Anyone who has experience with high school football knows things can get pretty hectic during the summer months. Between football camps, two-a-day practices, and sweltering heat, it can be tough to keep track of what is going on around you. Gravette High School Senior Darrick Strzelecki likely understands that now more than he ever has.
When Strzelecki felt a strange feeling in his helmet during practice last week, he chalked it up to a tangled lock of hair or sweat piling up underneath his helmet. When the team broke for a 15 minute rest, Strzelecki took his helmet off and saw what he initially thought was a rubber snake planted as a prank. The 10-12 inch snake was not rubber.
“I kept hitting, and it just kept bothering me,” Strzelecki told the Benton County Daily Record via Off the Bench. “It looked like a rubber snake, and I thought somebody had pulled a practical joke on me. When I grabbed it by the tail, that’s when it jerked, and I dropped the helmet.”
Strzelecki said it freaked him out throughout the rest of practice and he felt like there was still something crawling inside his helmet. That is no mindset to be in on a football field, so that sucks for him. One thing’s for sure: that kid will probably never put a helmet on again without removing all the padding and making sure nothing is living inside of it. Who can blame him?
Check out some other strange incidences involving animals and sports here.
