Owen Van Doren: Revising to Improve, a football delicacy.

Football is an entire game about revision. From the core principles, it’s all about having a perfectly crafted plan and executing it flawlessly. Every day, there’s an emphasis on getting better. In the weight room, practicing on the field, and even in the classroom. Even through fatigue, perfection is the expectation. It is a cycle of Monday-Saturday system of grinding out kinks. It takes someone to know what this routine is, and I found someone who understands this “measure twice, cut once.” mentality in an English 101 class. Getting to connect with Owen was such a down-to-earth experience. Our life paths are similar; the challenges we faced at home, the burdens we faced at school, and his football background only drew me in more to who he was. During our interview, I found myself laughing the whole time because of every word he said.

This was the game Owen and I played against each other. Inglemoor vs North Creek. Unfortunately for him, I scored on the first play of the game on kickoff return shown here. I later blocked a field goal attempt. My team won 19–0.

In the interview, Owen highlights that in his early days of elementary school, he struggled, then punished because he was not “smart” enough. “I feel like the word smart shouldn’t be a word thrown around at all…smartness is completely subjective” He expresses. “People can be [well-informed] in certain subjects and not so smart in other subjects. Some people can be book smart and can’t figure out how to [socialize] normally.” He describes his time as dreadful and exhausting, working extra hard to catch up and held back from recess. He didn’t feel connected to anyone because he couldn’t go out and play with anyone.

With that occurring throughout school, Owen had many mixed results from people and the system surrounding him. Starting in 3rd grade, Owen believed that you had to indent every other line for two months. And when he turned in his paper, he couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. In fourth grade, there was a teacher who he called Mark. “He kept my motivation up…as a fourth grader that has no motivation to do anything ever. [Mark] was a change of pace…he didn’t hand out much homework. He did try to get [the class] to write more creatively, even if we didn’t know how to.

Along with football, Owen spent some of his time on a club lacrosse team for the school. He and his friends would compete against other clubs throughout the year at various fields.

In contrast to that, Owen speaks about his 8th-grade teacher. He had oddly specific expectations of the layout and the writing in the class. Where Owen was expressing how suffocating it can be to be restricted. He told Owen on one of his papers that the teacher said, “this is a good [essay], but I’m grading you on following the layout of the assignment. I’ll give you a good grade but remember that for other classes.” He displays for me how frustrating all the doors he tried to open to be creative were being closed. Simply because of expectations or writing of what people want to hear. Weirdly enough, though, In 9th grade, I had the same teacher again. Still, this time, there was more openness and creativity in the assignments. His smile began to dim with his following comment quickly.

“If you think a layout gives you zero creativity…AP English [Language] is a whole other level…”

In high school, things began to change for Owen when he met his AP English Language Teacher. This AP Teacher was someone who believed in a “get it right the first time” attitude. He describes the whole class is like, “read this boring passage and then write an essay in 20 minutes.” This comprehension was practically burned into the side of Owen’s skull by the end of the class and ended up giving Owen a cut and dry way to writing. His whole writing style revolved around this teaching, which would push him past his struggle of literacy. But then there would be another problem — the problem to revise. With this newly learned system, There was a substantial emphasis on not making mistakes or erasing. It is a mental roadblock unknowingly built for himself.

Taking the time to slow down and think, “Is there something better we can do?” is complicated because someone has to take the time and deliberately slow themselves down. This sudden pause happens all the time at practice. There were days where as players, all we wanted to do is go full speed and blow someone up. But the coaches have to slow everyone down and get the game plan right. The corrections can only occur at this time because everything happens too fast to correct themselves on the fly. The coach will point out the small details the team is missing, and then we pick up the speed again. It’s hard because this is the same process in writing.

Owen’s graduation photo shows him expressing his excitement to be done with high school with a cheek to cheek smile and the classic rock and roll salute.

Owen’s plans moving forward is to take his efforts towards Industrial Design. There will be plenty of revisions on designs because not every prototype will be the perfect solution. He plans on taking these methods wherever he goes to make sure Owen produces the best quality content he can. Without his AP Teacher, he wouldn’t have learned more about developing his literacy. Without identifying his problems, he could never strive to be a stronger writer. Revision goes with all things, including in football.