Forever, Not For Better

[dedalus_1947]

There are places I’ll remember

All my life, though some have changed.

Some forever, not for better,

Some have gone and some remain.

All these places have their moments,

With lovers and friends I still can recall.

Some are dead and some are living;

In my life, I’ve loved them all.

 (Lennon-McCarthy, In My Life: 1965)

I’ve found that most people my age recall their high school days in idyllic terms. I’ve never understood this. I mistakenly assumed that, in attending the same catholic school for four years, my high school friends and acquaintances shared the same adolescent feelings about these times. Yet, as I shivered at remembered scenes of embarrassments and humiliations, school mates and friends blissfully described these times as the best years of their lives. In the invitation of my silence, they tried to convince me of the superior education they received, the high quality of teaching, and the fulfilling social and sporting activities they participated in. At the conclusion of these conversations, I often doubted that we attended the same high school. These thoughts of high school came to me while I was writing my last essay about driving down Venice Boulevard (Rolling Home) and describing my years playing Pop Warner football. The high school scenes that came to mind did not fit the travelogue essay I was writing, so I saved them for another.

 

 

Looking back at the boy I was during high school, I would describe myself as an uncertain and insecure “nerd”, struggling to distinguish himself and achieve some chimerical prize in the social, academic, and athletic arenas in which we competed. I wanted to be recognized and envied: “There goes Tony. I wish I were as handsome, popular, smart, and athletic as he is”. At the same time I was afraid to be singled out, differentiated, or separated from the safety of a group. I wanted to be like other kids; kids who looked the right way, did the right things, and knew what to say in all occasions. It was a confusing time. My day to day existence never ceased being a private struggle of making mistakes, forgiving myself for having made them, and then trying to avoid making them again. This was difficult to do because I kept them hidden and secret. Miraculously, by a confluence of accident, good luck, and hard work, I reached a truce with myself in my senior year. In that fourth year, I achieved a modicum of individual distinction, group acceptance, and personal satisfaction as a student and athlete – but I could never forget my lower-classmen days, especially my freshman year and football.
 

 

In the summer of 1961, I decided to skip freshman tryouts and remain for a final year in the Pop Warner football program. I was in the odd situation of being the only high school boy on my team, since everyone else went to public junior high schools. The core of the team had been together for three years. We were veteran and experienced ball players who knew that this could be our championship season. I had no interest in breaking ranks with my comrades to join a new team. I assumed any sportsman would understand this decision; especially since football was just a game. Unfortunately, my high school did not. In my freshman year, I learned two lessons about high school football: Team loyalties are not respected when they conflict with its football program; and football is not a game in high school.
 

 

A clue to the importance of football in high school was the tradition among upper classmen in lettermen sweaters of cornering freshman boys and asking if they were going out for football. The question was couched as a compliment, such as “You have great hands; are you going out for the frosh team?” Or, “With your size and strength, you’d make a great lineman; are you going out for football?” The “right” answer was “Sure, I can’t wait!” This response, with an added dose of naive enthusiasm, would get you past this roadblock. Answering “No” was a sure provocation to a hostile interrogation, laced with humiliating homophobic insults and innuendo. “What’s wrong with you, are you a pansy? Do you still play with dolls? You don’t look like a fag to me!” Coaches who taught freshmen classes also posed these question, albeit without the explicit homosexual references. I’d been forewarned of this fall ritual by one former teammate who had moved on to catholic high school. However, it didn’t help, and I mistakenly tried walking the tightrope of honesty and sport machismo. When I was “braced” by lettermen or teachers, I told them I WAS a football player, but I was passing on freshman ball to complete a third year in Pop Warner. Instead of understanding and respect for this loyalty to my team, I received a semester-length dose of negative attention for my choice. It was the worst possible fate for a freshman, in a new school among strangers, to be singled out and made the target of mockery and derision by “jock” teachers and lettermen. I was called a “Pop Warner pansy”, a “homo”, and a “traitor” in hallways and the lunch area. I had to run more laps, and do extra push-ups and sit-ups than my fellow freshmen in P.E. This treatment continued until I showed up for spring football in April.

