me to get through the line. This particular play was one where the running back got past us. I was running to tackle him and the lineman I mentioned above ran to block me. As he ran, his helmet met mine before anything else and I went straight to the ground. This time I mainly remember my head hurting, a lot.
The next day we had a game. I wasn’t going to miss out on that. For the first time in my life in that game, I felt like I couldn’t really play football. The entire game I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I was trying to play nose tackle, but I couldn’t jump off the ball and I couldn’t do my job. I had a bad feeling following that game.
Before the next practice I talked to my coaches. I told them I wasn’t feeling right and that I kept seeing stars. I didn’t know what the name of it at the time was, but they are called floaters. After that day in practice, I had an appointment with the doctor. She informed me of the problem and said if the problem persisted, specifically, if I kept seeing floaters, to let her know within a day or two.
A week later I informed her that I still was seeing floaters. She told me dad I needed to go in to get a CT scan right away. It was kind of a scary thing for me. After the results, they said everything was fine, except that I had some damage to my neurotransmitters that went to my eyes. They said that was the cause for my floaters. I wish I could say they have gotten better since, but they haven’t. Often times I will see blobs of darker colored space along with the floaters in my vision all day long. Eighth grade was the end of my football career, but not my football memories.
Friday night was a special night. My dad and I thought about braving the cold and going out to the game, but decided we would do what we’ve done in the past: listen to the game the old-fashioned way, on the radio. Within minutes of the game NRHEG was on the scoreboard. And a few minutes later, bam, another score. It felt great. Earlier in the week I said I thought we were going to win after my dad said we didn’t have a chance. I think he said something like, “I give them a 1 in 100 chance.” After they won, my dad couldn’t stop talking about how awesome it was and how he couldn’t believe that we won. It really was a great night for us to enjoy, along with the team and the community.
Thought for the day: Although not everyone is as passionate about sports, everyone appreciates seeing the kids in our school represent us to the best of their abilities. In the end, it is still a game, and those kids demonstrate the most important aspect of sports, to have fun and represent the team and their school.