Tuesday, December 18, 2007

From Time to Time.....

WHEN our website (sixmantexas.com) first appeared earlier this year I would receive emails from the Six Man football community with a heartfelt story about how Six Man football has touched their lives. I have saved those and, after asking permission from the authors, will reproduce them here from time to time.........

I decided to post this one first:

Dear Alan

My name is Marcelino Chavez, I was introduced to six-man football in 2003 at Westbrook High School just West of Colorado City on Interstate 20. If you blink, one will miss this small town. My career started with six-man football and the honor to coach my freshman son, moving from Coahoma Texas, my alma mater and graduate of 1974. We left for Westbrook at the encouragement of Coach Andrew Hannon, head football coach. My son was exposed to six-man football and this engagement was the perfect sport for my four-sport 5'8", 140 pound athlete. Trey had the some speed but his quickness made him a very dangerous runningback. His freshman year brought no known mentioning, except that he managed to start at safety for the last five games because of injuries we incurred during the season.

His sophomore year he started as the Wildcat runningback and part-time quarterback, scoring 14 touchdowns 11 on offense and 3 on defense. During his junior year, he thrived on making opponents miss with his quickness and mediocre speed. Everything looked good for the Wildcats, five returning lettermen eight of them seniors, including my son.

Trey was not an ordinary football player, his freshmen year, he qualified to the Regional Cross Country Meet as an individual, started his freshman as point guard for Westbrook that made the first round of the playoffs, scoring 11 ppg, and qualified for the State Tennis Tournament as one of the top eight singles' player in Class 1-A. As a sophomore he continued moving the Wildcats in the right direction in basketball as the all-district youngster scoring 15.2 ppg and also qualified as a team to the Regional Cross Country Meet, and placing third at the State Tennis Tournament in Austin.

As a junior, again he looked very impressive scoring 16.0 ppg in round ball and taking the state runner-up in tennis. Everything was looking great in cross country, football, basketball, and tennis and nothing would stop him from making his mark during the final year. His first five games he was on his way to breaking many Westbrook records including 24 touchdowns. During the first game of the young district season on October 7, 2005, Trey scored the first two touchdowns against Borden County and we had a 22-6 lead going into the third quarter. Our QB got hurt and Trey took the helm and returned the opening second half kick-off to the Coyote 30 yard line.

On the ensuing play, the ball was centered to the up back and tossed to Trey for a left side sweep, instead of stepping out of bounds, he took on the defender head on, as he was taught and another defensive player hit him from behind. Trey got up and went into the huddle and called the next play, they went to the line of scrimmage, but we had a player lined up off sides. After they set the ball in play, he began to sway from left to right holding his helmet. After I saw him he began to tell me that his head was burning at the right side of the forehead. We took him to the EMT's and they monitored his condition, until he began to throw up and I started yelling to take him to the Mitchell County hospital.

The first physician to see him, told us to me to my relief that it looked like a concussion, but he wanted to run a CAT Scan. Upon reviewing the X-ray, he told me that Trey would have to be transported to Lubbock because he had a vein ruptured in his skull. He was airflighted to Lubbock Covenant Hospital where Dr. Richard George performed emergency brain surgery. He removed 1/3 of his skull put the bone that was removed to be frozen and they went in to repair the busted vessel. Dr. George's prognosis was very bleak, he told my wife and I that Trey would never be the same. He told us some disturbing news, that Trey might not be able to talk or walk again and that he would have to learn to talk again, if he survived at all.

To everybody's amazement, Trey went on to become salutatorian of his class, received many academic scholarships and is playing Division III Tennis at Hardin Simmons University and scored a 3.0 in his first semester of his college life. He also placed second at the State Tennis Tournament seven months later.
We are proud of him....

Thank You,
Marcelino, Norma and Linsey Chavez

SOME of the best parts of making the film were moments like this!

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