Ernest and His First Football Season

I know I have been slipping big time. This is my first time posting since the NFL season started. My bad for waiting until now to post about my little man, Ernest, playing football for the very first time with the Mobile Youth Football Conference (MYFC). For those who aren't friends with me on Facebook and Twitter, let me just say that we have had a ball. It's been exhausting, time consuming, and frustrating at times. Yet I am proud to be a football mom again. My oldest, Cordell, played football when he was younger for a moment but things didn't really work out on my part. Would have been nice to have kept him in. :-(

Yesterday was Little Ernest's last game of the regular season. His team, Cottage Hill Steelers played against the Municipal Raiders. We really were not worried about it since the team has beat them twice before. Once in the Jamboree (what is actually pre-season) and again during regular season. They won their last game 24 - 8 at Municipal Park. Making them having a first season record of 5 wins and 2 losses. Which also makes them 3^rd in the upcoming playoffs!!!  Here how each game went:

Week 1: Cottage Hill Steelers 22 Municipal Raiders 6
Week 2: Cottage Hill Steelers 6 West Mobile Buccaneers 12
Week 3: Cottage Hill Steelers 12 Eight Mile Giants6
Week 4: Cottage Hill Steelers 30 Trimmier Jets 2
Week 5: Navco Vikings 12 Cottage Hill Steelers 6
Week 6: Bye
Week 7: Cottage Hill Steelers 28 Semmes Colts 6
Week 8: Municipal Raiders 8 Cottage Hill Steelers 24

Anyhow, I can’t begin to tell you how much I have seen my little man grow to not only improve his football skills but actually enjoy playing the game off football. He was so excited about playing football at first because his cousins played last year and he so badly wanted to play with them. However, because his birthday is in October so he had to wait a year and play with the 4 year old. It was a bit of an adjustment for all of us. Getting Ernest to wear his helmet was the first challenge. The coach advised us to have him wear it as much as possible before his first practice so that he could get use to it. He complained about how much it hurt and how heavy it was for weeks, but eventually he did get use to it and never had a problem putting it on. We went through the mood swings of not wanting to practice. This is includes running. In fact, I discovered that my poor baby has no sense of urgency what-so-ever. When he was suppose to run around the field he would take forever and always end up last. Hollering at him didn’t help at all because he would just run slower. Eventually, we worked with him enough that he started running around the whole field and being about 5 or 6^th to last. He hates to be tackled, but he learned to love being an offensive guard just so he could protect the quarterback. One time he fell asleep in the car on our way to practice and it was his worse practice day ever. That was also the only time he ever cried on the field. He cried once after that but it was nowhere near the field because he didn’t want to get in trouble for it. LOL

Besides our challenges with Ernest we had to get use to going to practice every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday night from 6pm-8pm. Not fun after a long days work. Saturday mornings were the worst. I take absolutely no pleasure in waking up at 5:30am - 5:50am to be at the park at 7am and wait around for the games to start at 8:30am. Let’s just say that it drove us crazy especially since the weather most of the time was extremely hot and humid. Then to make it more unbearable we would end up staying around to watch our nephews DJ and Man play for the 5 year old team. So to keep ourselves cool and as a special treat afterward we made going to get 99 cent Icee’s an “After Football Game” Tradition.

I think the hardest part for us was watching our son sit on the bench a lot at the beginning of the season. In fact, there were a couple of games where he didn’t play at all. Big Ernest and I were so tempted to waste our money, pull him out, and pick another place to have him and Robert go to next year. However, as the game went on we saw Ernest play just a little more and noticed that our teams were a lot more uncivilized than we were. So we stuck around and realized how much our little boy enjoyed just being noticed as a football player. Anything to make him smile means a lot.

I have lost my voice over good and bad plays. Spent my time during every single game tweeting and updating on Facebook the scores as they happened. Took pictures and videos whenever I thought something was relevant. I even met some really great parents who were just as proud of their sons as we are of ours. I like being a football mom and really can’t wait to see our first playoff game in two weeks. For those I will not forget to blog about as much detail as possible. In the meantime you can enjoy my many videos and photos that I have taken over the past few months. Enjoy and LET’S GO COTTAGE HILL STEELERS!!!!!
Ernest's First Year in Football Photos:

The photos you see in this slideshow begin from the day we completed his registration to their homecoming celebration. Most are just from his practice because he didn't play as much as we would liked him to. But each and every photo has a special great memory. So proud and happy for my little man.

(You can roll over the slideshow to access the control buttons)

Ernest's First Year in Football Videos:

The below videos are mostly videos I took at the beginning of the season during Ernest's practice. There are a total of 21 listed in the video playlist. Believe me I could have very easily taken more, but after a few weeks it seemed unnecessary. Hope you enjoy them.

Cottage Hill Steelers Spirit Night 2010:

I took several videos of Ernest's first homecoming celebration. I must make note that more happened that night, but they started an hour late and we did not stick around. There are about 10 total in this group.