Being on the sidelines of a football game is a dangerous place. Especially for a girl. Throughout the season, I stood on the sidelines with my clipboard and mechanical pencil and wrote down everything that happened during those two hours of play time. In my head, this game wasn’t going to be any different. I was so excited considering the location of the game and the stadium we would be playing in. But to me, I had my job and I was going to do it the same way I had always done it. Little did I know that events that happened during the game would live on well after the game ended.

It was the third quarter. I was really trying not to get discouraged, since we were down28-7. We were in Cowboy stadium; this cannot be how this game is turning out. Aledo had the ball and I was just on the sidelines trying to write down the previous play as fast as I could. The Aledo QB throws the ball, the receiver catches it, and our very own Tanner draper pushes him out of bounds. Typical play, right? No, not exactly. Specifically at the point of the play where Draper pushes the Aledo player out of bounds, a civilian was sacked on the sidelines. That civilian was me.  I am grateful I was not hurt, but I’m afraid this will be something people remember for a long time. I didn’t even know what happened. I didn’t even know I was in the line of fire until it was too late, until two of the coaches and players were hovered over my body as I just lay there. The coaches tried to get me to stay down but I was too embarrassed to draw any more attention to myself. I popped up, with some tears in my eyes, just from shock, and got back to work. After countless players and coaches making sure I was okay, I thought it’d be over once the game stopped. Well, honestly that was the least of my worries. The entire stadium saw my crumple to the ground, in which everyone thought I broke my leg. I don’t think I have gone a day since then without being asked if I was the girl that got tackled, if I was okay, and the occasional nickname “Crash”, thanks to the football coaches. This may never go away considering now the entire school has the video on their phones, it has been edited countless times, and is now on YouTube, but at least I gave the school a good laugh.