Giants vs. Steelers - Week 1

It was a beautiful day for football. Sunny 75 degrees with a slight breeze over the field at Cheseborough Park in Valencia, CA. Although it was only week 1, the excitement and energy felt like it was a Super Bowl. You could cut the electricity with a knife. From the moment those little 3, 4 and 5 year olds took the field the cameras were going crazy. Every mom needed a picture of her little star in the making as the players warmed up with Coach Adam before taking the field for this epic showdown.

Me, however, I was as nervous as a sixth grader asking that cute girl to dance at little Matthew's Bar Mitzvah. "Are these guys going to line up? Will they run in the right direction? Will there be a meltdown on the field? Will a parent yell at me because their child didn't get to play running back?" and most importantly "Will Logan and Peyton have fun?" So many questions to be answered. Luckily last night after our final tune up practice before the big game, Joie and I strategized about who should play where (behind every good coach is a very supportive wife). I sent my depth chart to Coach Dan and Coach Kirk and while they responded with "Nice job Coach." It was evident they did not review my plan prior to game time.

Right now you are reading this going "enough hype and build-up, lets hear about the game." I am getting to the game but the hype is half the fun. Things did not start off so good. We lost the coin toss and the Steelers started with the ball and on the first play, Willie Parker...I mean, #3 took it to the house for a touchdown (while we don't keep score in this league, it doesn't take much to figure out we were losing 7 - 0). Now we have the ball and we gained a few yards here and there on 1st, 2nd and 3rd down. Faced with a 4th down and a long way to go, I made a decision that will go down as the best coaching move of the game. I know my kids, I know Logan can run like the wind, I told Logan he was going to be Running Back and I made sure he knew which way to run, I told Tanner McKelvey (BTW, Tanner is a true gamer for playing the game despite being heavily Tylenol'd up to keep his fever down) to hand the ball to Logan. As Tanner received the ball from center, he handed to Logan, Logan bounced it to the left side outside of the tackle, turned the corner and saw nothing but daylight, wide open field and no one was going to catch "FLASH". I am not trying to brag or anything but Logan is one fast little dude! I wish I could have seen my smile as Logan pulled a Forrest Gump and kept running way past the End Zone for his first ever Touchdown! I don't think he stopped running till I gave him a big hug to congratulate him for his awesome run.

Now I am sure some of you are wondering about Peyton. I was so concerned about Peyton, he is the youngest on the team and the feeling was the young guys will lose attention early on and not want to play. Let me tell you about Peyton, he played just about every play of the game. While 4 and 5 year olds were sitting out, Peyton was right there, in the trenches, playing with the big kids. Mostly Peyton played lineman (Offense and Defense), and he did have a couple plays at Running Back, although he was just a "Decoy" (he laughs so hard when I call him a decoy, I think he likes the way the word sounds). My thinking is, we already used one secret weapon this game, you think I want the parents getting pissed because the coach's kids are the only ones that can score? Actually a couple other kids scored but nothing as good as Logan's 30 yard dash. Logan had another awesome run the second time he touched the ball, although he ran out of bounds a couple yards before the end zone.

The kids did awesome. They listened, they lined up, they ran around, they snapped the ball and most importantly, they had FUN! No upset parents, no meltdowns on the field. I am looking forward to our week 2 matchup. I hope we can unleash secret weapon #2. The Jets may get a little taste of "Thunder 'n Lightning"!!!