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Ryan Ulring

Mrs. Belden

Honors English I

15 October 2014

(no title yet)

            As the last pick was about to be announced my whole body tensed up, I could feel   

sweat running down from my forehead all the way down to the tips of my toes, and time   

seemed to slow down. I had done so much to get here, would it all be for nothing? I

closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down, I remembered everything I had done just

to get to this very spot right now. I took a deep breath and relaxed. “And for the final pick

of the 2015 NFL draft, the Indianapolis Colts select…”

            I guess you could say my football career started when I was a little boy. I lived in

downtown Detroit and I had no family members other than my dad and my uncle who

stopped by our house on weekends or holidays or any other special occasions like that.

My dad was very abusive, every time I didn't do something perfect he’d be furious with

me. If each and every dish wasn't so spotless you could see your reflection in it or if I

didn't make lunch exactly how he wanted it then he would scream something like, “YOU

GOOD FOR NOTHING, ROTTEN, WORTHLESS, PIECE OF CRAP!” Then he would

take out his whip and whip me as many times as he pleased, shouting curse words at me

between every whip. I know I had it pretty bad but I’m not going to complain, people did

have it worse then me and besides, I still had my uncle. My uncle, unlike my dad, was a

very kind person. He was even nice to my dad when my dad was cranky about

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something. But trust me, cranky is an understatement. One beautiful dark and snowy

night on a freezing cold Christmas Eve it was just my uncle and I, my dad always went

out to clubs at night. My uncle gave me a present for Christmas and I wasn't used to this

because my dad never gave me presents for Christmas, I tore away the wrapping and

underneath was a football. I had only seen a football on the TV before, I ran up to my

uncle and hugged him. “You know,” he said, “if you practice hard every day I’m sure

you could become a professional football player. You’d make a fine wide receiver.” I

listened to him and I practice with that ball every single day until I felt like I was going to

pass out. Then on weekends and holidays when my dad was gone My uncle and I would

throw the football together for hours and hours until my dad got back home. One day I

tripped and fell trying to catch a ball my uncle threw and I scraped my knee and started

crying. My uncle offered me a hand and said, “are you just going to give up or are you

going to keep on trying?” I know it was very cheesy but those words meant a lot to me. I

grabbed his hand and got up.

A couple of years later my uncle discovered he had lung cancer, the doctors told

us he only had a ten percent chance of living and surprisingly my uncle reacted very

calmly to this news. He told me, “don’t you worry about me, just go out there and do

what you do best and that's play football.” Since I was given that football I had gotten

much better at catching the ball and, well, everything else really. I was the starting wide

receiver for my high school’s varsity football team and our team had won the state

tournament in Michigan. I already had scouts from colleges around the country come see

me play and I had been given full scholarship offers from several colleges. I made up my

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mind that I would be going to the Ohio State University and the team already had my

locker and my jersey number and everything. It seemed my dream, that had been given to

me by my uncle, was finally coming true. And that's when I got the call.

            It was about three in the morning when the call came and when I woke up to the

sound of the phone ringing I knew exactly who it was and why. It was the doctors telling

us that my uncle had passed away, who else would be calling at three in the morning?

And sadly, I was right. I already knew what was coming but when the doctor told me, I

dropped the phone in disbelief. He was dead, the only person who ever truly cared for me

was dead. I started crying for what seemed like centuries. I stopped practicing football for

months and then I remembered my uncle’s cheesy words, “are you just going to give up

or are you going to keep on trying?” So I went outside and started practicing again and a

few hours later my dad saw me practicing and screamed at me, “YOU’RE NEVER

GOING TO BE GOOD AT ANYTHING! YOU CAN’T EVEN DO SIMPLE

HOUSEWORK SO WHY DON'T YOU JUST STOP TRYING!” He took my football

and cut it open with a knife, making the football useless. “There you go,” my dad said as

he handed me the football, “now go make me some dinner, I’m as hungry as a pig.” As I

went into the kitchen I saw something, a slip of paper, inside the football. I took it out

and it turned out to be my uncle’s will. The next day I went to the police station and

showed them the will and one of the officers said, “it looks like these are yours kid.” I

looked at what he was holding and it happened a pair of football gloves with a signature

on the right glove. I looked at it and it read Jerry Rice. I couldn’t believe it, my uncle had

gotten these gloves signed by the Jerry Rice, arguably the best football player that ever

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lived.

            College football went pretty smoothly, I started catching a lot better wearing those

gloves that my uncle had left me and our team played pretty well, we were a top twenty

five team in all four of my seasons at Ohio State. After I had an extremely good game

against Michigan, I was interviewed by some people and I was able to tell them my story

about how I had an abusive father and he was arrested and sent to jail for a long time, like

he deserved. I was starting to see that my uncle may have been right, maybe I could

become a professional football player. And that’s how I ended up here, waiting anxiously

to see if I would be picked in the NFL draft. “And for the final pick of the 2015 NFL

draft, the Indianapolis Colts select,” the man paused for a moment and said, “Todd

Massey, the wide receiver from Ohio State.” It was all worth it.