Mr. Stricklin,
Although this letter is a bit long, I really want to share this whole story with you. I think you'll find it worth your time.
I attended all of the football practice sessions this weekend, except for Friday morning. My 8 year-old son, Mason went with me every time. In fact, we spoke with you briefly Saturday morning. Mason was the boy in the heavily autographed hat. During the weekend, Mason developed a fascination with the kickers and spent the majority of each practice session sitting by himself watching the kickers practice.
Near the end of the final open practice, I looked over and imagine my surprise to see him playing catch with Derek DePasquale! They tossed the ball for maybe a minute or so before DePasquale stopped to help clean up the field. My son came over to me and said "Hey Daddy, I got to throw the ball with Derek!"
I wanted to thank him, but the kickers were called over to the main field for the final part of practice. So, as practice ended, Mason and I waited along the walkway to talk with him and maybe snap a quick picture of them together. As practice ended, we watched the players stream by, several of them smiling and waving to the kids watching them pass. However, the last of the players passed us by and we didn't see Derek.
I looked back out on the field and saw #40 doing some sort of very difficult looking exercise where he was on his hands and one bent leg, hopping his way down the field. He'd go several yards and fall over, but he'd immediately get back up and continue all the way to the end zone. I realized after a moment that he was being punished for something (and I was terrified it was for playing catch with my son during practice), I also figured that this would mean that he wasn't going to be in a particularly good mood when he came off the field. Still, we waited.
As Derek finally ran off the field, all of the other players except the ones in the media scrum were probably already in showers. He saw us standing next to the fence, and came directly over to us and said "Hey Mason!" When I asked if he had time for a photo, he immediately smiled, dropped to one knee, and handed his helmet to my son to hold. As I took their photo, I commented that the drill he had been doing didn't look like any fun, and he said, "Yeah, I forgot my thigh pads," but he never broke his smile. I shook his hand and told him, "You don't know what this means to him. You now have a fan for life." He just smiled and said goodbye.
On the way home, we talked about kickers, and the unique kinds of pressures that they face during a game. We talked about Derek, and how he made a mistake, admitted it, and accepted the punishment even though it was tough; how he didn't get mad, but did what he had to do, and kept his smile on his face. In general, we had a great conversation about being a man.
After we got home, I told my wife what happened. She found Derek on Facebook and sent him a short note to thank him. He replied later that it was a blessing for him to be able to make a difference in the life of a kid. Man, I wish I had been that mature in college!
In college sports, there is so much emphasis placed on winning on the field, and too much lip service paid to winning in the classroom and in life. I'm thrilled to see not only that our teams are growing more competitive on the field, but also that they are comprised of young men and women like Mr. DePasquale.
This fall, if #40 has the opportunity kick a winning field goal, you may notice the extra loud cheers for "Derek" coming from Section T. They'll be coming from Mason and me.
Roger L. Smith
Senior Computer Specialist
Mississippi State University
High Performance Computing Collaboratory
