Made me very emotional. Back on the 26th day mark of Dan's countdown, I started getting emotional about Sean. My son, who is 7, and the second coming of the Duke, loves him some freaking Sean Taylor (thanks CaneFreak2001). Today his pads came in from ****'s, and I was getting him all fitted up, adjusted and such. The emotion started again.
I'm a coach and will be a coach on the staff for which he will play, do I sat him down and put on Mind Games on the TV. He's a RB/WR, so we watched Duke talk about the stiff arm, Beau talk about the attitude of blocking, Coach Brown talk about ball security, RaShawn talk about stalk blocking, and DP tackling. When we were done, we put on some Devin, Duke, DP, and Meast himself.
Carter goes on to tell me he watches the tribute often by himself (mom helps him pull it up). Even though Meast was well before him, he tells me he misses him, and I explained how I was nearly in tears watching the tribute by Freak back on the 26th day. Then I went on to explain the 2003 FSU game. Then we watched the Freak vid over dinner (thanks again Freak), and we discussed Meast at length. The discussion revolved around my unwavering love for UM and Meast, and how Meast was the sole catalyst when I was younger just learning about UM. I liked UM before that, but Sean snared me in, and it was history from there. Again, emotional. Not shedding tears, but emotional.
Then comes this f'n picture.
Carter was upstairs getting ready bed, and I hollered at him to come downstairs immediately. I presented him the picture, and we both welled up a bit after explaining that Duke's favorite player was Sean. We are a spiritual family so the pic was a hard hitter. Awesome moment.
Again his favorite players are Duke and Sean. He wears number eight for Duke, he wanted 26, but decided to stick with 8. He wants Sean's mouthpiece, and visor too. I got him the mouthpiece, and will get him the visor soon. He wants a colored like Sean, but it's illegal in his league. He will have wrist tape and eye black, and will wear R.I.P. #26 on both for the upcoming season.
It's all about The U.