Dear Football by Dom Clary

Dear Football
By Dom Clary

One of my first memories as a kid was begging my parents to let me play tackle football a few years early, I was five years old. Football has been the center of my life for well over the 17 years out of the 22 years I’ve been alive.

As a kid I struggled socializing properly with other kids, anger issues also plagued me as a child. Football allowed me to use those anger issues properly and safely while I learned to finally socialize with other kids. This wasn’t an overnight thing; it took time and many mistakes until I was able to develop into the person I am now.

I remember before every youth football season I would dread the thought of practice. I knew that football meant the end of my summer and the start of school. These feelings wouldn’t last long, my mom would bring me to sign ups where we would try on and pick our helmets, which was my favorite part.

These helmets are the old school 2000s helmets that we all know and love, seeing the red helmet, black H for Hornets and the black and white strip got me excited. I would wear the helmet all the way home until my mom would make me take it off. I was an old school player in the making, I played offensive and defensive line as I wore number 58 for my favorite steeler Jack Lambert.

I had the wrist guards that would protect my arms and hands and rec specs as my vision worsened. I looked like I was straight out of the 1970s (you can blame my dad for that). My last year of youth football was when I was 11 years old, that year I was the starting center and wore number 50, two things that I wanted to do for various reasons.

Football has a long history in my family, this history was the reason I loved football and the community that I played for. My great grandfather (one of the people I was named after) James Clary played professional football for the Buffalo soft hats.

Sadly, we have no official record of his professional career. All we have is a news paper after his death calling him a Mercer County legend, as well as one of the first athletes to receive 12 athletic letters while at Sharpsville high school.

The influence doesn’t end there, my dad was always more of a coach then a player despite being a college basketball player for a year. His younger brother (my uncle) was my biggest football influence as a kid.

He coached for my school years before I was in high school, he was also a Hickory High school alum. He played center, middle linebacker, and wore number 50. He also won the schools state title as he was all region kickoff team that year in 1989. I wanted to be just like him, I wanted to wear 50 and continue my family legacy that he left to me, and then to his kid’s.

When high school came, I let the first two years play its course, I rode the bench on teams that had state championship goals. Sadly, those goals came up just a few games short. Junior year I had a chance to start at left tackle and block for one of the best running backs in the state of PA at the time.

I got to break records and be on the number one team in the state at the triple A level in PA. Being apart of that team was fun, we destroyed everyone we played including our rival, when we played another undefeated team, we had to crawl back from being down as we won by a touchdown.

I also had my entire family to support me on this journey, even if the stress was a little too much for my parents. My dad would get nervous, hoping that I perform good, like any father would. My mom was just hoping that I would come back healthy, their friends would tease them on how nervous they would get. That season would sadly end in the first round of the state playoffs, we won our 6th straight district 10 title but couldn’t get to the state championship game.

Senior year had a lot of setbacks, multiple coaching changes before and during the season, and my best friend and QB of the team having a season ending injury days before our first game. We weren’t the Hickory Hornets of old as we struggled against majority of teams that we played. We lost to our rival and then senior night, something I never saw coming.

This resulted in a second-round playoff exit as we struggled on offense. That would be the last game that I played in the red and black, I wasn’t sad after, but proud and happy that I had such a successful football career as a Hornet.

That wouldn’t be the end of my football career as I would commit to Baldwin Wallace university. My three options were Marietta, Grove City, and BW. The moment I met coach Hilvert I knew where I wanted to be, he wanted to win, he was there to win, I wanted to be apart of what he was building in Berea.

Freshman year led to some of the toughest years of my life, I wasn’t ready to live on my own and it showed. I felt isolated and alone, I struggled relating with my new friends and was not motivated in the classroom.

As my freshman year wrapped up, I had a GPA that was too low to get me back on the football field. I sat down with my dad as he gave me two options, come home and work in a warehouse or go back to school and work harder than ever before. I thought long and hard about this decision, it led to my desire to still be apart of the football team. I took two summer classes and got B’s, I was told this would boost my GPA over the line and I would be able to play my sophomore year.

When I showed up to camp my GPA didn’t go through yet and I was told to wait. Little did I know, I would wait well over a year to put a helmet on every again. As I walked into the facility for pictures, I was pulled to the side as I was informed that one of my classes wouldn’t count towards my GPA. I felt as if my heart was pulled out of my chest and stepped on in front of me. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t play football, I put myself in a hole and couldn’t crawl out of it.

A bad personal decision would stack on top of this and put me in bad standings with the football team. I was assigned to the equipment team till the end of the year. I never been more miserable in my life, and only I was to blame.

My mistakes led me to that moment, all I could do is take it on the chin and keep on moving forward, and that’s what I did. I boosted my GPA up that year, learning how to properly study while dealing with my ADHD.

I would stack two 3.0 semesters on top of each other and was getting back in shape for football, then the world stood still. Covid-19 would take the world and shake it up right in front of me.

My sophomore year ended during spring break, I moved back in with my parents and didn’t see past my streets stop sign for almost a month. The only way I saw people is when I rode my bike through the park.

No family gatherings, no 21st birthday parties, and no college football. The strength and conditioning would change as gyms would be shut down for a good part of the summer. I would do lunges around my back yard with 135 pounds on my back, I would ride my bike up hills, I would do anything with anything as I tried to get in playing shape.

These efforts wouldn’t matter as the OAC would cancel the season and move it to the spring. I was in shock, my long-awaited return to football would have to wait another semester, it felt like I was waiting an entire lifetime.

The fall was mainly working out and conditioning as we couldn’t meet in person, I felt in great shape as I was ready to play in the fall. After a tough holiday season, not being able to see my family, I would finally put the helmet back on for the first time since 2018. Every day I stepped on the field I felt like a kid playing for the first time again. The season wouldn’t go as we planned; we only went through two games losing them both.

It was a rough moment, but we had a tight group that was committed to putting this team back on top of the OAC. The fall of 2021 was overall a successful year but ended on a bad note, we had a chance to make the playoffs but sadly those efforts fell short. We would finish with an 8-2 record and second in the OAC, all that feels numb when considering my career ended on November 13th around 4 o’clock.

Taking it in was and still is hard to do, my whole life I defined myself as a football player, now the script must change. A former coach of mine from high school commented on one of my Facebook posts and it helped change my prospective on my career ending. “The Football career never ends; the role just changes.

It’ll always be a part of Dom’s life, its apart of him.” This coach helped me find a life after playing my senior year of high school, he allowed me to be an assistant coach for the youth football team he ran. He took me under his wing and allowed me to make decisions and adjustments.

Working with Kee on Sports has allowed me to be apart of high school football again. Instead of coaching I get to announce, keep stats, and write articles, it has allowed me to stay with the game and make a connection with a community that I am foreign to. Football has allowed me to connect with people that I never thought I would get to know.

It has opened doors and given me opportunities that wouldn’t be available otherwise. It allowed me to stay in school and has given me multiple second chances.

Football saved my life; it saved the life of many of my teammates as well. Football is the greatest sport on the planet, nothing creates a bond between a group of young men like the game of football. This game has given me everything and I gave everything back. My on the field career is complete, but my career in the booth and on the sideline has just started.

Thank you, football, for the highs and the lows, for every teammate and coach I met along the way. One day I will teach these lessons to my nephews and hopefully one day to kids of my own. You were the strictest teacher in life, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. From the bottom of my heart, thank you football.