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Well, the hardest I've ever been hit in my life was by Derek Perkins, my freshman year of high school.

I played football, and as a freshman, I was on JV, and there was a day that they asked me to come and

practice with varsity on the scout team, which was supposed to be an honor.

So it was like, I had to say yes.

But I played wide receiver because I was small.

I was fast.

So I was the guy on the outside that they would throw the ball to and would try to like

avoid all the big guys in the middle because I was a little too small for that.

But on this particular play, they asked me to run a route across the middle of the field,

to which I did, and the quarterback threw the ball to me, except for he threw the ball high,

and I, innocently trying to make a play, sprinting full speed across the field,

jumped up into the air, and got smoked in the ribs by Derek Perkins,

who, in contrast to me, was a senior middle linebacker who was, like, notorious at our school for being the strongest guy in the football team like a total gym rat had the cut off shirts like down to here

muscles coming out of his neck. You're like I don't even know you can get those. I went on to play

college football. My world went spinning and I ended up on the ground, couldn't breathe. The coaches had to

pause practice come out and carry me off the field. Later that day, the varsity coaches invited me

into the coach's office in order to tell me why I shouldn't quit football. I didn't bring up

quitting, never mentioned it. I think they

just saw me get hit and thought that kid is never going to play the sport again. But I did not

quit. I kept playing. But it did. It's made me think about like the one time I did think about

...