It is October, 1968 at a high school football practice field. I am the smallest player on a powerhouse football team. I am in constant awe of the athletic ability of my teammates, wondering if I’m good enough to even be on the team. Football seems like such a terrible mistake. The team operates with the precision of a Swiss watch. I feel like a piece that doesn’t fit. The glory that I thought would be mine has not materialized. I am relegated to playing on the scout team which scrimmages every day against the first and second team offense, running the defenses the opposing team will use for the upcoming game.

Football is like sanctioned gang membership. There are group leaders called captains, and games every weekend to establish which gang is dominant. Teams are exhorted to establish dominance so no one else can trample on one’s turf .Gangs call these violent dustups “rumbles”. There are many unspoken rules in this membership. But the real reward for acceptance into this membership is that it facilitates one’s possibility of succeeding. Football is the consummate team game Meeting expectations of one’s teammates enables players to perform at a higher level. For some reason, everyone outside the team, except the coaches, think football players are very special. It’s a very strange dichotomy to endure the adversarial relationship from the coaches and then leave practice to receive the adulation of others. Every player lives in this dual existence: receiving the adoration of others outside of football, but then the nightmare of the gulag beckons. Neither existence seems like reality.

The coaches exercise complete control over the team. They have the power to tyrannically confer or deny each player’s manhood. No one ever gets a compliment or water during the hottest days of the summer practices. Their most effective means of control is playing a game of roulette. They do this by putting each player through a baptism of fire. The athlete is put into a situation in which they are likely to fail. The coaches then keep the pressure on until the player either does something physically preternatural or breaks down. If an athlete is supremely gifted he may simply without warning be benched. If the athlete psychologically breaks down the coaches are not there to pick him up. This is the reason the program never cuts a player from the team. One either survives or doesn’t. The players are kept in a state of constant fear of failure. Failure in front of the team means possible expulsion of gang acceptance, and a loss of identity. Players almost always fear failure in front of one’s peers, coaches, and fans more than they do injury.

On this beautiful October day in Kansas City practice begins like it always does with the players stretching, while the coaches’ huddle together to discuss the practice plan. The first drill is one that we haven’t done before. It’s called a linebacker drill. Two workman’s cones are placed about two feet apart with a linebacker placed between them. There are five lines set up for each linebacker station. The object of the drill is for the blocker to get a 20 feet running start and try to dislodge the linebacker from his station. If unsuccessful, the player has to crab back on his hands to the starting point and continue until he flattens the linebacker. It looks like a rigged drill in favor of the defender. In all drills I always get into the nearest line available. I figure this random placement is the most sporting way to deal with the issue honorably.

I randomly win some and lose some by doing this. On this particular day I happened to draw the weakest of the linebackers. Thank god I think. This is a tough drill. Suddenly one of the coaches instructs me to move into the line of the killer hitter on the team. I feel the flow of adrenaline which only comes from fear and anticipation. I realize instantly my number has been drawn in this game of roulette. I always feel detached when in these situations. It feels surreal and not really happening. I think courage is best exercised when one uses one’s imagination. I give it my best shot but just get clocked by the defender. I notice that he has a bit of a nose bleed from the collision while I am on the ground watching the earth moving back and forth. I see that little trickle of blood on his nostril and think I’ve won the confrontation. Denial is my favorite defense mechanism. Without it I couldn’t survive these practices. I begin to walk back to the line when the coach who moved me there explodes: “you haven’t knocked him on his ass, get down and crab”. I begin crabbing and then he starts kicking me with his football cleats. I keep hurling myself at the defender with less force each time because of exhaustion. The coach keeps kicking me on my return trip back to the line. The more exhausted I become the harder he kicks. My teammates are stricken by the violence. The coach keeps shouting: “don’t feel sorry for him!” Maybe they fear the game of roulette will consume them too or maybe they are empathetic? Two teammates are pleading with me not to quit while the coach keeps on kicking me. I am amazed that they think I would possibly quit. I guess they don’t know me very well. The drill continues for an interminable eternity until a team captain finally intervenes with the coach and says: “coach, can someone else have a crack at this drill?” I know I’m supposed to be grateful for this reprieve but I’m not .Strange as this sounds, I’d rather die out here than be rescued.

