Friday Night Lights

“Tonight’s the night. Enough is enough.”

Bryce stood at the front of the locker rooms, all dressed up in his mainly white football uniform with red coloured lettering. He was in the middle of a pre game speech to the group before they ran out for their home game match against the Tigers.

“Enough of being the fucking laughing stock of the league! Of the state! I don’t even care if we don’t win tonight but I won’t stand for us giving up minutes after one fucking thing goes wrong!!”

The group were backing him up every sentence, listening to every word he told them. The anger and passion mixed in with his facial expressions set the tone.

“We run hard! We tackle hard! We don’t give them anything easy!!”

Mark was right at the back of the group, certainly feeling the nervous energy.

“Now let’s get the fuck out there and show these pricks who’s FUCKING HOME FIELD THIS IS!!!”

The room erupted in cheers and yelling as everyone got up and started to slap each other’s backs and continued to hype everyone up. Mark on the other hand felt his stomach in his mouth, as if he was going to be sick right there and then.

The whole team started to depart the locker rooms as they made their way out to the race before they hit the field.

Mark felt a slap on his back from one of the older senior players, “Use the crowd and the energy to your advantage,” he told him before the team began to run out onto the field.

As he hit the hallowed turf, Mark looked up into the stadium grandstands. It certainly was packed like it could be at times, it was actually fairly empty for a game but for Mark, it felt extremely loud.

Running out with his team, they ran past the cheerleaders on the sidelines. Tiffany the new head cheerleader had to do a double take when he saw the back of his jersey and his last name, Rodgers.

“Was that Mark??” she asked the girl besides her.

It certainly was him. How the hell did he get here? So quickly. One training session and he was out playing football for the college. A team clearly so **** for any form of athlete possible.

The moment was so overwhelming, the bright stadium lights, the noise of the crowd and the intimidation of the Relton Tigers team was almost too much to handle.

Mark gulped, this was it...