November 30th, 2014. Probably to date the biggest day of my life. The day I had been preparing for my whole life. We rolled through the playoffs beating every team by double digits. Blew through every week like the other team wasn’t even there and the dream that I had been dreaming about since I could think was actually becoming a reality and nothing in the world felt better. My good friend Jake looked at me during the semi final game at the end of the 1st quarter at which we were up 21-0 and said “I think we can actually win this whole thing.” Him saying that to me really made me realize that what I had been waiting for my whole life, what I had worked so hard for was finally there for the taking. It made me realize that it was here, the thing i’ve been dreaming about since I could walk. I used to always say to my mom “One day i’m going to play at Ford Field. I’ll be there one day.” Now all I heard was the echo of the cleats walking down the cement tunnel. As you got to the end you stepped onto the perfectly placed astroturf. We all instantly got so excited. It wasn’t like the turf of the high school field, it wasn’t like anything i’ve ever seen or felt. It gave me this feeling that is almost indescribable. We ran out onto the field for warmups and the stands were filled. So many people from Clarkston came out to support, it really shows a lot about us as a community. The whole Clarkston community came together to support something that meant a lot to a lot of people. While the national anthem was being sang, the nerves were just flowing through my body, my stomach started to hurt yet I got the biggest smile on my face because I was here. I could not get over the fact that I had finally made it. We had rolled through every other team so far and all we had was one more team to get through and that was Saline. They were a very good all around football team. Their quarterback was committed to Virginia Tech University and their middle linebacker was committed to Michigan so they had some really good players. Especially frightening because we did not have one D1 commit on our team so we had to play big. That is exactly what we did. We played a really well put together first half despite being down by 3, nobody on the team was that worried. Nobody wanted to lose that football game. The second half was a completely different story, even though we played a really good first half. Our second half, we came out like a team nobody had ever seen before and ran away with it finishing the game with a 27-14 win. 30 seconds left in the game it really started getting to me, it meant so much to all of us, none of us could keep it together. The coaches had to press on us to make sure we didn’t rush the field before the time ran out.

“WE DID IT!” I thought to myself.

It didn't even feel like it was real. That was the day I realized that hard work really does pay off and if you truly want something bad enough, nobody can stop you from getting that. From that day on, I worked even harder so that my team might have a chance at this again some day. I wanted that amazing experience again.