My fifteen-year-old's football season ended right as it started, and it's been a real lesson for him in patience, a quality or trait I definitely didn't pass down to him.
On the first day of football practice in late August, we got a call from the athletic trainer at the high school. Jaxton had rolled his ankle pretty badly. Badly enough, we were told we needed to go get an X-ray. Thankfully, that night we learned he didn't break it, but that was just the start.
Unfortunately, weak ankles must run in the family because I've rolled my right ankle more than a handful of times, and it's not fun. I had to have X-rays in middle school, then again in high school. I missed a few weeks of play my Junior year. I rolled it really badly while playing tennis with my wife in college. Hell, I even rolled it stepping on the wrong part of a parking lot bumper that was sticking out of the ground. Then, about four years ago, I did it so badly while walking down a flight of stairs that I was sure I broke it.
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My point is, I know how a rolled ankle behaves, and after he still wasn't able to put pressure on it after ten days, I knew something was up.
This past week, he had an MRI, and it turns out he tore ligaments, and he even had significant bone bruising. The Doctor said, “You should have just broken it; it would have been an easier timeline to return from.”
Needless to say, the already short high school football season, which ends in about five weeks, isn't going to work on his timeline this year. Jaxton is out on the PUP, the physically unable to perform list for the 2026 season, and it's really been hard on him.
I'm using it as a life lesson, though, as much as he doesn't want to hear it. It's adversity; it's a life challenge, and it's something that tests his mental state as he navigates not being able to play a game he loves. But all of us go through the shit, and the more stuff we go through, the more likely we are to be able to bounce back and be even better in the future. If we don't go through the shit, we never learn how to navigate it.
The hard part for him right now is that there isn’t anything he can do to speed it up. He can rehab it. He can listen to the doctors. He can do the exercises. He can take care of himself. But he can’t negotiate with a torn ligament. He can’t wake up tomorrow and decide he’s ready to play just because he wants it badly enough.
That’s probably the hardest lesson in all of this. There are moments in life when effort matters, but patience matters just as much. You can do everything right and still have to wait. Careers are like that too. You can be ready for the promotion and still have to wait. You can be qualified for the job and still have to wait. You can work your ass off on something and still not get the result on your timeline.
What I’m trying to teach him is that the injury is temporary, but what he learns from it can stick with him for a long time. How does he respond when something gets taken away from him? How does he support his teammates when he can’t be on the field? How does he stay connected to the game when he’s frustrated, pissed off, and probably sick of hearing his dad turn everything into a life lesson?
Resilience isn’t built when everything is going your way. It gets built when you have to sit on the sideline.
The truth is, resilience isn’t built when everything is going your way. It gets built in moments like this. It gets built when you have to sit on the sideline. It gets built when the timeline changes. It gets built when the thing you were excited about suddenly isn’t available to you anymore and you have to figure out what to do next.
I hate that his season ended before it really had a chance to begin, and I know he hates it even more. But someday he’s going to go through something harder than a football injury, and when that happens, I hope he remembers that he’s already been knocked down before. He’s already had something taken away from him. He’s already had to be patient when he didn’t want to be. Sometimes the lessons we never ask for are the ones that prepare us the most.