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I started playing football at the young age of 8. As I progress over the years, I learned more things in detail and had a lot of fun and the great experiences all came to an end for me last weekend as I concluded my senior year of football here as a Muskingum Muskie.

I'm going to remember and cherish this last season forever. And though the season didn't go as we all might have planned, I still learned some life lessons during my time invested into this program.

I will take from my defensive end coach, Joe Montgomery that in life, you want always get what you want but you have to find a way to stay strong and keep pushing.

My defensive coordinator coach, Shap Boyd told us the most simplest thing a few weeks ago and I've constantly held it on my mind ever since then.

Coach Boyd said, "In life there is no pressure if you prepare". If you study ahead of time for an exam you go into it feeling good. If you wait the night before and cram, you go into that class on exam day, feeling pretty nervous because you're unprepared.

This statement holds a lot of truth and it really hit home when I heard it.

And as annoying as Coach Logan can be sometimes, with his repeated speeches about having character, goals and values, I realize that this is important and will be a great aspect in life that will help me.

Besides the things I learned, I will cherish specific moments that happened during my senior year.

I enjoyed the fact that we beat the number nine team in the nation, week three and beat our rivals in a night game but I really enjoyed the times we went to church as a team during camp.

I cherish the times we all huddled up together on Friday's in the locker room to watch another, "Deac Production" and laughing and acting silly in the locker room and the bus rides from the game.

Football is not all about the actual game. It's what you learn and take from it that matters the most. The lessons and moments that occur during a season are equivalent to things that you will face in the real world.

There's going to be ups and downs but it's all about how you bounce back and react during the bad times in your life.

I played with a lot of great players my senior year. I feel like every Saturday we went out and played to the best of are abilities. I admire the players I played with more because of the journeys and battles that I know they face off the field.

I played with guys that were engaged, married, and was even fathers. Guys that were 10-15 hours away from their hometown and guys who just had a lot of personal issues on their plates but still found a way to come out and practice and play hard every Saturday.

I see these guys as not just players but great men that I was able to learn from and grow as a person.

I won't have a bitter taste in my mouth from this season because I enjoyed the roller coaster ride. Through the 4-0 start and the 0-6 fallout at the end, I remained strong and pushed through until the clock during my senior year read, 0:00.

My position coach ask the seniors on a sheet of paper the night before our last game, "what would you like to be remember as",

I said I want to be remembered as the guy who played hard every Saturday. Who ran as fast as he could and hit as hard as he could and the guy who didn't have the best stats, but played his heart out on game day.