Day 21 – Football journey…part 3

My freshman year in college I took English 101. English credits were required, and this was a class described as one on writing essays, which seemed easy enough. We had to write 10 essays. The first 5 were assigned to us and the last 5 we could pick the topic.

I received five “C’s” for my first five essays and five “A’s” for my last five essays giving me a “B” for the class in the end. What was the difference between to two sets? I wrote the last five essays all on football. When you love something, it is easy to write about it.

I was 18 years old, and in my first year in college, so please kept that in mind when you read the following…

“Is it Worth it?”

As I drive up behind the field house, I notice how peaceful and still it looks. The wind gently blows blades of drying grass past the goal posts and onto the playing field. This pleasant scene is shattered by the vision of practice in only an hour.

The talk inside the field house ranges from girls to the World Series, but usually comes back to girls. After reading the bulletin board, I go to the training room to get my ankle taped. Amid the wounds and aches, the trainers and managers are very cheerful. They laugh at our wounds and degrade our ability but take very good care of us.

After picking up my undershirt and socks, which they give us fresh each day, I go to my locker to get dressed. The atmosphere is friendly and cheerful with an underlying tenseness about that afternoon’s practice. When dressed, we go out on the field and “loosen up” by ourselves. Each player counts the minutes and seconds of rest he is getting now and wishes that practice would start already. Finally, the whistle blows and we assemble.

After a few exercises, we break into position groups and the madness begins. Fundamental warmups, as the coaches call it, consists of sprints and more sprints with crawling on all fours for variation. This goes on for fifteen minutes to a half an hour. It may be called fundamental warmups by the coaches, but the players classify it as, “fundamental fallouts.”

Next the pace slows down with a period of instruction. Although activity slows down, it doesn’t stop by any means. We keep ourselves entertained by hitting dummies and frequently, hitting each other. As I get back in line there is a familiar taste in my mouth. I spit and it’s blood. Somewhere, somehow, I bit or cut something in my mouth and it’s bleeding…nothing unusual, so I keep practicing. Soon it is time for teamwork. Everyone assembles, breathing very hard and soaked in the usual sweat from a humid fall day in the Carolinas when you are wearing a heavy cotton jersey.

The offense is set up and eleven of us freshmen are chosen to be human dummies. Being one of those eleven, I put on a suit of armor called an “apron.” The contraption is a full suit of quilted pads which cover me from chin to shin. It buckles in the back of my legs, waist, chest and neck…so I become a moving, but not so mobile blocking dummy.

Play after play, an assigned man comes at me with nothing on his mind but “cleaning my plow” as the coaches put it. When he comes, I am just as determined to keep my ground and so over and over we slowly demolish each other.

When the final whistle blows, terror streaks into every player’s heart because we know it is time for “forth quarter”. This is fifteen minutes of relentless punishment which end every practice.

First, we linemen, run to the sled, and I do mean run. After hitting the sled until we can no longer lift our legs, we somehow make it to another part of the field where sprints begin. Sometimes we lay on our backs and when the whistle blows, we jump up and sprint 20 yards. Then we lay on our stomach and repeat the process.

By now, there is a sharp pain piercing my rib cage and my mouth is so dry I can’t talk. This is when the coaches say, “Hold your head up!”, “Where is your pride”, “This is what wins football games” and other such commits. After this, we circle up for one last cheer and it’s over.

With the last ounce of strength, we make it to the field house, a welcomed cold shower and the day is done.

Although it seems an endless torture, practice is quickly forgotten when I realize who I am. For a long time, I have dreamed of being an East Carolina Pirate and now I am…no practice in the world will stop me now. Believe me, it is worth it.

It’s been 50 years since I graduated from East Carolina, but I still remember those days like it was yesterday. I am in my 27th year of coaching now in three different states and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t try to teach a player some “life lesson” as he practices or plays.

I know football isn’t the only arena where life lessons can be learned. But football is extremely physically and mentally demanding and you either learn your lessons quickly or you walk away because it’s just too hard. We never “cut” any player, they usually “cut” themselves because they just can’t take it and that’s fine, it is not for everyone.

It is not often today that young men are tested on their courage and determination to go through something as hard as football can be, but those who do learn a lot about life and I am very privileged to be able to contribute and any young man’s future.