Building Bonds & Skills Through Football

By Ramon Quirarte

Since I was young I always liked watching football, my favorite team has always been the Raiders. I always watched them play and it got me into football. I started watching more games and I would play during school. This ultimately led me to make the decision to play football in high school.

When I entered Yerba Buena high school I didn't know there was a football team until my sophomore year and by the time I found out the season was over. I decided to join the football team this year and although I joined a little late I joined before the official season started and still had around 1-2 weeks before our first game. I went to practice and I met with the coaches and I had to wait 3 days so I could get my equipment because I had to get my athletic clearance cleared before I could get my helmet and pads. 

I started to get to know my teammates better and I was starting to fit in more, I was starting to become more familiar with my teammates and I was starting to have a good relationship with my teammates. I started to get to know my coaches better too. I started to learn about sportsmanship, communication and I learned about teamwork. Communication skills were the most important thing I gained during my time on the football team. An example is when I first joined I did not talk with anyone since I didn't know anybody other than my friend but as more time progressed I started to get to know my teammates better.

I learned how to communicate better with my teammates, I definitely improved my communication skills as i'm able to talk more with new people, when we had practice I would communicate with my teammates to understand plays better so I knew who to block, although there were a few times I messed up, I learned from my mistakes and I would try to improve myself.

Communication is extremely important when you’re at practice or when you’re in a game, without communication players would not be able to know what plays they are running unless they communicate with the team to tell everyone what play they are going to run. An example is when I would get in the game to play I would communicate with my teammates to know who I needed to block and what play we were running, when I messed up my teammates would tell me what I needed to do and they would tell me some things I needed to improve on.

If my teammates never communicated with me when I made those mistakes I would have never improved and I would be making the same mistakes over and over. All my teammates communicated with each other to know if we slightly changed the play or if we were going to run a new play, this allowed our teammates to know if they were changing positions on the field and where they needed to go.

The coaches also communicate with us through Hudl, they send us messages letting us know to study the playbook and to watch film, the playbook shows us some of the plays we will be using on our upcoming game and if you forget the plays when you're in the game you could always communicate with the teammate beside you.

I had a great time playing football and I improved my skills while playing. I improved my ability to communicate with new people which will help me a lot in the future. I learned how to think fast and how to improve myself a little better on the spot.

For The Warrior Times, this is 

Ramon Quirarte