80 yard run
The main character of the short story, “The Eighty Yard Run” is Christian Darling. Everything in life cannot be handed to anyone on a silver platter and Christian finds this out the hard way. He is a man who thinks he is a famous football player but soon finds out he is not as good as he thinks. He was an athlete but not a gifted one, he spent the most of his career blocking for someone else better. Louise is Christian’s wife and she treats him like gold and spoils him with many gifts. Christian Darling’s character completely changes throughout this short story as he goes from riches to rags. A mans football career is never remembered by what he does at practice. It might be remembered for a day but never a lifetime. Football is judged by what you do on the field when a war between two teams is at hand. Christian did not have many long runs in his life while playing running back. I think this is why an eighty-yard run was so important to him at practice. He was trying to make his legacy in life more about football rather than something else better than that. Football is not all that people make it out to be, yes if you are great you may get the fame and fortune but the chance of that happening are slim to none. Football is a sport that is terrible on the body no matter what the age of person playing is. All is does is beat your body every single day but that is why some people love it. Football was all Christian knew and he makes it out to be that it is the only thing he loved in life. He wanted to be running the ball every down rather than blocking and wants to be making the big plays rather than going unnoticed. What he does not realize is the fact that football is a team sport and not everyone gets the glory. Linemen block every single play and they have no glory that comes from I but they still do their job. The real glory of football is walking off the field after every game knowing you did all you could do to help your team win. That is the true meaning