Proud Pappa – Cai’s 1st Touchdown!!!

I’ve totally been guilty of neglecting my 3rd child ( My Blog ). The family has been up to many things like fishing, biking, crabbing, and spending quality time together. I’m also working on something very important which I hope to share the news of in the next 12 months.

In the meantime, here’s a story I wanted to share about my youngest son, Cai, who loves sports and playing football. He played his memorable 7th game recently.

Leading up to the football game, he told me that he would get a touchdown and that I would need to buy him something if he did. I said, of course I would. I was hoping to spark a little motivation in him. In his previous attempts, he wasn’t too successful. He seemed a little shy and unsure of himself, so he was always hesitant or would hand it off to someone else.

We weren’t really expecting him to be an all-star player or anything, and we were happy that he was getting exercise and helping his team with great defense. Physically, he has all the tools (he’s the size of a 7-year-old, even though he’s only 5), but he was one of the only Pre-K players on a team that goes up to 1st graders. Mentally, I think he was still learning the game, and he really enjoys dancing before, during, and after plays, lol. After work and when we had time, we’d practice. Hopefully, it would help him on game day. We were thinking he probably needed to focus a little more.

On the day of the game, things looked ominous. The other team was playing better than we’d seen any other teams play before. Their coach was running actual plays that he’d show to the kids on a clipboard. The kids on the team all looked fast and large for their ages! They scored on their 1st possession and kept scoring. That coach wanted to win, as he kept letting the best players take the ball.

We thought the coaches on our team would do the same, as the game was close, and any mistake would probably end in a loss. Then, as the game was tied in the final minutes with possession of Cai’s team, his coaches had Cai lined up on one of the edges like a wide receiver. It didn’t look like a play where he would get the ball. They were stopping our best go-to offensive guys all day. It didn’t feel like we were going to score, and we didn’t expect that Cai would get the ball if they wanted to win. They were only at the halfway point of the field. It would be a long run.

When the ball was hiked, Cai somehow knew how to come from his position on the edge to take the handoff from the quarterback. He took the ball up the middle and proceeded to run to the left side of the field diagonally. Lots of players went after him; it didn’t look good, lol. Honestly, I thought he was going to run out of bounds or get his flag pulled. Amazingly, he got by the defense (broke some ankles, as he would say), ran along the line like a pro, and scored!!! He put in the go-ahead touchdown, and his Cardinals won!!!! And I honored my end of the bargain and got him a plushie.

The Cardinals have one more game to go; they are 7-1. Cai wasn’t at the game they lost, as we went out of town. We like to think that because his sticky defense wasn’t there that day.

Cai was such a good sport; he let me take these photos of him to honor the day!