Week 5 Story: Karma
One day, Barry Sanders was looking over the offensive playbook for the big game this coming weekend. He always felt at ease when looking over his plays. He was getting in the zone when an NFL coach approached him. The coach said, "son, if you find Adrian Peterson's playbook, you will never lose another game again."
Sanders lit up with determination and made it his mission to find this forbidden playbook. The coach told him that the playbook was buried underneath the Texas Longhorn field in a box that was in duffel which was in a suitcase.
Sanders approached a few of his teammates and told them of this fortunate information and asked for their help in retrieving the treasure. The guys said, "hey man that is not such a great idea, the price to pay for something that special is too great." Sanders ignored them and set out to find the playbook.
He snuck into the Longhorn stadium and dug and dug and dug until he found the infamous suitcase. He opened the suitcase and found the duffel. He opened the duffel and found the box. He opened the box and found the playbook. He was so excited that he immediately took the playbook to his coach.
That weekend, Sanders used almost every play out of that book and sure enough, the team won the game... by a lot. He used the playbook for the next three games; again, him and his team won all of the games.
Adrian Peterson found out that Sanders stole his magical playbook and used it to his advantage. Furious, he took the book back and wished bad karma on Sanders.
Soon after, Sanders got injured and was not able to play ever again, lost his NFL opportunity because he could not play, and so he was driven to bad personal decisions for losing his love and passion.
His old teammates came to visit him and wish him happiness after his unfortunate turn of events, but they did all warned him in the first place that taking Adrian Peterson's playbook was going to cost him a great price.
John Madden Offensive Playbook
Bibliography: The Book of Thoth by Donald Mackenzie
Author's Note:
This story is taken from the Ancient Egyptian Unit's story The Book of Thoth. The original story is centered around a King's son that is determined to retrieve Thoth's book that will allow him to enchant the sky, earth, and more. However, the retrieval of the book brings great sorrow upon the King's son and that is the revenge of Thoth. My story has a similar story line, but I thought it would be fun to recreate the story with modernized football ties. A magical book still exists and it is a valued treasure, but it is a book of plays that will bring success upon the player that takes it. The book did bring benefits to the star football player, but it also brought great karma for the crime of stealing it. A modernized version is unique and it still portrays the original story.
Hi Caitlin!
ReplyDeleteI think it is fantastic that you recreated the story using football. As a football fan, it made the story very comical and enjoyable. By modernizing it, you also modernized the karma that the character receives for their actions which I thought was well done. Overall, I think you did a great job utilizing the original story and explaining the origins of of your story.
Hi Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your story! I really liked how you incorporated the Texas Longhorns into this story. That definitely grabbed my attention because Texas is always the enemy and the OU/TX game is only a couple of weeks away. I wonder what respective teams Barry Sanders and Adrian Peterson played for. Was this the point in time where the played in the NFL or NCAA? I think that would have been interesting to know. Last but not least, what if Adrian Peterson tackled Sanders and that is why he got hurt? I was definitely interested in how specifically/what exactly caused Sanders to get hurt. Overall, I think that you did a great job of retelling this story, as I definitely was able to understand the original message in it.
Hi Caitlin!
ReplyDeleteI think using football to tell this story was a really great idea. The idea of a playbook really makes sense and I think it worked really well. Something I was confused about were the specific players used in the story. I recognized both Barry Sanders and Adrian Peterson as professional football players but I didn't really understand why Adrian Peterson's playbook would be at the UT stadium when he went to OU. I also thought Barry Sanders was a lot older than Adrain Peterson so I was confused as to why he would want his playbook. What if you changed the players to popular players on the UT and Oklahoma football teams this year?
The way you incorporated football into your story was a really cool concept and it kept me really intrigue as I really enjoy sports and football. Barry Sanders was an interesting choice as he did go to OSU, but he is one of the greatest to play the position so I can accept that fact. One part of the story that really stood out was the team factor that was brought into the story. Barry was one of the greatest players ever and could do a lot on his own, so the asking of his team then proceeding onwards with that was a cool thing to read.
ReplyDeleteThe one factor of the story that I wonder about is that what karma came down on him. The story did say anything about what the karma caused but it isn't a huge factor to know what it is that hurt Barry.
What if Barry called karma on Adrian Peterson? That is a concept to think about but it could have been a turn that maybe could have spun the story in a different direction.
Hi Caitlin!
ReplyDeleteBecause most of us are Sooners, I think most of us readers will feel connected to your modernized theme of football. After comparing your author's note to your perspective, I really feel like this was an excellent way to make aspects of the original plot come to life. The universal moral of this story is very common. I think it is very common for human nature to often risk things to achieve fame or attention. And sometimes with karma in the works, this ends up hurting us in the long run.