You guys have all heard me talk about my son, Bob and his football exploits. But most of you wouldn’t know that he almost didn’t play this—his senior season.

At the end of last season, Bob suffered a concussion on a pretty cheap helmet to helmet hit. Fortunately, it was mild. He missed the next game which ended up being their last game of the season, and he was taken out of the concussion protocol the following week. But it shook him, and made him question whether he wanted to keep playing. He isn’t going to play in the NFL, and he doesn’t need football to go to college because his grades/test scores are very good. He kept working out, but I could tell he was less enthusiastic about it.

Then in March he was running hills and as he was coming back down hill he caught his cleat, stumbled, flipped and landed funky on his back. It hurt, but he didn’t think much of it. I insisted he go to the doctor and it turned out he fractured his collarbone. Originally, he was told it might require surgery and a 4-6 month rehab. If so, it seemed unlikely he’d be able to play. He was devastated. It was one thing if he decided not to play, but it was another to have that decision made for him. He was inconsolable for about an hour. We saw the surgeon that afternoon and it was determined that he wouldn’t need surgery. It would take 10-14 weeks to heal, but he’d be able to rehab and work out during that process. He’d miss some of the summer camps, but he’d be ready for the season.

The healing didn’t go completely smoothly, but he was cleared in mid-July. He was ready for training camp and the start of the season. Coming off a 4-7 season, we had no idea what to expect, but he was going to play and that was good enough.

They started a bit rocky. In the first game we blew a 22 point lead to the defending Class 5 Champions, Vianney. We won game 2, but got blown out in week 3 and faced the defending Class 6 champion in week 4. Then something happened. We got healthy and pulled off an upset in Week 4, handing Kirkwood its first loss since 2015. We destroyed Rockwood Summit in week 5 before losing in overtime to a very good Hazelwood Central team in OT. We were 3-3 with 2 games left against our most hated rivals. But we were playing really good football, especially the defense (Bob plays defensive end).

We destroyed Ritenour and Parkway North which gave us our first conference title since 1999. It also gave us the #1 seed in the district playoffs. We rolled through districts, blasting Webster and shuting out Hazelwood East and giving us our first district title since 2007. That brought us a rematch with Vianney. We ended up winning one of the most amazing games I’ve ever seen with a last minute goal line stand followed by a 97 yard TD pass to win. Yesterday was the State semis, and we rolled Fort Zumwalt North.

Next Saturday Bob will play his final high school game. That game will be played at the University of Missouri, and the winner will be Class 5 State Champion. Bob has started all 12 games, has 71 tackles, 3 sacks, 6 tackles for loss, 2 fumble recoveries and a forced fumble. He earned 2nd team all-conference in one of the best football conferences in the St. Louis area. If he wants to play football in college, he has 6 schools offering him scholarship money to do so. He hasn’t decided whether he wants to play or not because his new plan is medical school and he isn’t sure if he wants to invest the time. But from the lows of last October and March, it’s been an amazing run.

And there’s one more game to go.