A Reluctant Honor

I've got a friend - a good friend - who is extremely unique.

He's quite the All-American guy. Like, literally. He was a Parade All-American for football when we were in high school together. It's a pretty big deal. The likes of Peyton Manning kind of big (selected that same year).

But that's not what makes him unique. Not exactly.

Always a gentle giant from the early get-go (he's 6'5", 300+lbs.), his teenage years were littered with awkward, clumsy steps: from the clothes that he wore, to the girls that he dated. His growing pains were obvious, and they kept getting bigger and bigger like the size of his behemoth shoes. But he finally found an outlet, where being humongous wasn't a curse but the ultimate gift.

Football brought him the kind of "normalcy" he always wanted. He was allowed to use his size, wrapping his big ol' paws around those that were much smaller and throwing them around like bags of mulch. He excelled on the field - it brought him joy, acclaim and attention. But most of all it brought him acceptance: that was the name of HIS game, which largely eluded him up to that point. After the season, he became an All-American.

But then we graduated. He went onto play at a Division I school on a full scholarship. Expectations weren't met, and long story short, things didn't pan out. The realities of the NCAA machine might've been simply too much for this gentle giant and college football wounded him, leaving him visibly shaken. Once he came home, he locked up his accomplishments, memories and awards, and stashed them away like ancient artifacts that were to never be found.

For nearly 12 years, he's been the reluctant All-American that's kept his football far, far away. But that part of his life shouldn't just sit in a dark room, collecting dust. And as I watch him and his lovely fiancee prepare for their upcoming wedding, I have hopes for him that the day will come when he finally learns to embrace his storied past. That he gets to tell his kids, and anyone else who is willing to listen that he had an All-American career, filled with various highs and various lows. And through it all, it was always a pretty big deal.