Football Season

Fall always reminds me of my days of playing football in school. When the first waft of cool air blows in the Fall it's like there's magic in the air. We have really long summers here in Central Texas. I mean, days of 100 degrees can happen anywhere from late April till September. Just yesterday it hit 100 degrees in Austin. After months of 90 and 100 degree days when you have a day where a cool wind blows in and it is 78 degrees it makes you feel giddy. Usually, the change in the weather here happens gradually. A cool day here or there and then a return to unbearable heat. Then right around Halloween a cold front blows through that drops the temperature to 30 or 40 degrees and finally it's Fall and the vicious Summer is dead.

We would start training for football during the heat of August. With helmets, pads, and jerseys on and intensive running we felt like just laying down and succumbing to the heat. I swear that buzzards were circling us as we practiced, just waiting for one of us to stumble and not get up.

But then on some magical day in Sept. or Oct. we would have a game to play and a cool wind blew into town. Us football players would be so excited we would start smacking our helmets together and yelling at each other, "It's FOOTBALL weather, baby! Yeah! Let's go kick some tail!"

From 7th grade through 12th grade I was a strapping lad of 5'7" and 130 lb. What this meant was in 7th grade I was one of the biggest guys on the team. In 12th grade I was the smallest. My senior year our coach had a clipboard and was asking everybodys' weight to put on the roster for the official program. Most of the guys were 200 lb. When I said I was 130 the coach said, "That's embarrassing! We're not gonna put that on the roster. Other teams will think we're small. I'll put you down for 145 lb."

Despite my small size I played fullback on offense. For those of you who don't know anything about football, the fullback is usually a really big guy you hand the ball to who runs straight up the middle through both teams to advance the ball 2 yards on a critical play. However, most of the time the fullback is mowing down people and clearing a path for the real running back who has the ball and is right behind him. Either way, you take a big pounding.

So in Jr. High I played fullback because I was big and fast compared to my peers. In High School I was the third-string fullback behind 2 bigger and beefier guys. But year after year when the season started the other 2 guys who would start in front of me couldn't play for some reason or another. One broke a bone, another couldn't pass a drug test, another failed some classes and so on. Suddenly, I was the starting fullback again.

It was like the story of the little Engine Who Could. Seconds before the ball was snapped I would be looking at the Behemoth on the other team that I would have to block and be saying in my head, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."

Then the ball was snapped and I would run as hard as I could at him and dive at his knees with my shoulder leading and go into a full log roll.

No one ever expects you to roll. This move if executed properly will fell the largest of giants and I can't tell you how satisfying it is. However, if you don't time it right you just ending up rolling on the ground and looking like an idiot while the giant lumbers past you and smashes into your team mate who has the ball. Then your team mate gets up and gives you a look like, "Way to go, Jerk." or if he's in serious pain, "How could you?" And you hear the hometeam crowd turn violent.

Honestly, playing football was difficult and painful--in my short career I had 2 concussions, stitches 4 times, blood poisoning, knee surgery, tendonitus, jammed vertebrae, and countless cuts and bruises--but it taught me some important things about life. I learned to push myself physically. I learned to be a part of a team--something bigger than myself. I learned to enjoy winning as well as accept that failures happen in life. And I had fun!

My wife has mentioned that if we have a son she doesn't want him to play football. I always agree with her that it is a dangerous sport. But I am secretly hoping that a son of mine will want to play football, so he can push himself and be tough like his dad. More than that I want him to know the joy that I had. Maybe I'll just have to switch his rattle with a toy football.