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April 03, 2007
finished rough draft of my essay
So I know I posted the first portion of my final essay in my english class, well here is the full piece, and just to warn, it is still a rough draft and needs some work, any commentary or suggestions on organizational structure, style, anything, please let me know!
Fight On
The sun had yet to rise, as my father is pounding his large fist on the door of our room at the Beach House in Hermosa Beach. I look at my cell phone to check the time it reads 4:55am. The pounding stops and his chanting begin. “Your day of reckoning is here. We are the Alpha and the Omega. We are USC…Fight on for old SC, our men fight on to victory…” I grab my pillow and shove it over my head. Several minutes of his chanting passed until I finally got out of bed to open the door. Standing outside our room was my father; a 45 year old man wearing his USC letterman jacket from 1982, matching cardinal and gold puma shoes, a cardinal beret embroidered with his newly found alumni group’s name, The Templar Knights of Troy, and his 1978 national championship ring. I stare blankly at him while he shouts, “Whose your Daddy?”
Ever since I can remember, I was taught to believe that the University of Southern California was the greatest institution in the world. It was a daily routine for my father to quiz me on the famous alumni that attended USC.
“Who was the first man to land on the moon?”
“Neil Armstrong.” I replied.
“Where did that man go to graduate school?”
“USC of course, Dad.”
“You know it. Remember, you are full blooded Trojan.”
In addition to the daily quizzes, my siblings and I were dressed regularly in USC paraphernalia from mini cheerleading outfits to cardinal and gold hair ribbons. When I was 10 years old he had me carrying a UCLA bruin by a noose as I obediently shouted, “UCLA SUCKS!” to every person wearing baby blue and gold. The horn on my Dad’s Mercedes even played the USC fight song to which he had his children singing along as he drove around our small town so everyone could hear the sound of Troy. Our first dog was named Troy in honor of the USC mascot, Tommy the Trojan. Troy became my first spoken word as I was found regularly screaming our dog’s name from my crib. Eventually my youngest brother took the name, Troy; and if my father had his way with the naming of all of his children, I would have been named Helen, to honor Helen of Troy, my other brother would have been named, Rock, and my sister would have been named Paris.
My dad doesn’t wait for my response as he barges into the room to wake the rest of his children. He announces to us, “This is the most important day of my life.” No, apparently our births were not quite as significant as the day USC would play Michigan in the Rose Bowl of 2004, my freshman year of college. Although he taught me to believe that USC is the greatest, I learned to feel the same way about my university, Michigan. So when he left the room and I went to my closet to pick out my outfit for game day, I did not hesitate to reach for my maize and blue. So when I finally came out, I was wearing my maize spandex underneath shorts with Michigan written across the butt, maize and blue pumas, gold beads, a Michigan pin that when I pressed it lightly played ‘Hail to the Victors’, a home-made shirt with Michigan Football in block letters, block M earrings, and last but not least my head was protected by the life-size wolverine foam head. My dad looked at me in disbelief. For a moment, I thought he would disown me for the second time. Instead, he smiled.
My father played football and my mother was a song girl for the University of Southern California from 1978-1982. When my father was 12 years old he attended his first USC football game in the Los Angeles Coliseum with his father, and from that day on when as he witnessed the stadium filled to capacity, the striking white horse, the beautiful blond cheerleaders, and the cardinal and gold football team on the field he knew that would be his destiny. He set these goals as a 12 year old and coincidently he went on to receive a full scholarship at USC, starts as a freshman, wins a national championship and marries a blond cheerleader. He wanted his four children to have the same kind of destiny.
In a similar manner, when I was 10 years old my father took me to the Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia to watch my first international swimming competition. The opening ceremonies were filled to capacity; the Olympic torch was blaring with light, there were hundreds of Olympic athletes marching around the stadium. I had never seen anything like this in my life. At that moment when I took in all the glory of the experience, the dream began. My father had tickets for men’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, men’s water polo, women’s and men’s tennis, and yet all I wanted to see was the swimming finals. And so he exchanged the other tickets for swimming finals. As I watched Amy Van Dyken of the USA rip off her cap and pump her fist in celebration after touching the pad to beat Jingyi Le from China to win the gold by a mere three one hundreds of a second, I believed that my destiny would be to become an Olympic gold medalist swimmer. I also believed that my father would love me more if I reached this goal.
