Kryptonite

Every boy making the commitment to play high school football arrives with two things. 

The first is the combination of the physical body, and its skills. The second is self-perception. Self-perception, at 14, is largely influenced by past athletic achievements.  If their talents made them a Superstar they've begun to believe it. Likewise for those who ride pine.  

 Both will discover another 'skill' that has the same equalizing effect on talent that kryptonite has on Superman.  It's common name is heart.   Each boy determines the depth of his own. 

Football is, ultimately, a game.  If you play it

consciously it becomes a rite of passage.  It's impossible to line up a yard away from someone whose objective is the same as yours, and remain ignorant to the truth in the outcome.  When it's over, you know who you are. 

  Many past failures, and accomplishments, were compiled when you woke 10 minutes before a game, ate a Pop-Tart, and still homered twice.  Or struck out any time you touched a bat.  Both came easy, depending on who you were.  Not anymore.  Mother Nature doesn't have a Favorite Son.

 From now on each boy decides his own truth, and rewrites it with determination, commitment, and effort.  Each boy gets to set his own limits, and decide their reasonableness on his own. A Team forms when each boy recognizes the height of the limit is irrelevant. It's the level of effort toward it that matters.

There's no difference between a goal of setting an individual rushing record, or a goal of playing more than one quarter, when the growth obtained in each to reach it is the same.