The Kicker’s Sister

Updated: Sep 10, 2020

It was my freshman year of high school. I had spent the first half of my varsity debut in the romanticized gym class, mastering the craft of completely changing clothes in front of all the girls in the locker room without showing any skin. I sat beside my best friend Nova in the muggy auxiliary gym, dreaming about boys and plotting schemes to run into them so innocently in the hallway. Our gym instructor was named Coach Williams, coined “Cap’n” by the upperclassmen, yet I was too fearful to ever call him that. We went through seasons: a couple weeks spent sprinting around the track, a couple weeks playing badminton, a couple weeks in the field house learning routes for football. I would tie my hair onto the top of my head, lace up my tennis shoes, and lean in close so I could see the playbook, try to make sense of a boy’s intricate mind when it came to the beloved game of football. Then I would sprint down the length of the field house, cutting right and reaching my little hands out only to come up empty, watching the brown skinned ball bounce into the baseball team’s nets.

During those first few months of my story written in the halls of Arkadelphia High School, I found my home with the drumline in our little room off a wing of the cafeteria. The door was deeper into the wall, almost hidden from the rest of the life that went on in high school. Every morning, I would slowly inch the door open to a room full of sweet hearted boys and Myesha, one of the biggest blessings to glean from my time behind the drums. We’d slam wooden sticks into the smooth center of our bass drums, our snare drums, our tenors. We’d laugh and smile, sweat and complain, roll our eyes and cheer each other on at the same time. I’d watch the game each weekend, but I never understood anything except that we played the fight song when Kris Oliver scored, playing through Chris Clark’s PATs. I found my Badger family in early mornings, Friday nights, and sunny Saturdays spent with my boys and Myesha. I never knew about the family of boys we were supporting each game. Because I never thought they would matter much to me.

And then my second wind of high school hit. The chilly and rainy springtime that could only come with second semester. I lived that year in a season of deeply felt emotions, which only heightened my tendency to sentimentalize every moment and word. Gym class turned to health class, where we enjoyed the laughter-filled company of Coach Brumfield, a witty and young junior high football coach who had a knack for listening to high school student’s conversations and turning them into something meaningful.

Quickly, Coach Brumfield, who also taught at Goza Middle School, realized that he was teaching both of the Goodman siblings: pale-faced, frizzy-haired Addy and long-legged, soccer-playing Gabe.

While I was finding my way through the high school, Gabe was in seventh grade. He played soccer and Minecraft and air-trumpet in the band. His hair was cut to brush the tips of his eyelashes. And while he claimed friends, I knew the truth behind it, finding myself one Wednesday night at church, yelling through tears at the punks who called themselves Gabe’s friends, yet cared so little for his heart. He was enrolled in seventh grade health class with Coach Brumfield.

One day, I walked into class one afternoon and asked Coach how Gabe was. His class was in the morning, and mine was near the end of the day.

“Good,” he responded. “Actually. Really good. I’m trying to get him to join the football team.”

Without hesitation, I know I snorted. “There is absolutely no way, Coach. Football is not for Gabe.”

That night, as we all sat around the dinner table, Gabe laid his fork down and looked at Mom. “I think I want to play football.”

That morning while in health class, Coach Brumfield had taken his students down to Goza’s sad and overgrown football field. Emptying a net of footballs, soccer balls, and jump ropes, he encouraged them to play some games, get some exercise! Naturally, Gabe chose a soccer ball and headed to a not-yet-claimed corner of the field. Then he kicked the ball as hard as he could, ran to where it landed, and kicked it back. As the dinner table story goes, Coach Brumfield came over one of those times and watched him, asking if he had ever kicked a football. Thus, beginning the thought, the nervous dream of maybe joining something more than where he was then, playing soccer by himself and air-playing the trumpet.

After thorough and careful conversations on the side of Gabe’s bed before sleep slipped into the room, Mom and Dad contacted head coach J.R. Eldridge. Of course, like any parent who had no experience whatsoever with any football team, they were searching for assurance that their son would be welcomed and protected. As his sister, I was scared for him. I could count the number of football players I knew on one hand, and I couldn’t imagine Gabe finding home with them. I yearned for him to find the home I had found in my drumline. I told him over and over how fun band was when you looked past all the negatives. But he was determined. His home was not going to be mine.

So during the stifling summer between Gabe’s seventh and eighth grade year, a boy, weighing less than 100 pounds and kicking 10-yarders through the uprights, walked through the doors of the field house. I imagine Dad was still standing at the gate, watching until his little son and his cut-off Nike tee shirt disappear into the building we never thought we’d be a part of. And yet…here we are.

~stopped writing to dry my tears, excuse me~

Fast forward to early November of this year, the last time Gabe would kick in uniform at Badger Stadium. I watched him exit the field house, the very same doors he walked in almost five years ago. A bright red jersey with a deep blue number ten emblazoned on the front, Gabe tugged his helmet onto his head (no longer covered in terribly long bangs, thank the Lord!). He walked beside some of the people he found home in most, his teammates and his coaches. All boys he met and grew with on the football field. Gabe walked with an air of confidence Mom and I sometimes are scared of, but are thankful for regardless, remembering all those times we wondered where Gabe would find his place. He winded his way through the concrete tunnel to the field, a snake of red, smelly boys. Like each player before him, Gabe hit the poster at the end of the stretch with his hand. As he finished the trek to the field, Mom and I made our way back to our claimed seats, high enough to see Gabe’s kickoffs and touchbacks, his punts, his PATs, his field goals. It was what felt like the hundredth time we heard the Badger fight song, a cadence I still can tap out on my knees by heart. The hundredth time to sit on those bleachers and watch Gabe meticulously count his steps for a kickoff. The hundredth time we held our breath after each touchdown, as he stood, leaned forward, waiting for the ball to be snapped into place and kicked through the yellow poles.

Home is such a word of importance to me. Home in high school was so important to me, both the home I know and love with my family and the home I knew and loved with the hearts behind the drum room door, the hearts in the lane beside me at swim practice, the hearts who waited for me at lockers. I prayed for Gabe to find a home so certain. A place where he felt welcomed and protected. And sometimes, as I sit and watch Gabe kick on Friday nights, kicking and making tackles ;), or as I listen to him talk about the 60-yarder he nailed at practice, I am stunned all over again at answered prayer God gave us through a plot twist in Gabe’s story. The twist that my little brother, who used to spend hours kicking the soccer ball as hard as he could against the side of the house, is now going to play college football.

So my brother and best friend plays his very last game as a Badger this Saturday night, fighting for their second state championship. It’s the dreamiest of endings to a season of such precious pride in the dedication and passion Gabe has for his sport. But it will also be a sad one, a bittersweet one, as I know how much comes to fruition on that War Memorial field. For a sport that took up such a season of my life, yet I knew nothing about, it has come to mean a world to me. I could have never imagined as a young freshman, dressed in my band uniform, clicking the rim of my bass drum after a touchdown, that I would ever know the story of the home those boys have made on the sidelines. A home I know because of the heart my brother has.

An end to a beautifully proud and unexpected season of life coming this Saturday, and a beginning of the end to the Goodman era of Badgers. We are thankful, and ready. Now…let’s go bring home those rings.

Xoxo. The kicker’s sister…the proudest name I’ve ever answered to.