 

Spring football is a gathering of novice and veteran football players so they can be inspected and judged for their ability to play junior varsity or varsity football. The coaches hoped to weed out the weak and uncover the strong. At first I thought I had something to prove: I would demonstrate my seasoned skills and fierce attitude; I would show that I was not a “faggot” and I could play this game. Since I had not gone out for the freshman team that fall, I was relegated to the beginners group until I showed my mettle. I took the setback in stride. I devoted the first days to showing the neophytes how to buckle their pads and wear their uniforms, and translating the gridiron curses that were screamed at them by volunteer upperclassmen coaches. The adult coaches talked about team spirit, courage, and commitment; but, after three years, I knew that at its essence, football was about guts, attitude, and rules. There were rules of behavior and etiquette on the field and off the field. Beginners practiced and improved their skills, but real players had to show a willingness to accept and deliver punishment and receive pain without hesitation or sign of distress. I had done this for three years, and I believed I could continue at the high school level.

 

On one particularly cold day of practice, the linemen paired off for tackling drills. I was facing a mountainous classmate named Alex Schumacher, a freshman beginner who was nicknamed “Big”. He was 6’- 1’’, and weighed about 210 lbs – hefty advantages to my 5-9, 160. We were 5 yards apart when he was given the ball and commanded to run forward. My job was to hit and stop him, lifting and driving him off his feet, back into the ground. The collision was sufficiently loud and thunderous to cause all eyes on the field to turn towards us; but instead of seeing me drive him up and onto his back, the coaches saw us collapse to the side. An unstoppable force had struck the unmovable object, and there was no momentum left. Grasping the instructional opportunity of this moment, an assistant coach ran up to us and yelled in my face. It was a two-man litany I was familiar with:

“Delgado, do you call that sissy effort a tackle?” He screamed.

“No sir” I yelled back, through my mouth piece.

“What do you want to do about it? He barked.

“I want to do it again, coach!” I yelled enthusiastically.

“Good, line up! Do it again! Only this time plant him into the ground.” He commanded.

Schumacher was on his feet, still holding the ball, and moving his helmeted head from side to side as we spoke. He never said a word. He had no lines in this scripted dialogue, so he just stood there, confused, waiting for directions. “What are you waiting for, Shumacher?” the coached yelled, turning toward him and taking the ball away. “You heard me, let’s do it again. Line up – only this time I want you to run over him”.

We separated again. I took my stance, bit down on my mouth piece, and leaned forward, visualized my action. Spring forward, with driving legs, and impaling my right shoulder into his thighs, while wrapping my arms around his knees, pull them back towards me. The keys to a successful tackle off the line are hitting the ball carrier low and maintaining forward momentum by driving your legs like pistons. I’d done this hundreds of times. By putting all the pieces together I would hit him, drive him back, and drop him down.  Unfortunately, I knew what all the coaches knew, and the watching veterans suspected, about this pairing – it was a mismatch. Halfbacks and fullbacks did not come in Schumacher’s size, bulk or weight. My only hope was to act confidently and decisively and pray that Schumacher would realize that he needed to let himself be tackled. However, Alex was new to football. He truly believed it was his job to run over me. He knew nothing of lineman etiquette during tackling drills. The purpose of the drill was to practice form and intensity, not to score touchdowns. I was demonstrating the proper bravado and determination; he was supposed to be the tackling dummy.

“Go!” The coach screamed as he jammed the football into Schumacher’s stomach.

I charged off my mark, staying low and staring at the target of his stomach. I hit him with a resounding crunch before he had taken 2 steps, and followed the impact with a long strenuous grunt, “Aarrgghhh!”
 

