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American Football in High School

It was several years since I was an exchange student but certain things you'll never forget. The American Football season in High School was such a thing.

Now I’m going to tell you the story about a regular game day for the Raiders - The American Football Team of Wamego High School. Or I’ll start the story the night before game day namely Thursday night.

Pat football
Here I’m scoring an extra point. In the background you can see the flag on half pole because of september eleven.

The day before Game Day

A Thursday afternoon practise was always kind of chilled but the athmosphere was not. It was mostly drilling plays over and over again. I who was the varsity kicker used to take two freshmens and a bag of footballs to practise PAT goals and Kickoffs. I kicked and the freshmens stod behind the goal and ran like crazy chickens to catch and return the footballs.

Team dinner

After Thursday practise the entire team went together for dinner at a teammate's home. It was like 40 huge football players eating like pigs so the family making the dinner probably became broke when we all left off.  : )

Late night cermony

Thursdays always ended at night, 00:00 am, in the centre of the gamefield when the team met for peptalk. Yeah, it was a peptalk with only us players.

"The 4 captains began the cermony by telling us how important the game was and that we would kick their asses. It ended with a laud Waaaammeeeeggooo Raaaiiiders!!"

Today it sounds ridicilous but at that time it couldn’t be more serious. And it also worked because it really got me ready for the game the next day.

Friday - Game Day

Friday morning started with me walking to school in my game jersey. It was a proud moment to be walking in the Varsity Jersey. In school “a secret cheerleader” had decorated my locker with paintings and ballons and put all kind of sweets in the locker. It was always some homebaked cookies and Gatorade (sportsdrink). It was awesome! It was also a beautiful girl, Amanda Flear, wearing my away-jersey in school.

3 pm - Excitement start kicking

After school at 3.00 pm we drove to the game field 3 km away. The drive took around 30 min because we drove back and forward on the main street a couple of times just to pump up the atmosphere further. Everyone else in High school with a car  was also driving on the main street so all the times we passed eachoter we were yelling to eachoter about how much ass we would kick tonight.

4pm - Short practice before kickoff

At 4 pm we had an easy practise without pads. For me it meant more kicking and more freshmens running around.  When it was like 45 min before kickoff we returned to our looker room and changed to game outfit. You could from the locker room here the cheerleaders outside and more people coming to see the game.

The Lord’s Prayer 5 min to kick off

5 minutes to kickoff the priest came in. Yeah, for me it was really strange to have a priest in the looker room before the game. In Sweden there aren’t many people going to church and there is absolutly not any priest praying before games. But in the U.S everyone took one nee and hold the hand to the person next to you. The priest then wished us good luck and ended with the Lord’s Prayer.

As you have all see in high school movies we got into game mode by jumping around, hitting eachother and getting pumped up. Full of excitement we ran out from the locker rooms to the game field while cheerleaders and 2000 spectators chearing for us. It was an unbelieveble feeling that gives me goose bumbs just thinking about it.

Oscar carlsson kickoff
On this photo I'm doing a kickoff while the crowd cheering Carlsson, Carlsson. It was soo cool!

Extra point
Extra point after touch down.

Playing football as an exchange student was a crazy and awesome experience that I’ll never forget and probably never experience again. If you have the opportunity to play in your American High School Football Team - TAKE IT!

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