Ru-dy! Ru-dy!

There should have been many fabulous pictures to accompany this post.

Believe me, I WISH I had them. However, I assure you, if there were a camera in my hand today it would have been utterly destroyed. The photos you see are from the past few weeks.

Today we took the family to a big ol' flag football tournament. This was the pinnacle event to wrap up our season. For the past two months, our oldest son has been sweating his guts out at countless practices and games. Now you have to understand, Mitchell is a huge lover of all things football. He wanted to play soooooo badly. Trouble is, he struggles. This team and this league meant serious business. He's not the best, the coaches rarely ever played him during the real thing, but he kept at it every minute. He would limp back up that huge hill at the end of every practice. Sometimes when we'd get back to the car he'd just break down in complete exhaustion.

My guy is center, in the white shirt.

Game days were fun, but mostly from the sidelines.

The real magic is, the kids on that team took him right in. In this age group (9 to 11) you'd think he would be teased, or at the very least rejected, when compared to the "star" players. Yet Mitchell was constantly being encouraged, complimented, and high-fived by these young boys (and one girl!) If he got put in for a play, the spectators all cheered, and Mitchell's teammates made him feel like he was the "star" of those 11 seconds. I was so impressed by their maturity and compassion.

Today's tournament was single elimination. You're out as soon as you lose. Our boys played their first game early in the morning and won! We came back a few hours later for the second game, and this is when things got rough. A huge storm had arrived, and we approached the park with wind blowing SO HARD that it became difficult to take steps forward at all! The dust burned our eyes as we wondered how a football game would be possible in these conditions. At some point during the game a sprinkling of rain appeared. In a matter of 2 minutes it felt like the temperature dropped 15 degrees. All the while that forceful wind never quit. Our umbrellas kept flipping inside-out. There was little shelter from any of it. To make matters worse: this other team was good; we were going to lose.

With about 10 minutes left, the rain came harder and everyone, everyTHING, was drenched. Yet surprisingly, as the last of the time ticked away, our boys played harder and harder. Soggy and chilled as we were, the pendulum began to swing our way. It was the very end of the game, and we scored again! It was not enough to win, but at least they were going to lose with dignity. Our opponents got the ball after our touchdown, and Mitchell was put in to play defense. As soon as the ball was snapped, he ran like mad straight for their quarterback. Before that guy could even budge, Mitchell pulled his flag - a sack!

Well you'd better believe the sidelines went wild!!! The umbrellas bounced up and down to our jumping and screaming. Coach pumped his fist into the air as if he'd just won the Superbowl, players gathered around Mitchell on the field, and slowly, the biggest smile broke out on my boy's face. It was beautiful to watch.

Only moments later, the game was over. We were eliminated. Twelve young players couldn't stand it any longer, they were utterly frozen, miserable, shaking and sobbing from the cold and not necessarily the loss. Everyone left the field in a hurry, tromping through the drizzly darkness satisfied with the hard fight and filled with pride. Especially me.