 

Silence ensued, as all eyes watched the mammoth Schumacher, absorb the blow. My shoulder and helmet appeared to be pasted on his waist and thighs, and my legs kept driving, but there was no movement. I finally yanked the arms encircling his legs toward me and twisted him to the side, as though I was wrestling a giant heifer to the ground.

The coach was instantly hovering over us, yelling: “What do you call that, Delgado?”

“A candy-ass tackle, coach,” I replied immediately, looking up at him from the ground. I was hoping that by giving him an honest but humorous response, he would laugh and move on to the next pair. But he wasn’t going to let me off the hook yet.

“Damn right”, he responded. “That was the sorriest, most candy-assed tackle, I’ve ever seen! Where did you learn how to tackle like that? Oh wait, now I remember, Pop Warner football. What do you want to do about this, Delgado? Do you want to quit?”

“No sir!” I yelled back at him at the top of my lungs. “I want to go again, coach!” I lied, hoping that the force of my words would sound convincing. It must have worked, because for the first time I saw what appeared to be the beginnings of a smile on his grizzled face. I hoped he was seeing the absurdity of my situation, the size of my opponent, and realizing that I was only demonstrating false bravado.

“Good, then line up and knock him on his ass!”

That was not the response I wanted to hear. Perhaps my acting was better that I thought. Now I had no recourse but to try one more time. Since Alex was not cooperating with me, I needed a new plan. I jogged back to the line of tacklers and took my three point stance. If I couldn’t drive him back, then I had to drop him. The only way to do that was to knock his feet out from under him. This was the last-ditch, failsafe maneuver performed by undersized safeties when facing hard-charging fullbacks who had broken through the defensive lines of linemen and linebackers. It was a risky maneuver, because by launching oneself at a ball carrier’s feet, and turning themselves into a low-flying missile, with their helmet as the warhead, the tackler lost sight of his target. A quick back could simply leap over the blind, low flying obstacle and make the tackler look foolish. No self-respecting lineman would try such a ploy, leaving it for the likes of safeties, punters, and kickers. I had seen it done, but I never practiced the maneuver. I kept telling myself that Schumacher did not know enough to leap over me.

“Go” shouted the coach, pushing the ball into Schumacher’s stomach for the third time.

I flew off my mark, tunneling all my attention at the space between his ankles and knees. On my third step I launched myself, lowering my eyes to the ground, and visualizing the contact of my helmet and shoulder pads against bone and sinew. I felt a jarring collision that shivered through my neck, shoulders, back, waist, and thighs. I felt a wide blow to the stomach, followed by the collapsing avalanche of a mountain on my back. Everything went black until someone rolled me over.

“He’s not breathing, he’s not breathing!” Schumacher was yelling frantically in my face, and looking around in panic.

I was trying to inhale, but my lungs and mouth found no traction. I was grasping for air in an airless vacuum, and everyone moved and sounded as though they were under water. The wind had been knocked out of me. I’d seen it happen a few times in practices, and I’d experienced it once – I think. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care, because I couldn’t breathe. I tried saying “Pull up my belt; pull me up by my belt!” but no sounds emanated except more gasping. I’d seen coaches and other players treat this condition by lifting the belt of the winded player and raising his stomach. This action allowed air back into the diaphragm and lungs. However, no one was moving toward me and I was beginning to panic. Finally the head of the coach appeared in front of me, and I felt my midsection being raised up. “Whoosh”, the air seemed to rush back into me, and I started breathing again.

“Are you okay, Delgado?” The coach asked, staring into my eyes.

“Yes, sir”, I replied, marveling at how good air tasted after being blown out of your body. I sat up and felt my body expanding and contracting with air.

“Take five and get some water”, he said, patting me on my helmet.

“Do you want me to try it again, coach?” I asked, praying that he would finally call a halt to this ludicrous game we were playing.

“No”, he said, grimly, patting my helmet again. “I think you’ve done enough for now. Go get some water”.

