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Football, for me, came with a helicopter parent who was on my case 24/7.
My father, Eric Winthrop Sr., believed that to make it in this world, you needed to be focused and make tremendous sacrifices. He would repeat day in, day out that if I wanted to follow in his footsteps, I had to make more efforts.
I agreed with everything he said, but I also wanted to have fun while doing it and not be called a slacker. Was that so bad?
To be clear, I was a beast on the field, and everyone thought so. But HE didn’t, and his opinion was the only one that mattered.
I guess this will happen when you have an All-American Legend as a father. The man won the Heisman trophy and was named NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year three times in a row.
Not having a son on the same level as him would be seen as something shameful, so he was extremely demanding as a result.
Take this game, for example. I’ll be getting a two-hour lecture for the loss, even though I wasn’t the one at fault.
“Eric?” The sight of a tall dark man accompanied by a beautiful black woman in elegant designer clothes made me sigh.
If my dad was the hardass of the century, my mother was the glue of our family. She gave up her entire life to follow him around and made sure my sister and I were happy everywhere we went.
While she cooked and cleaned the house, she would crank up the music. She’d also help us with our homework and acted as a mediator when my father and I butted heads.
I’m not sure what I would have done if she hadn’t been there.
“Mom, Dad,” I mumbled as I took off my helmet and gave my mother a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi, honey. You played a great game,” my mother said encouragingly.
“Oh yeah? Tell me which part you liked best,” I teased her. My mom knew jack squat about football, and this didn’t change because my dad got drafted into the NFL.
“All of it?” she answered with a chagrined smile because she knew she was busted, and this made me chuckle.
My sister and I both took after our mom’s side of the family. We had light eyes and a set of dimples that caused me never-ending grief with my teammates. The height and the size of my muscles, however, were from my dad.
“That’s true only if you disregard our son’s slower than molasses run in the second and third quarters. What did I tell you about giving everything your all? You cannot go through life treating everything like a joke, Son.”
Smile. Don’t talk back. Just smile.
“Hello, Mr.Winslow. It’s nice seeing you again,” Gabe intervened before I lost my cool.
“Hello Gabriel. That was a very nice game you threw. Too bad that last pass got intercepted by the other team.”
“I agree, which is why I’m going to make sure Kobe is kicked off the team.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. I take all our games seriously.”
“Good. I’m happy to see that at least one of you is.”
Fucking A. My dad just threw me under the bus.
Look, I like football and was pretty good at it. It had fun quirks, like the girls who chased me around. But was I obsessed with it as those two were? No. I played it because it gave me something to do, and because my best friend was on the team.
Winthrop and I were inseparable. It’s been like that since we were kids, and our families moved in next to each other.
Our friendship got even stronger after his brother Mason was kicked out of Primrose Hall earlier this year.
“Thank you, Mr. Winslow.”
“Are you ready to go, Eric?” my mother asked.
