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I'm ready for high school football
PATRICK NAGY Sports Reporter
The 2007 high school football season marks a dubious anniversary: Ten years ago, I was beginning my senior year of high school football at Depew.

I can't believe it's been 10 years. It seemed like only yesterday that I was putting on jersey number 65 as the Wildcats' starting left offensive guard, prepared to spend the next two-and-a-half months of my life constantly thinking about football.

I was determined to make my senior year memorable. That's because after starting on the offensive line as a freshman during modified and as a sophomore on JV, I was a bench warmer my entire junior year, only playing if the team was getting blown out or comfortably ahead.

So to improve at my position, I did what any athlete would do. I hit the gym. By the time my senior year hit, I stood 5-foot-10 and weighed a solid 190 pounds. I wasn't the monster lineman that you see on many teams today, but I can honestly say at the time I was in the best shape of my life. I actually won the team's most dedicated player award for my offseason conditioning efforts.

Being in shape going into the season made double sessions for the first two weeks of the season bearable, even though I absolutely hated it. I'm not talking about learning blocking assignments - I thought that was cool. I'm talking about the half-hour to 45 minutes of conditioning we had to run at the beginning of every practice. But it was worth it. I can remember by midseason not being winded after running sprints.

One part of the game I didn't like was tackling, which, if you asked nine out of 10 players, they would say is their favorite part of football. My only answer as to why I never enjoyed that is that as a lineman, you know who you're going to block. If you're playing defense, you could get blindsided by a lineman pulling. I guess I didn't want to be surprised.

My position if I played defense, which was rare, was defensive end, but I think the coaches knew I didn't like it. We had a roster in the mid-20s, and I could count on my hands the number of times "Nagy" was called for a defensive play.

While I enjoyed playing on the offensive line, I liked the time I spent on Depew's special teams. My responsibilities were setting up the wall on punt return as well as being a member of the kickoff and kickoff return teams.

The greatest hit of my entire high school career came on a punt return at Starpoint. I completely laid out a would-be Starpoint tackler with a hit so loud that it sounded like a gun went off. Unfortunately, the referee that day thought it wasn't such a great hit and flagged me for a 15-yard clipping penalty.

Playing football in your senior year of high school, especially if you're a starter, is an awesome feeling. At Depew, nothing topped rivalry week. Each school day in the week leading up to the game had a theme. I remember walking into English class on "West Side Story" day and seeing a staged fight in the hallway between students dressed up as the Sharks and Jets. I could never forget getting goose bumps after hearing my name called as I walked into the gym at the pep rally the afternoon of the Depew-Lancaster game. Then came the actual game, which was played before 5,000 fans.

So for the hundreds of football players on the gridiron this season, good luck. It's a time you will remember for the rest of your life.