I got up slowly and removed my helmet as I went jogging off to the water fountain. My stomach was sore, so I just rinsed my mouth and spit out the water. I was more interested in deep gulps of air than water. Two minutes later Schumacher came lumbering up to the fountain.

“I’m sorry, Tony”, he said through the face guard of his helmet.

“Shut up, you asshole” I muttered, softly, making sure no coaches heard. “Thanks for trying to kill me”, I exaggerated for good measure.

“Jeez” he whined. “I was only following directions. I didn’t mean to hurt you”.

“It’s a tackling DRILL you idiot!” I said, accentuating every word. “You’re not supposed to score touchdowns. You’re supposed to hold the ball and be tackled”.

“I’m sorry”, he repeated soulfully.

“Come on”, I said, putting my helmet back on. “Let’s get back to practice”. As we jogged along, I shook my head from side to side, in dreaded anticipation. Was I the only person who saw the absurdity of the drill and its mismatch? The tackling episode had been filled with potential for levity and humor, but the coach treated it as a tragedy of some sort. I was in the middle of a slapstick comedy sketch, but nobody was laughing. I couldn’t because my stomach was too sore, and no one else seemed to get it.

 

When Schumacher and I returned to our section of the practice field, the coach was directing the linemen to form a wide circle around him.

“Okay, okay, okay” he said, clapping his hands together in rhythm with his exclamations. “The drill is called ‘Bull in the Ring’. You each have a number. We start with one man in the middle, whose job it is to stay there as long as possible. The object is to knock the man out of the ring. I call a number, and the man with that number charges and drives the bull out of the ring. Get it? Who’ll go first?”

Even as I stepped forward with raised arm, shouting “Here coach!” the self-accusations reverberated in my mind: “What are you doing? Are you crazy? What are you trying to prove?” It was too late.

“Delgado, great; I knew I could count on you. Get in the middle of the ring, and be alert and ready”.

I ran to the center of the circle and took a wide, crouching stance, with arms up and out, and legs driving into the ground. It was a stupid drill whose only purpose was to demonstrate toughness and determination. Some coaches called it an open-field blocking drill, claiming it increased alertness and reaction time. I’d come to the conclusion that it was simply another game, a test of strength, fatigue, and spirit. I figured I could use my experience and balance, as well as my strength, to stay in the ring for a decent length of time.

“Five” shouted the coach, and Cavanaugh, a tall end came charging at me. He ran upright, so I slipped under his arms and slammed my shoulder into his chest and stomach, keeping my legs driving. “Eleven”, and the next player sprang at me. On and on the random countdown continued, and with each new opponent I managed to stay balanced and low, matching blow for blow, and push for push. I think I survived seven or eight attackers when my shoulders, arms, and legs began to ache and my reactions became labored. I wasn’t popping my pads into the on-rushing chests with enthusiasm, and my movements slowed. I was weakening, and it would only be a matter of time before I was pushed out; but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. When Number 3 came careening at me like a runaway locomotive, I stepped aside and shoved him in the same direction he was moving. His momentum sent him crashing to the ground, and triggered a verbal firestorm from the coach.

“What the hell are you doing, Delgado!” he screamed, running up to my position in the middle of the ring.

“I’m staying in the ring, coach” I replied, with more conviction than I felt.

“That’s not staying in the ring, Delgado – that’s chicken shit. You’re supposed to pound him out of the ring or be pounded out. You can’t be dancing around my ring. You’re not a ballerina, and I don’t want any candy-assed chickens in my ring!”

Perhaps it was the implausibility of a candy-assed hen that sent me over the edge. I again imagined I was back in that absurdist sketch on the tackling field, only this time I wasn’t accepting his humorless line of thinking.

“I thought I was on defense, sir”, I stated defiantly. “So I used my hands”.

