At first look, this video seems to show a great touchdown by a high school team. In fact, if the only thing known about this particular game is from this video, we could guess that this team creamed the other team. We could surmise that the scoring team is far athletically superior to the other team. However, this is only twenty five seconds of video. It’s not even half a minute. So what really happened?
I was actually on the opposing team during this game. I was there. It was my senior years and I was watching from the sidelines. Why was I on the sidelines during my senior year? Was I injured? No. Was I just simply not on the punt team? Actually, I wasn’t on the punt team, but neither were the other players who were normally were on it. That only raises more questions. Why was the normal punt team on the sidelines, especially when it was nearing the end of the game? There is actually a simple answer to these questions.
The answer is: we were beating the other team so bad that the varsity team was pulled off to let the junior varsity in to have a chance at playing in a real game. We were beating them 54 to 26 with only about a minute or so to go. In fact this was the first and only time that I sat down on the bench on the sidelines. From just this video, it sure seems to be a very unlucky Friday the thirteenth for the Lincoln Christian Crusaders. The reality is it was quite the opposite. We were wining, by a lot. Sure this is an impressive play, but they’re playing against the J.V.! I suppose this just shows that context is actually important, and that 25 seconds of a football game doesn’t show a lot.