I never thought that I would see this day. The day where my classmates would be chanting my name. The day I would see my school’s logo plastered on my jersey. The day where I was passionate about something involving school. The day I was on top of the world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you how I got here from the beginning. My name is DeAndre Wubbie and this is my story.
Growing up, my family and I were close. My mom was a single mother who took care of my sister and me in a two bedroom apartment in Springfield, Illinois. It wasn’t the nicest or prettiest place to live, but it’s what my mom could do. I didn’t care because I never really spent a lot of time in there. My mom was always enrolling me into these dumb special educational classes at the local community center. She thought that would lead me to something I would be excited about. But as a teen, I never had any motivation to do anything. I had become so accustomed to making up excuses that people stopped trying to make me do things. They knew I wouldn’t put any effort into anything so they sort of gave up on me. They used to say I reminded them off my dad. My mom didn’t say that though. She would always say I had something to offer this cruel world. So, I remember every single day, my ass was parked at god knows what class after school listening to some hack job talk to me about my future. Of course I didn’t take any of it seriously. To me, this was just an extra hour of perfecting my doodling skills. I got pretty good at it too. My stick figures had hair on them and everything. But I guess it kept me out of trouble. But it all changed one day.
Towards the end of my junior year in high school, I was getting real sick of these classes. That week, we were going over new opportunities to get engaged and stay productive. The last thing I want to do was spend my summer caged in some community service bull crap to be quote unquote a “better citizen.” However, right before class was going to end Thursday, the counselor hung up some flyers for some sport opportunities. He said these were for the kids who wanted to join a team sport instead of staying home all day. I didn’t budge to look at it because as soon as 6:00 pm rolled around I was already booking it past the door to go home to watch the Bengals play. But when I got home my mom was already waiting at the door. The first thing that rolled through my head was “Did I do something wrong, damn, was it the dishes, no, did I leave my cards out again, oh god.” But it turns out I wasn’t in trouble. Thank the lord. But she had something far worse. The flyer.
Next thing I knew, I was in the clearance section of Sports Authority getting some pads and cleats. I always grew up watching football but never thought of joining a team. My friends and I would always make fun of the varsity team at our high school. We saw them as big meat heads who didn’t have enough book smarts to do anything productive with their lives. Another reason why I never thought about joining a team was because I was fat. Not even the type of fat guy who was big or athletic either. I was just fat. I remember being so big, people would feel sorry for me. I used to mask how I really felt by seeing myself as having a Jack Black or Craig Robison physique. Accept without the money, talent, looks, or women. But here I was, bout to enter a recreational league for football.
My mom thought this was a good idea. Apparently the counselor told her about the opportunity to get some exercise in and win a chance to play on the school’s football team. I didn’t see that though. All I saw was a fake ass teacher trying to act like he was making a difference in the world. But that’s not what my mom saw. She saw an opportunity for me to grow and be passionate about something other than sitting on the sofa and eating whatever I could get my hands on. And looking back, I’m glad she did.
So, after the last day of school, my dough boy ass was out in the sun running laps. It was me and about twenty nine others guys all gathered in the local high school field. Our coach was some dad who volunteered to coach us, reluctantly I might add. No one else stepped up and I think he volunteered just to get his wife off his back for being a lazy stay at home dad. But every day for three weeks this was who I was with. Running around this field practicing, doing drills, playing simulated games, that’s what it was….At least for the other kids… I spent my time sitting by the water tent, pretending I had some injury. I always had a list of injuries that I kept memorized. Whether it was a headache, cramps, short breathe, or a sprained ankle, I always had some excuse. Since my mom was at work all day, there was no one to watch me play so I really didn’t have any motivation to do anything. All I knew is if I went to practice every day, my mom would be satisfied and she wouldn’t be breathing down my neck to do something with my life. That is until she got the day off.
My mom never got the day off. Never. Last time she had the day off some jackass ran his car through the local grocery store and took out the cash register. But there she was with that infamous purple hat that she swears to everybody is Gucci. Apparently she came to see how I was doing on the team. As you might have guessed, she was not happy that I was parked under the tent playing on my Zune. I swear my mom chewed out everybody she could lay her eyes on. The coach, parents, players, assistants, and me. I can still feel leather across my ass to this day. From that point forward, my mom was at every single practice. She ended up switching to the night shift and picked up another job passing out flyers in the morning to compensate the lost hours. From that point on, I experienced what it would be like to live in hell.
With a week before our first game, my mom was on me every single day. I would wake up and she would already have my gym clothes in one hand and breakfast in the other. During practice, if I wasn’t sweating from every pore in my body, I wasn’t working hard enough. The other guys laughed at me because my mom would be running behind me in her jump suit telling me to move my fat ass faster while squirting me with a make shift spray bottle. Along with that, practice wasn’t over when the coach blew the final whistle. Practice was over when my mom said it was over. My mom said I wasn’t allowed to ride in the car; I had to jog the two miles back to our apartment with her mom trailing behind me honking her horn to move faster. I think she was the reason why the local news always showed traffic on Jefferson Street. That was my life every day.
Our first game rolled around and it was go time. The coach assigned me to play defensive lineman since I was the biggest person on the team. My mom somehow convinced him to give me the starting position on the squad. I never found out how she was able to do it but I never saw that purple “Gucci” hat again. As we were standing on sideline, it hit me. For the first time in the longest, it hit me. The feeling you get when you’re about to take a test. The feeling you get when you’re about to ask a girl on a date. The feeling you get when you’re about to do something you’ve never done before. The feeling of being nervous. I was nervous. But as soon as I lined up on the field, all I could hear was my mom screaming my name out with her makeshift flag with the words “DeAndre” spelt out. And there went all my nervousness. As soon as the ball was snapped, I rushed in and hit the closest thing I could see. SACK.
We lost that game. Badly. We lost so bad the scorekeepers turned off the scoreboard halfway through the third quarter. But that didn’t matter. I remembered coming off the field with the biggest smile on my face you would ever see in your life. My mom was beaming with excitement and admiration. And the funny thing was, the whole crowd had the same look at their face. Apparently I had finished the night with 5 sacks, 2 pass blocks, and held the opposite team to only 10 rushing yards. But I didn’t think about any of that. All I saw was my mom’s excitement and the feeling of doing something with my life.
I ended up going on to winning the MVP of the rec league and the coach of my local high school offered me a starting spot on the school’s roster. That’s where we start back off again. School came around and I was the starting linemen for our school’s varsity team. None of that would’ve been capable without my mom and that summer league. The constant pushing, the constant nagging, all the drills we ran, all the exercising we did, all the love we had, it was all because of my mom. So looking back at it, I’m glad my mom told me to get my jelly doughnut self-off that couch and onto that field. I wish I could only tell her that now.