The 2017 Elks

      The year was 2017. It was early august and schools around Lincoln Nebraska were just starting up. This means it was the beginning of the football season. Tryouts were over. I made the A team. Which is basically the highest tier of football in the Lincoln Youth Football program. Now elks is the area of northeast Lincoln. Which is seen as the most run down and trashiest part of the city. And it didn’t help that our organization was widely known for losing seasons and being an easy opponent. And to this day the Elks A team hasn’t made it to the playoffs except for one season. Let me tell you about the 2017 Elks. 

      Now I played for this 2017 Elks roster. Before the season we were drawing lots of attention. Other coaches were scouting us to be a team of big soft boys. As usual the poorer team full of huge kids were what we were. We had a history of not being disciplined at the time. I was a backup defensive end and backup offensive tackle. I was the average Lincoln football player who was the 2nd string. Respected as a good player but not much time on the field. And to no one’s surprise we started the season with a 1-3 record. And our one win came from a team that didn’t win a game that whole year. Basically at that point we needed to win out and it looked hopeless as we were having issues on and off the field.

      I’ll start off with the on field issues. Personally I was promoted to a starter on defense and on offense I became a starter on offense as a tight end. We made a few key changes in our lineup that aren’t very important. And we switched to a no receiver offense and a new defense. But now for the off field issues. And now the northeast area of Lincoln is not a nice place. The kids that are raised in this area don’t have many nice things. And most of us had rough backgrounds. Especially compared to the teams we were facing. So some of the players had mental issues.

      First there were a few key injuries. There were some people with ankle issues and they weren’t very serious. The only thing that kept players off the field is when a backup linebacker got a concussion. Which was caused by me when we practiced our inside kicks. I remember that like it was yesterday. I had a fifteen yard sprinting head start at this man who was standing still waiting for a ball to bounce to him. My body was a torpedo that hit his helmet. His visor on his helmet shattered. He quit the team after he received a concussion and he didn’t get any game time. 

      Now to the more wild incidents that happened. I’m going to talk about three players. Those being Tomahawk, Weaver, and Gigi. Let’s start off with Tomahawk. He was a Native American boy who played as a lineman. And it’s important you know he lived with his grandma. And so it starts as a normal practice. And we get to the end where the starters are running plays. And since we are from the northeast area we always run our mouths. And on this fateful day someone’s talk crossed the line. I won’t go into what exactly was said but it pushed tomahawk across the line. He lost his mind and started trying to fight people. Quickly coach white intervened and grabbed him by the neck and dragged him out of the practice. And at that point it got ridiculous. He started to try and fight the coaches. So they tackled him and kept him on the ground pinned while his grandma came to the scene. Eventually he seemed to calm down when his grandma was talking to him. But right when our guard was let down he sucker punched his grandma. And at that point the police came and he wasn’t to be seen or heard of again. We all just agreed to not talk about it.

      The next boy is weaver. He had gang affiliation as a youngin. He was the most promising player of us all. He was the most athletic person I had ever met. He could’ve been the best player in the league. But he had issues with fights at school. And with the law. And during his absences he was trying to convince some of the other teammates to quit the team to join him in his hoodlum activities. Eventually the coaches had his parents drag him to the practice field till he was kicked off of the team.

      But when we were beaten down during the middle of our season called a practice in negative 12 degree weather wind gusts. And he had us form a big circle. And he gave a speech about how he knows we are the laughing stock of the league, how we had crappy lives off the field, and he called us out for not trusting each other. But what sticks the most is this quote. “Y’all have messed up lives. Football is one escape to take your anger out on someone legally. Use it. And if you get beat and pushed down stay down. Your brother will come over to pick you up.”(Slightly changed to avoid vulgar language)

      We came out week five with the hardest schedule left and we had to win out to make the playoffs. We ended up going on a run. We went on to win the last three regular season games. As a fourth seed we upset the first seed. We did the undoable. We shut up all the haters and media by overcoming those obstacles. We lost in the championship game which was close. But we went from the worst team in the league with off field issues to the second best team in the league. We overcame all that had gone wrong to make it to the championship.