Coach to Coach – Underestimating the Underdog

Months would pass before I would log my first meaningful memory of Joey. I remember the howling wind and unseasonably cold weather that made it almost impossible to communicate that night as I stood outside of the visitor’s locker room in Dixon, California. Players were starting to make their way towards the field as I reviewed my play call sheet minutes before we would kickoff the 2010 season. Joey, looking more like a manager than a player, nervously approached me with tears in his eyes and gripped with fear. Fear produced not from the anxiety of anticipating his first varsity game, but fear from the revelation that his estranged father who, despite a restraining order, was in the stadium and determined to make contact with his son. That’s how Joey started his varsity football career – buried at the very end of our roster and worried more about a violent father than the outcome