If you could have one back.

We have all heard this phrase before "I bet he wishes he could get that one back". It is the phrase we usually hear right after a bad play or a missed opportunity in sports.

If I had to answer this one personally it would be tough. Do I go with the back to back 9 routes that I droped as a sophmore, which would have been TD's? Well, maybe as a close second, but I think I would have to take back my one rushing carry as a senior. Nevermind why it was my only carry that season, or that I wasn't a TB. It was the rest of scenario that made it dramatically more significant. It was my last year of playing football. We were losing to our District Rival. It was my first opportunity to step on the field that season.

My name is called out from my head coach on the sideline. He tells me that I am going in at TB and gives me the play. In my head I realize that the play is designed for me to take it off Tackle Strong Side. I sprint the play into the huddle as if it is the most significant event in my life. The QB calls the play and the Huddle breaks. We get lined up and the QB goes through his cadence. During the next few seconds time slows down and the ball is snapped. I jap step left and begin running to the right eventually taking the handoff from the QB. In my mind I am thinking "stay with the play design". There is nothing there, but I stay with the play design. There is enough room to drive 4 trucks down the right side of the field, but I stay disciplined to the play design. I pound it right between the tackle and the TE. I am met at the line of scrimmage and surge foreward a little before being taken down for a gain of only one. As I am getting up I ask myself "why didn't I bounce it outside?" Apparently, my team mates and coaches were wondering the same thing. As I trot back to the sideline I can see the look of disgust in my coach's face. It was the first and last time that I would step onto the field or touch the football during the regular season that year. I blew it. If only I could have had that one back, maybe the remainder of my senior season would have been different.

If you could have one back, what would it be?

Good thread.

I can't point out one specific moment, I just wish I would have stuck with playing sports all through high school. By 10th grade my desire to have my own car outweighed my desire to keep playing basketball and football and to this day I really regret not playing all the way up through varsity.

Instead I got a job and worked nights and weekends for my car. I guess I probably learned some valuable lessons in doing that too, but I wish I would have just realized that I had the rest of my life to work... and sports is something you have a small window of opportunity with.

It just sucks when you're young that sometimes it's really tough to appreciate things like that. I remember hating practice, now I would die to be able to just strap on the pads one more time and be able to hit someone.

Good thread.

I can't point out one specific moment, I just wish I would have stuck with playing sports all through high school. By 10th grade my desire to have my own car outweighed my desire to keep playing basketball and football and to this day I really regret not playing all the way up through varsity.

Instead I got a job and worked nights and weekends for my car. I guess I probably learned some valuable lessons in doing that too, but I wish I would have just realized that I had the rest of my life to work... and sports is something you have a small window of opportunity with.

It just sucks when you're young that sometimes it's really tough to appreciate things like that. I remember hating practice, now I would die to be able to just strap on the pads one more time and be able to hit someone.

I made a similar mistake my junior year. I quit before the season was over just to work at Chuckee Cheese. That was a boneheaded move as well.

Great thread. Tough to answer. I've been awesome all my life...

Seriously though, I guess I'd like to have back that pitch I threw that hit the batter in the bottom of the 7th inning (HS games were only 7 innings at my school) with the bases loaded to walk in the winning run and knock us out of the playoffs.

What really sucked was we lost the game 1-0. What really really sucked was that was my last High School game. What really really really sucked was that I actually pitched a complete game no-hitter.

Great thread. Tough to answer. I've been awesome all my life...

Seriously though, I guess I'd like to have back that pitch I threw that hit the batter in the bottom of the 7th inning (HS games were only 7 innings at my school) with the bases loaded to walk in the winning run and knock us out of the playoffs.

What really sucked was we lost the game 1-0. What really really sucked was that was my last High School game. What really really really sucked was that I actually pitched a complete game no-hitter.
No Hitter! You hit the batter!

this is easy for me. i had three different tryouts, one with the Phillie's, and two with Baltimore, before i graduated. i had the attitude that i was good enough. and really didn't do the things you needed to do to succeed. i wish i could have head a different mindset, to see if i could have made it

I was a scratch golfer when I was a sophmore in high school. I was always paired up against the lowest handicap of the other team even though it was my first year playing on the team. I lead our team in scoring and most other catigories for the year and the coach gave some senior hack player of the year. I would not play for him the following year and golf fadded as girls and cars took over. I'l never know how far I could have gone if I just kept playing. I started playing again about 10 years ago but I'm no where close to what I was when younger.

I wouldnt have played defensive tackle my senior year at 165 pounds...my season was over 4 practices in.

I would have learned to spell my girlfriends' names.

For about a three month period, I was dating a girl named Kristie. I was also dating a girl named Christie. Though one may think this would make such deception easier, one would be mistaken. Anytime there was written correspondence, I was screwed - and since this was in a pre-cell phone era (1991, IIRC), I was a note writing fiend.

"Hey, you spelled my name wrong again..."

I was a swimmer in high school and college. My junior year of high school we had a big meet, we were 7-0 and our opponent was 7-0, so this meet would essentially decide our league champion. There's not a lot of strategy in swimming, it's pretty much get on the blocks and see who can go faster. But I was swimming the 200 free, which is 8 laps for you non-swimming folk; it's not quite a sprint distance, and definitely not a long distance.

The meet was close, I was our #1 in the 200 free, and I knew my opponent because we had faced off as we came up through club swimming over the years. I knew that he was the kind of guy that tended to fade at the end of the race, so I decided to take a steady pace in the beginning, and try to toast him in the end. So he got out ahead of me by a body length or so, and I just cruised for the first half of the race. Then at the end I turned it on and I started to catch up, but he held on and won by about a foot. Thing is, I was barely tired. I had left a lot of effort in the pool. If I could have it back, I woulda gone balls out from the beginning.

But chalk that up to being 16. I didn't make that mistake again. And we ended up winning the meet anyway because we had Brendan Hansen on our team (yes, the current World Record holder in the 100 and 200 breaststroke), so it was all good. But I woulda liked to be the hero there!