(S32) PT 1 - Mentor

[Jiggly_333]

Hey Naoko. It’s your cousin, Kawai. Aunt Kou told me that you’ve been trying to start your own football team. That’s really cool and I hope that someday you can make it to America to play with me. But right now, you do need to make sure you do your work in school. You can be as fast and as strong as anyone else, but if you can’t use your brain then no one will want you on their team. I know that I almost got kicked out of my first team back when I was just a little older than you because I hadn’t really looked at the playbook. You would think that football is as simple as grabbing the ball and running with it, but there’s a lot more to it. As a running back, you need to know a lot of things on any given play. If it’s a passing play, you need to have your blocking assignments memorized or your route memorized. And if you’re running an option, you need to recognize what your read is and where you’re going to be running. Even on a run play, you need to know where your hole is supposed to be, you need to remember everyone else’s blocking assignments well enough to know where you’re supposed to run. Even if you’re stronger and faster than everyone else, a smarter running back can do better and with less energy, which means that teams will want them more. Aunt Kou says that you want to be a quarterback and a kicker. How can you be a quarterback, memorizing the entire play and having in mind what everyone is doing, if you can’t memorize your formulas? How can you have the focus to read the field and make adjustments if you don’t have the focus to complete your assignments on time? You may not need everything you learn in school, but the learning methods you develop in school are what help you for the rest of your life. I would love for you to hand off the ball to me someday. Do your best in school and on the field and maybe it could happen.
Love, Kawai