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This is the supplemental essay I sent out in my application to Columbia. I really loved the times I played football as a kid. Just thinking about it makes me smile and even yearn for those days. This essay is a tribute to those times and what they mean to me.
>>>> After School Football League On days I fall into a nostalgic stupor, I recall my younger days of playing playground football the most. In elementary school, playground football was a passion. After the Pop Warner season ended in November, another season commenced for the After School Football League, and I was its commissioner. My friends and I, anywhere from four to twelve of us, played aggressive non-equipment football. Unlike gym-class rules, we played full contact tackling, blitzing allowed on all downs, and no first downs. The result was a fast paced game in which scores ran as high as 70 points and turnovers were very common. As the innovator of this version of football, I cherished playing the role of quarterback. It afforded me the opportunity to become the leader, the director, and the motivator. Playground football was a serious matter for us and we played to win as much as we played to have fun. As a quarterback, making plays brought me the greatest joy. Completing a long pass or dramatically scoring on fourth down became the highlight of my Friday afternoons, when we held our official After School Football League games. We played games on other days but those were just tune-ups. As each elementary school year passed, I became a better player and some labeled me the "best quarterback" in the school though I played right guard for the Pop Warner football team. As a heavy-set kid, I did not make the weight limit to touch the ball. I saw our ASFL games as competitive and very athletic for our age. A spectator may have noticed that we were all Korean and may have guessed otherwise, for it was not common to see Koreans play football with such zeal. For many of us, playing this game was a statement clamoring for respect. We encouraged other kids at school to play with us, but they scoffed at the notion that a bunch of Asians played this American game. My friends and I finally had an opportunity to prove ourselves when a group of white kids agreed to play us in a racially divided match. As the quarterback of our entire league, I was never more excited to play. No matter the ethnicity or race, it was experience and skill that determined the outcome of the game. My team handed the white kids an embarrassing shut out loss, and later on, some of the same kids who lost came back to play in the ASFL. The entire ordeal wasn't about hate or extreme prejudice at all. As Koreans, a stereotypical barrier for our athletic talents stood in the way, and we were obliged to break it down. I live in a different town now, but I still see the effects from that game and league. As I stand in the huddle of our offense during a varsity game, I look around and see a diverse team: the Italian quarterback, the Irish center, the Chinese wide receiver, the African-American tackle, and myself, the Korean running back. My childhood experience with football allowed me to get to this level, and along the way I convinced my Chinese friend that he had the skills to play receiver. I also learned another thing; on the field, ethnicity and race don't matter - we are all Americans playing football. And as for my experience with quarterbacking? My hands were too small. |
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