Day 222: January 8, 2013

On my last day in Stafford this Winter Break, here is a glimpse of two of the old football fields that I grew up playing on. To the right is "The Sandlot," what we called the field next to the playground in the Shelton Run neighborhood. This was the field that we first started playing on the most, and where we held our first Hampton Oaks v. Shelton Run/Vista Woods game (Hampton Oaks won, of course). I had a lot of great memories playing on this field, as I finally turned into a decent football player here. From calling out blocks, to hot route-ing verticals, to my climbing the ladder pick-six from the middle zone, this field was always good for some great football!

This next field was the H.H. Poole Middle School football field, which we began using in the winter as we looked for alternatives to the Sandlot (or whenever we wanted to kick real field goals). By the time we started on this field I was a more polished wide receiver and had found my preferred quarterbacks, and we had much more competitive and longer-running games. This field was also the field where I broke my fibula after evading one few too many tackles after a catch on a drag route. I used to love practicing the toe-tapping corner routes on the perfectly drawn end zone lines and putting in some spot duty as holder when we decided to try throwing some field goals into our pick-up games. Unfortunately, it seems they have now built a fence around the field and locked it up, which means kids can't come down to this field for football games like we used to. But it also looks like they are laying some new turf, which should be nice for the middle school teams, since the field is really intended for them anyway.