“Can you teach me?”
I taught him what I knew.
It wasn’t much.
Everything else he learned from videos, coaches, and thousands of hours spent practicing.
He threw passes in our backyard.
Ran routes around trees.
Practiced footwork until the grass was worn thin.
By eight, he was playing on a youth team.
By ten, his coaches were beginning to talk about him differently.
They saw potential.
NEXT PAGE
Caleb noticed it too, even though he pretended not to.
Football became his thing.
His favorite professional team played in a stadium about forty minutes from our house.
His favorite player was a wide receiver who had grown up in a small Alabama town and worked his way into the league.
Caleb saved birthday money and money from mowing lawns until he could afford that player’s jersey.
He wore it every Sunday.
Then, one afternoon in October, everything changed.