I leave practice in utter humiliation. I notice my only physical mark is a bruise on my forehead. When I get home my grandmother and mom raise a fuss over my bruised head. They both strongly suggest I should quit football. This is last thing I need to hear. I leave home to get a meal elsewhere. I hang with my best friend who is a state caliber wrestler and my boxing sparring partner, and reveal the horror I just went through. I need to spend time with another athlete who won’t offer me pity. He says to me: “I understand your problem, but what are you going to do about it!?” The next day at school one of the school cheerleaders grabs me in the hall and sympathetically asks me if I’m going to be ok. She said she heard they really beat me up in football practice. I glare at her and storm off. How did she find out about this? One of the unspoken codes of the team is that nothing that happens in practice or the locker room ever goes out to the public. Maybe I’m on my way out?

Before practice begins a different coach who has always been on my side ominously says: “don’t’ blame me if your locker gets cleaned out”. I spend the day with my head down on my desk. I can’t concentrate in my classes. Things are spinning out of control. I notice that my teammates aren’t looking me in the eye anymore. The first drill of the day is a blocking one. The coach who had ruined my life is standing on the one-man sled. The sled is a machine weighing about 700 lbs. It has two runners on the bottom for traction, and a platform for a coach to stand to provide more weight to the machine for added stability. It is reinforced with two extended pads on the front. I get into line and block the sled until the whistle blows. The drill is used to teach the sustaining of a block. I begin to walk to the back of the line when I suddenly to my horror I notice that no one in line is moving up to take my place. It feels like a terrible new narrative now exists for me because of what happened yesterday. This is a narrative I can’t live with. Why am I the only one who knows this narrative is false? How can I ever face anyone now? I may have to find a new school.

I move back to the front of the line to repeat the drill I’ve already mastered. The coach stands on the platform with a look of both contempt and indifference. He’s not animated like he was yesterday. I feel ill. This is an illness I’ve never experienced before. I feel a current running through my entire body. Suddenly magic happens: I explode into the sled and it upends from right to left while the coach goes crashing to the ground .He hits the ground hard and looks disoriented. He is sitting on the ground while his blue eyes keep darting rapidly back and forth. I make intense eye contact with him, but his eyes avert mine. He is a 25 year-old former college football player. He is 6 ft.1 and weighs about 210 lbs. I can’t believe how light the sled felt, wondering why no one else has upended it? Suddenly I realize that everything has stopped throughout the practice field. All eyes are riveted on the wreckage of the fallen coach. Everyone is grinning and trying to stifle their laughter. Then, in a sardonic voice the head coach calls out: “What are you doing on the ground coach?” In football parlance this is as close as one gets to a compliment.

From that moment on the coaches continued to search the practice field again like sharks searching for new targets, but I am never bothered again. It is as if I have passed an initiation to join a club. I notice that the only person out there on that watershed day who isn’t stunned at what happened was the head coach. He is a coaching veteran of many years. I sense that he has seen this before.

This situation creates a terrible conflict for me. I am stubborn and willful, yet I was manipulated to pass this monumental test. I can’t really enjoy what has just happened for this reason.

I did not become a star player as a result of this watershed moment. I played whenever the coaches could get me in without jeopardizing the team’s chances of winning. I did have some success when playing in blowout situations against the other team’s bench players. Maybe I was playing with expectations much higher because of the power of this program. Or maybe I could draw on the success of that fateful practice. More importantly the team went undefeated. One third of my teammates had an opportunity to play college football including 4 division 1 prospects.

We have our football banquet and I am surprised to discover that the coaches really seemed to like and respect my teammates. They speak about me with an obvious affection, and state they have a lot of respect for what I had endured. The head coach said “it takes quite a man to stick it out” He also said the team drew inspiration from me. .Another coach congratulated me for making the only unassisted tackle on a screen pass. Dan Devine, the coach from the University of Missouri, is the guest speaker. After I receive my varsity letter, Coach Devine rose from his seat and came over to put his hand on my shoulder. I am a little embarrassed about this. Why all the attention when the team would have won with or without me? It seems to me like there are many more deserving players here who could be treated with this type of respect.

At a ten-year class reunion I run into a few former teammates, and we went over old times. I spoke of my watershed moments about the fateful practice and subsequent triumph over the coach. To my amazement no one remembered any of it. They had stories as poignant as mine. I didn’t notice any of their issues either. They had their own challenges and didn’t have time to judge or notice what I was going through. This revelation set me free in many ways. We are not judged as thoroughly by others as we think we are. Everyone in life has their own issues with which to deal. Most events in life are fleeting.

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