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In my playing days of a few sports (football/baseball in HS, basketball before that) I can say for me PERSONALLY.... no sport provided more character building like football did nor did any other teach me to always push myself to my limits like football did. That may not be the same for everyone else, but for me it was like that and because I was fortunate to only suffer one concussion over the course of playing contact football for 9 years, I didn't get some of the harsher consequences that some others would.
But I'll put it this way. I have multiple buddies from high school, more than I can count on one hand, who have told me over and over how much they regret not playing the sport.
It's easy for a lot of guys to say "You know, I don't think I want to fool with it (football), it's too much work and far too time consuming." It's what many do, and really it comes down to being lazy of course.
But man, that grind is what makes it such a special game. Regardless of how hard you work at baseball, basketball, etc., none of those grinds compare to the one with football in my experience. It feels like such a tighter brotherhood than anything else. Not that those sports aren't great too, but they didn't have the same lasting impact on me.
I'll always miss getting to strap up and play the game of football, and if I'm lucky enough to have a son, I'll let him decide what direction he goes with it after weighing the pros and cons. But I damn sure won't let him walk away from the game for fear of the grind that goes into a season, cause it is those regrets I hear about all the time.
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