“You what?” he exploded, his face turning into a rich tomato color. “You thought you were on defense? Are you being a smart-ass? Who told you to think? I don’t want you thinking on my field; I want you following orders and showing me some guts”.

“Sorry, coach” I dead-panned. “I thought I was on defense”. I wasn’t admitting my error, and I wasn’t giving him any new openings. I certainly wasn’t volunteering to repeat the drill. I’d already managed to knock the wind out of myself once and I had no intention of doing it again; but I never expected his response.

“You quit, and I can’t stand quitters” he shouted hysterically, grabbing hold of my face mask. “Get out of my sight, Delgado. You make me sick. Take five laps, and then pack up your Pop Warner, smart-ass attitude and hit the showers. You’re done for the day. Get out of here. I don’t want to see you”.

 

During those laps around the field, I subjected that coach to every hellish torture and degradation a 14 year old could imagine. I called him every curse word I knew, and muttered every obscenity I could think of with each crunching step. By the time I reached the locker room I was finally under control, and during the shower I considered quitting. With water dripping over my head and shoulders I came to the sad realization that this was not the way I learned to play the game. There was no laughter or levity during these practices; there were no encouragements or gentle prodding. I’d entered the new dimension of high school football, and I’d entered it late, with a reputation for having chosen Pop Warner football over freshman ball. These coaches were attempting to tear down the players and then build them up; and I was being too analytical, too critical, and too judgmental. I didn't belong here. I heard the clattering of cleats against cement before the rest of the players joined me in the locker room. No one directed a word to me. Although I sat in classes with many of these players, we were still virtual strangers. I had crossed a line of some kind on the practice field, and they were afraid that contact with me might contaminate them. I was alone and afraid to tell anyone what had happened.
 

 

Loneliness is a strange sensation when one is surrounded by two parents, two brothers, and two sisters, and crowded into a modified two-bedroom, one-bathroom home; but during my adolescence I felt it the most. No one seemed to know what I was experiencing in a co-institutional (girls attended the same high school, but they were educated in separate classes, by lay women or sisters) catholic high school as a freshmen. I was given no forewarning of, or frame of reference for the conflicts I was encountering. No one gave me the advice and warnings I offered my younger siblings when they entered grade school, high school, or college. That night I managed to bury and repress all thoughts of practice as I watched television. I actually welcomed the distracting aching muscles and fatigue I felt. I slept an exhausted and dreamless sleep, and awoke determined to quit. The rest of my day in classes was spent contriving the rationale I would offer to my coaches and parents for this decision. At 3:25 that afternoon, carrying my helmet, pads, and uniform over my shoulder, I walked silently to the block house that acted as our locker room. I told the head coach that I had spoken with my parents and they wanted me to devote more attention to my class work and grades. I don’t know if I was convincing, or if he had already decided that I wasn’t worth the effort, but he did not try to change my mind. He accepted my gear and wished me luck. That night I lied to my father and said that the demands of spring football were aversely affecting my class work, homework and grades. I told him that I needed to quit and concentrate on my course work. It was an argument that he could not, and did not, argue with. I sealed my fate that freshman year, and my football career came to an end.

Comments

previous comment

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Tones!
I left a comment on the "Thanksgiving 2008" entry.
I will read this and the other most recent one on the flight home.
I'll be missing you two tonight, but reading the blogs will let me feel connected.
Have a happy final weekend of the "Christmas" Break.
Love ya,
Mary K.

Football Story

[(Anonymous)]

Tony,

I loved the story! It was hilarious! All this writing you're doing is just wonderful! And quite good! I think you are on to something beyond a blog!

Tommy H.

A sequel?

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Tony,

Great entry! I never knew you had to endure the stigma of Pop Warner Football. Isn't there a triumphant sequel opportunity here where the hero brings glory to his school years later as part of a championship Soccer team? (Okay, soccer is not as glamorous as football but what was Bernard's record during your years there?)

Sincerely,
Eddie (member of the candy-ass Quiz Bowl Team)