Quarterback hands off to teammate

Yesterday with my son and his family we planted two cheery trees on my son’s land in the fruit garden in memorial of Peter, our deceased son.

We stayed overnight and this morning we went to my 11year old grandson’s Pop Warner football game. My grandson plays quarterback and on his first series he threw a touchdown pass to his teammate. His team missed the extra point play. His team had only about four more players than the required 12 on offense and defense and so players had to play offense and defense. Eventually his team tired out and the other team went on to win by scoring two touchdowns and two extra points.

At the end of the game my grandson’s coach rightly pointed out how hard the team had played and how proud of them he was. The tired team left the field proud of how they played. I subbed for my daughter-in-law as the official photographer for the team and when we got back to their house I downloaded the pictures to their computer. She will send them out the ‘raw’ digital format to all of the team members while I intend to take some of them and fix them up, like the one of the side of this posting.

Watching this game of young players I was reminded of how football of all sports was extremely team oriented. A quarterback can be great but with a missed block on the line can be sacked. A defensive end can fail to contain the outside and allow the team large yardage around end. More than any other sport, even basketball or baseball, football is a team sport.

I deeply feel we are living at the end times of the USA Empire. All empires, Roman or Greek, eventually fall, usually due to greed, militarism and discrimination. When an empire is falling being a member of a team with similar values and priorities is very important. With resistance we can slow down the fall of the empire but we cannot stop it. With teamwork we can build up a new community within the shell of the empire so we will have a team in place during and after the fall.

Our team, like a good football team, needs discipline, cooperation and to work together. The ‘powers that be’ have a powerful team that keeps us divided, competitive and opposing each other. Like my grandson’s team we get tired, but unlike his team, often we stop resisting and building the team and just go along with whatever we are programmed to do.

From children we can learn that teamwork means never giving up, win or lose

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