In football more than any sport the favorite player on a bad team tends to be the back up quarterback. The back up quarterback is the guy who everyone looks to as the possible savior of the franchise. If the main guy is struggling the fans make it immediatly known who they want in the game. Being the back up quarterback if you ask me is the absolutly worst position on the team. I know this from personal expience.
It has been my dream for longer than I can remember to play organized football. I had played for years in the street with my friends but I had always desired to be the quarterback on an actual football team. Finally come sophmore year my parents finally let me try out. Because Cypress Bay Football is a walk on program I made the team and for all of spring and most of the summer I was the starting quarterback. At this point my confidence was high and I was performing very well on the field. Then towards the end of the summer a new guy came in. His dad was a football coach for the University of Miami and he had far more expirience than I did. From day one we started splitting reps and within a week he was named the starter. This shattered my confidence and no matter how hard I worked from then on I was never the same. Come the end of the season the kid who took my spot hurt his knee. It was the toughest thing to have to come ino the game completely cold and be expected to preform.
It was from this point on that I have the utmost respect and sympathy for back up quarterback and back up players for any sport. It is one of the most difficult tasks to be expected to preform at a top level even after sitting on the bench an entire season. There are a few advantages to being a back up. First off it is a very humbling expirience. Next it allows you to learn from the startes mistakes so that when you get your chance you don't make them. Last it teaches you to be a stronger individual. Being able to fight off the emotions of being second was tough for me as it is for any competiter. Overcoming these emotions not only makes a person a better athlete but also a better person
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You are right, Mario didn't even have to do you like that. The coaches didn't either. We had good chemistry in my opinion before they made all of the roster changes. I will never understand the concept of taking "well enough" and replacing them for the sake of progress. In my opinion, all coaches need to take their players into account when shopping for replacement parts. For example, there is a quarterback opening in New York and instead of letting the backups have a chance in a real game, they are immediately looking for a higher caliber player. I understand that in the pros, it is a business, but I'd really appreciate it if more coaches understood that some players have more potential than others and with hard work and coaching can be developed into very strong athletes.
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