It was the day after Christmas and we were on a plane to Houston, Texas. My family and I were going down to Texas, so I could play in the All American Bowl game for O-D Football Camp. When I was on the plane, I was so hyped up. The whole time I was thinking about all the things I wanted to do on the football field. I knew I was going to play running back and cornerback. I was really hoping I’d get a Pick Six while playing in the games.
When I stepped off the plane in Houston, I was pumped. We went to gather our luggage and our rental car. Then, we were on our way to the hotel. One of the first things I noticed was that it was colder than we expected that it would be in Houston.


When we arrived at the hotel, my mom immediately went to check us into the hotel. We went to our room and unloaded our luggage. After that, we went to register me for O-D. At the registration, I received my jersey; I was number thirty- three. Then, we got my pictures taken and I bought some souvenirs at the “O-D store”. My family and I were very hungry, so when we finished registering, we went to a restaurant across the street called the “Grove”. They had good and tasty food.


The next day, my team practiced twice, at 8:00 a.m. and noon. My dad was the defense coach. We were a small team, but we hung in there. I was our number one running back out of two running backs. We really weren’t that good because, even though we were a team, we had never played together before.
The next day we had two practices again, but we played a lot better because we were getting used to each other. We also had a scrimmage on the second day and I scored a touchdown. It was a running play. I had to dove into the endzone to score. It was a great feeling because I always wanted to do that when I was scoring.


The next day, Saturday, was our big game at Reliant Stadium. The other team was much bigger than us, but it didn’t matter because my whole team was ready to hit somebody . We got pumped like we were in the NFL. We warmed up for a little bit then we were ready to play.
It was finally gametime and we got the ball first. We got stopped, but I had a long run. We didn’t produce any points on our first drive. In the whole first half, we kept holding them, and they kept holding us. The score was zero to zero.


The third quarter was the same as the first half. In the fourth quarter, their big quarterback, who didn’t look twelve, had a big run. He broke the run for about forty yards, but I stopped the touchdown, by launching myself on top of his head and yanking his head to the ground. I loved that tackle, but they scored off a pass later during that drive. We lost that game six to zero, but we were proud of ourselves because we played hard and we held a much bigger team for most of the game.
Sunday was the award ceremony at Reliant Stadium and they called each team one by one. When they called our team to the field, we each got medals. Then, we had to take more pictures, which took at least fifteen minutes. The senior bowl was that night at seven o’clock, but my family didn’t go. Instead, we went to the movies.


The next day, Monday, was our second game. We played at a high school in Pasadena. We played a huge team. They were even bigger than the team we played on Saturday and they had about five running backs. Some of them were running hard.


On their first drive, my dad sent me on a blitz when I jumped over the center and sacked the quarterback. I sacked the quarterback, but they called me for facemask. I was mad. We held them a couple of times, but then they kept scoring drive after drive. I had about five open field tackles and a total of about twenty tackles the whole game. By playing this team, it made me better because they were bigger than us. We lost the game. I think the score was 42-0, but we never gave up.


Later that night, was a New Year’s Eve party right outside our hotel. We stayed outside at the party for about twenty minutes, then we went back into the hotel and ate quesadillas, nachos, and enchiladas. That was good.


The next morning, we woke up at 3:30 a.m. to leave to go home. I was sad because I made a lot of friends there and I learned a lot. I hope I can come back next year! The theme of this experience is to never give up, no matter who or what you go up against in life. You have to fight to the end and give it your all.That’s exactly what my team did. Also, my dad kept telling me that he was proud of how well I played. It was stuff like my defense especially how I was running hard through the holes as running back.
On the plane ride back, there were too many people in the back of the plane, so my family got to ride in first class. I had my own personal seat. I always wanted to be in first class. On the plane ride back, I thought about what an awesome experience it was to play football in Houston. I felt like I accomplished a lot and learned a lot there. My coaches and my team taught me things I didn’t know before and I will take that with me through life.