Riding my bike three miles to and from practice in both the morning and evenings, sacrificing almost every weekend sitting at a pool waiting to compete in only one or two races, reading Swimming World magazine religiously, attending Stanford Swimming camps, and eating exactly what Amy Van Dyken would say she ate before competitions became a part of my day to day routine on my road to destiny. Unfortunately, this destiny was short-lived.
My father instilled a belief in me that a great athlete was good at multiple sports, so in addition to my swimming training he also had me playing basketball, volleyball, and soccer. I was good at everything, but running from one practice to the next, I started loosing races I had always won. I was no longer taller and stronger than my competition. I could not simply muscle out the win. Thus, by the time I turned 14 years old I wanted to be done with swimming, but my love for sports still persisted. I discovered water polo. It combined my ball-handling skills from soccer, volleyball, and basketball and my speed in the water as a swimmer. I was the only freshman to make my varsity team at my high school. My father also realized that swimming was not in my heart anymore and so my destiny to swimming in the Olympics transformed to my destiny to play Division I water polo at the greatest university in the world, The University of Southern California.
“Remember Wesley, this day is the 25 year anniversary of my freshmen year at USC when we played your boys. We beat Michigan 17-10 in the 1979 Rose Bowl. We shared the national championship title that year. Your big mid western boys couldn’t hang, they just don’t have the Reggie Bush, the Matt Leinhart, the OJ Simpson, the Charles White, the Ronnie Lott, the Marcus Allen, the Mike Williams. We have eleven national championships and six Heisman winners.” As he was reminding me of how great USC football is, as soon as he took a moment to breath, I jumped in. “Dad the only reason you won that game in ’79 was thanks to a controversial ruling on Charles White's 3-yard TD run in the second quarter. Wolverine linebacker, Jerry Meter came up with a huge fumble recovery on the 1-yard line, which if had been called correctly would have given us the win and not USC. And by the way, Michigan has eleven national championships as well and three Heisman winners.” My Dad chuckled, “Were those national championships even in this century?” I just began singing Hail to the Victors. He interrupted my valiant attempt to show my maize and blue pride with his final speech, “USC RULES THE WORLD, Move over Alexandria, Move over Rome, Move over Ming, Move over Han. There is so much separation between USC and the rest of the NCAA its similar to the distance between the outer edges of the Universe and Earth in light years. There is no need for BCS, AP, USA/ESPN Coaches Polls to determine number one anymore, all roads must go through a small endowed private school located on the four corners of Figueroa, Exposition, Vermont and Jefferson in South Central Los Angeles. I speak the truth nothing but the truth, so help me God.” Kick-off is in approximately 8 hours. The car is loaded with three kegs, a couple handles, bottles of champagne, freshly squeezed orange juice, tortilla chips, homemade salsa, mixers, good cheeses, Carr’s crackers, fresh fruit and veggies, lots of ice, the Trojan Ellison family, and the one Ellison wolverine.
I picked up water polo quickly. Finishing my freshman season, I helped lead my team to win the regional championship and was asked to play on the Stanford University club team the following summer. During the summer, I traveled all over California to compete and during these tournaments began meeting various college coaches that were interested in having me play for their university in a few years. It was very exciting to have coaches from Cal Berkeley, UC-Davis, University of Indiana, UC-San Diego, Brown University, University of Southern California, and University of Michigan tell you that they wanted you and that they saw something in you that apparently no one else saw. I continued to grow as a player throughout my high school career. I kept winning my games, making all-conference teams, and dominating the 2-meter position in my area. During the games, every time I scored a goal I immediately looked to stands in hope that maybe my father would be there. I wanted my father to see that I was on my way to fulfilling his dream for me, but each time I glanced to the stands, he was always missing. I played over 50 games in my high school career. He never made it to even one. The only water polo he saw was a highlight reel I sent to him by mail. I resented my father for not making time to be there, and so during the first month of my senior year when the official recruiting process began I did not include him. I decided that if I were going to play Division I Water Polo it would be on my own accord.
