My days as a jock

I remember it well, the day I became a high school basketball player. Paradoxically, I made this decision during a football game.

I was on the punt return unit for my high school junior varsity team, and we were on the field doing our thing. I was closing in on their returner with all the 10th grade speedy hostility I could muster, when a blocker blindsided me and sent me hurtling through space. Literally. Hurtling through space. Then, I landed. I had gone from hurtling to hurting. I'd forgotten how to breathe. The old line, “Did you get the license plate of the truck that just hit me?” was completely applicable. I never saw the guy coming. It was a perfectly legal hit, a vivid wipeout of the kind that makes fans roar with drunken bloodlust. Basically, that dude had erased me. Turned me into a grease spot.

I remember getting up after that blast and jogging, zombie-like, over to the sideline. Thankful that I was no longer in the game, I just stood there, stunned. And still hurting. I hurt right down to my electrons. I had never been blown up quite like that in a football game, and I think that maybe I was a little shocked that some other human would actually want to inflict that kind of mayhem on a nice boy like myself. You know, jeez buddy, what have I ever done to you to make you want to re-arrange my corpuscles like that? Not only were my bones and glands and cuticles hurt, so were my feelings.

It wasn't long before our fairly feeble offense found itself with another fourth and long. Back on to the field I scuttled, and I can now confess, four decades later, that I was quite pleased that our punter shanked his kick out of bounds, instantly ending the play. Well done, dude whose name I've long since forgotten!

On the bus home that afternoon, I realized very clearly—I was a basketball player. (I was fine by then. If that kid had really hit me, I might have gone straight into Theater!)

So you parents of six year old boys, what are you gonna say when your son asks you in two or six or ten years if he can play football? If you say yes, what will that do to your insurance? What will that do to your peace of mind, knowing he could, at any time, on any play, in any game, blow up a knee? Or get his brain squished up against his skull?

I don't think football's death knell is ringing. Those who opine such may be a bit melodramatic. But change is on the way. In my day, most parents didn't even blink about granting permission to play football. Now, blinking will be common. The forces on a football field are fearsome and ferocious. Other boys are gonna be out there trying to knock your boy's block off. You good with that?