Spencer's 6th Grade Championship Football Game

Spencer's Football team made it to the "Super Bowl" game for the 6th grade in Utah County. Actually, the league included teams from Northern Utah County and one team from Salt Lake, called Juan Diego. (It was rumored that no one in the Salt Lake area wanted the Juan Diego team so our league invited them).

The Pleasant Grove "A" team posted a 5-3 record before entering the 4 team playoff against a Lone Peak team coached by a Romney who I found out was a 2nd cousin of mine. The PG team beat Lone Peak, who lost only to Juan Diego and had beat PG in the regular season. PG then played Juan Diego for the championship on November 3rd. The Juan Diego team was undefeated and only 2 teams had even scored on them through the regular season. PG also lost to this Juan Diego team during the regular season. Juan Diego was perceived to be better because, as an open enrollment school, they would be able to have more talent from a larger pool of players.

The game was played at Lehi High School. Pleasant Grove lost 19 to 6. The PG team played very well and may have out played Juan Diego except for 3 plays. The 1st play was the 1st play of the game for Juan Diego when they took it all the way for a score. The next play, Juan Diego kicked a successful on-side kick (2nd play) and eventually took it down the field for a score. The 3rd play was a very long run in the 4th quarter where Spencer pushed the Juan Diego runner out of bounds but the referee did not see it. Many on the sidelines (PG's of course) saw him step out and were yelling "He's out" but the play was allowed to stand. One of those who saw him step out was Sandy, so I know (even though she's Spencer's Mom) he had to be out. Sandy was doing one of the 10 yard markers and the Juan Diego player stepped out right next to her. However, the referee told the PG coaches that the Juan Diego player's heal if it had touched would have been out of bounds but his heal did not come down. That was great eye sight for someone 15 yards down the field. No matter though as we were only able to score once, which was an improvement from the last time we played them.

Spencer played very well. I took some of his highlights and made a little video. It includes most of his offensive plays. It also includes the 2 personal fouls called against Juan Diego, as Spencer was carrying the football when they happened. One of the fouls is in the movie just to watch the reaction of Sandy and our quarterback’s Mom, Patty Jones, to the punching going on in the pile by a Juan Diego player. I was filming up above the press box and it was a pile up so the film doesn't show what happened to Spencer, but you can tell something happened by the reaction on the sidelines. The other personal foul was a player who speared Spencer with a helmet to helmet hit.

I might also mention the uniqueness of Spencer's socks. At the very beginning of football, Spencer got a blister on his heal and became convinced that if he wore 2 socks on that foot, one of which was long, it would help his blister to heal. (By the way, he got the blister because I was sure he could get 2 years out of his football shoes. So Spencer dutifully started playing in last years shoes. On the 2nd day of practices when I happened to see the blister and starting asking questions, we looked at his shoes and promptly bought some larger shoes.) So it became a "thing" for Spencer long after the blister healed to wear one long sock. Sandy mentioned it made it easier for her to pick him out in practice so he continued to do it through the entire season.

During games he was also doing different things with his socks usually wearing long black socks but one white short sock on the blister foot. In the last couple of games he wore one long black sock and one long white sock. The other running back on the team copied Spencer for the championship game and also wore the same sock combination. It kind of reminded me of Brian, setting trends and he's saying "if you look good, you play good".

So watch the video!