As we approach the Rose Bowl sunken behind the mountains, the sun has just begun to rise. There are no other cars in our VIP parking lot. My father is quite proud of his parking spot as he looks to us to tell us this is why we get up early. I roll my eyes knowing that no one else will be here for at least another hour, another hour we could have slept. Before we unload the essentials (the alcohol and food) he takes his USC flag that he has had since his freshman year and he places it on the windshield of the car. The tailgate can now begin. The area behind the car within minutes is smothered in cardinal and gold, the stereo system is blasting the USC Fight Song, soon the In And Out burger truck shows up smelling of grease and deliciousness, along with my father’s former fraternity brothers and teammates, one of which also brings 7 or 8 models to be the bartenders at the tailgate, expectantly by 9am we have the local news station covering the Ellison family rallying for the big showdown between Michigan and USC.
Through many phone calls with coaches, research of schools online, talking to current and former players, and official visits to the schools, I narrowed my choice to three schools: USC, Michigan, and Cal. It was November 10th and I had four days to make my decision for the early signing day on November 14th. I could not stop thinking about how much it would please my father if I went to USC. He would be so proud to see his oldest daughter wearing the cardinal and gold uniform. The USC women’s water polo team was ranked first in the nation at this time, the coach did not speak English very well, kept his players on diets of rice and chicken, regularly yelled profanity to his players, and worked them till tears. I was not so sure that water polo was the only experience I wanted from college. Michigan offered a competitive and intense water polo program, a strong academic curriculum, and also a big football tradition. While trying to make this decision, I continued to go back to the image of my first game in the Big House when I made by official visit earlier that fall; the hundred thousand people proudly wearing their maize and blue attire cheering for their team through all weather and all terrain. I knew that deep down I wanted to start my own tradition and that tradition would be Michigan. So immediately I called the head coach at the University of Michigan to tell him that I would be signing with them. He faxed over the papers, and before telling anyone of the news that I would be signing with Michigan, I signed my name and committed to the University of Michigan. I did it.
Still being the only wolverine at the tailgate as my wolverine friends have yet to arrive, my father pulls me to his side, “Wes, I am so proud of you. You are just like me. It takes a lot of courage to be standing in this crowd wearing maize and blue. You know I think you made a good decision, even though your football team is going to get their ass beat. I like Michigan. I don’t know if I ever told you this but my last day of practice, Coach Robinson let the seniors pick a helmet from any other team in the country to wear for the last practice, and I picked the Michigan helmet to wear. I always loved how it looked ever since I was a young boy.” I just looked at my dad and smiled.
Sitting in my room alone I was terrified, as I knew I had to make the phone call to reveal the news. I rehearsed what I would say several times out loud. I pressed each number with such deliberation as if my life depended on this one call. As soon as my father answered the phone, I blurted, “I’m going to Michigan.” There was a long silence. I waited for him to respond. He took a deep breath, “Why was your father not involved, I could have set you up with a better offer, do you know how many people I know in the athletic world, what were you thinking, Michigan, you are better than that. Don’t you want to win a national championship, make all-American honors, and go to the Olympics? You are such a coward for choosing a school that will not develop your athletic talents as well as a program like USC. They are the best in the country. You don’t want to be the best, is that it?” I started crying. I did not know what to say. All I wanted him to ever say was that he was proud of what I had accomplished. I wanted him to be happy for me and with me about this decision, but he was furious. I could not take the badgering. I hung up the phone. We did not speak again for six months.
As we sat down in the stadium as one big happy family, my Dad insisted that I sit next to him the entire game, while I painfully watched Michigan get destroyed by USC 28-14. Six months was a long time to think about my decision, and he soon gave in by offering to make the three-day drive with me from San Francisco to Ann Arbor to move me in my dorm. The first thing he did when we finally arrived to Ann Arbor was finding the bookstore to buy me my very own Michigan flag. My father became my number one fan. He came to every single home water polo game I had at Michigan my freshmen year, and has continued to be at my home games. I have even caught him wearing a Michigan Women’s Water Polo hat or singing hail to the victors.
Posted by wesleyme at April 3, 2007 06:43 PM