Those Football Days

Those Football Days

When I was 10 years old, my father said I should play football. My immediate reaction was, “I’ll get hurt.” Well, I had just been through a very disturbing couple of years.

But, when my father spoke, it became law and I joined the Pop Warner football team. I put on a flimsy leather football helmet, pants with thigh pads in them and shoulder pads that I didn’t think I would ever grow into.

Once in uniform, it was time to get hurt.

I didn’t. I loved it. It was only six-man football, but it had hits and tackles and runs with the ball and cheering parents on the sidelines. And I loved it.

We played other teams and after the games, my father would take us to an ice cream place and treat us to sundaes.

Then I went to military school at Manlius, New York. This was big time. The team had 11 players and the knocks got harder. I played line, even though I didn’t weigh much. I was the skinny one on the line.

But I made tackles and I blocked bigger guys. And I loved it.

I loved it even when I got hurt. During one game, I started by breaking through the opposing line and tackling their quarterback two plays in a row. On the third play, the players on either side of me across the line of scrimmage came up with their elbows into my chin. Everything went black and I went straight up and down flat on my face. I recovered moments later after the coach came onto the field to check on me and escort me off the field.

I played three years at the military school and then my family moved to California where I played for Redwood High School. I played line. I weighed 160 pounds. You don’t stand out when you play line. I remember the girls on Friday asking me if I was going to the game. Yeah, I said, I’ll be there.

I played well, but nothing spectacular. I didn’t need to be spectacular. I wanted to be good and get the job done, learning the plays, knowing when to go and where to go, who to block, how to block.

The next year, my family moved over the hill to San Rafael and I played for the San Rafael Bulldogs.

It was my senior year and I still weighed 160 pounds, despite my hearty eating. On the first day of practice, while in the gym getting ready to go onto the field, one of the players, Randy Petrini, a solid muscle-bound guy, asked me what position I was going out for. I said tackle. He looked at me and said, “Good luck. That’s my position.”

I played tackle.

And then we played Redwood High School. I was new on the team and did not start at the beginning. But during the Redwood game I ran clear across the field to make a flying tackle on one of my former teammates as he was heading for a touchdown. The impact took him off the field and I could hear my coach yelling, “Who was that? Who made that tackle?” I started the next game.

Late into the season during practice I got slammed in my left thigh, contracting a very painful Charlie horse. My mother was there when the doctor said there was no way I would be ready to play in the next game.

I played the next game.

During the season I told my coach, Dick Reed, that for all my football years – this was my eighth – I had always played line and I wanted to try backfield and to carry the ball, make a touchdown.

Coach Reed said not this season, saying I was a fast player and he needed speed on the line. For the rest of the season I played line, but I told Coach Reed, “Next year when I go out for the team at College of Marin, I’m going out for backfield.”

Next year at College of Marin, I signed up for the team and there was my coach. Dick Reed had transferred from San Rafael High School to College of Marin.

I played line. I weighed 165, but they listed me on the program as weighing 185. Trying to scare the 200-pounders lined up across from me.

On the last game of the season, just before the first half ended, I was hit from behind after the whistle had blown, knocked to the ground and suffered a separated shoulder – my third injury in nine years.

But then I was experiencing headaches and migraines and after an examination by my doctor I was told I could play the next season without any problems, or I could get hit in the head and be seriously injured, even to the point of death.

When I went home, my father asked me what I was going to do. I said I was going to play. He said it was my life.

When the new season started, I went onto the field, ran sprints, hit blocking dummies, got a headache and quit, ending nine years of football, the game I was afraid to play, because I might get hurt.