E is for Emotion

I don’t know how many of you, if any of you, ever had to create acrostic poems, the type of poem where a word is written vertically and then each letter represents a different word, during your schooling, but I frequently remember having to do them. Usually the word that was written vertically was my name, either Eric or Ewald. And usually each letter was supposed to be a word that you felt described yourself. I’m guessing that all of you that read this blog know me, some on a deeper level than others, but one word that I never selected for the E was emotional.

Chances are if you know who I am, emotional wouldn’t be a word that comes to your mind to describe me. I wouldn’t use it to describe myself. Very seldom, do I exhibit a lot of emotion externally. However, there are exceptions to the norm. As a senior in high school, while playing a football game that would decide the District Championship, in the fourth quarter of a game against our biggest rival, with only a touchdown lead for my team, I showed emotion. I fell on a fumble that in the backfield that a friend of mine had caused while rushing the passer. I was so excited and happy that without regards for the rules (because I fell on the fumble, I was down), I got up and did a celebratory sprint into the end zone! Remembering back to that moment…it felt like someone else was inside my body controlling those actions; not something that people would imagine to see out of me (on a side note, that was probably one of the five greatest single moments of my life. The others being (in chronological order): witnessing, live, Drew Tate to Warren Holloway’s touchdown that won the Capital One Bowl for the Iowa Hawkeyes over the LSU Tigers, my whole wedding weekend, Amy telling me that she was pregnant, finding out that our unborn child is a boy!).

However, I frequently have tears trickling down my cheek during movies; I can watch Remember the Titans, Rocky IV, or Rudy a million times and cry every time. It is good to cry. I can cry on command when I start to think, or see, or hear certain things. In Jimmy V’s famous ESPY speech, he said that there were three things that people should do on a daily basis. He said that you should think, you should laugh, and you should cry everyday. I try to do all of those things everyday; I think that it is good advice.

I cry. I show emotion. I feel. I’ve always told my teams that I coach, “Don’t ever get too high when things are going good and don’t ever get too low when things are bad,” (I’ve also heard Kirk Ferentz preach this same concept) and I try to live that. However, I must admit, when we were having the ultrasound done to determine our baby’s sex, it was a good thing that the room was dark. I had tears of joy rolling down my cheek after hearing the technician tell us it was a boy! I am extremely excited about the birth of our son, I just don’t wear my emotions on my sleeves…for better or worse.

I’ve never been an emotional person, and I’ve never aspired to become one. Traditionally, emotional men have never been well received by society. That is starting to change. I recently read a book that talked of how this generation of young boys is, for the first time on a wide scale, being raised by fathers that are openly showing emotion towards their sons. I realize the importance of this, and I realize that I will have to actively work toward this. However, I fear nothing because when there is something that I have to work towards, I always work until I’ve accomplished it!