Need to Know

Need to Know
Going into college as a freshman to play ball you really don’t know what to expect. What do I say? Am I going to keep up with the speed of the game? Am I going to get man handled? But don’t worry all of that, it will take care of itself, just play ball. The things that shocked me, I never saw coming. I had no idea what it was like to go from a hero to a zero. I was from Union High! How dare you not have heard of me! How dare you not have heard of my town… You mean to tell me there is more to life than Roosevelt…and high school sports. Talk about a culture shock! In God’s country there are those couple guys who are just stuck in the glory days. There hasn’t been a time that I go back that someone doesn’t corner me to talk about the glory days. My favorite was when a guy told me he had twenty inch biceps and ran a 3.9 forty. He seriously said that, Jade Alden Fenn as my witness. I sat there stroked his ego and told him how awesome he was for at least twenty minutes. So when you get to college don’t be that guy. It is not like everyone on the team is not going to see you play. If anything say that you are just above mediocre. For me it’s true.
You should always respect your elders and in football it is no different. By all means don’t let someone shit on you, stand up for yourself but don’t be a punk. Watch how the older guys approach the game, the weight room, and their team mates. Learn the system from a “crafty ol vet” it will make things a lot less foreign to you.
Don’t be a kiss ass. Earn your relationships with your coaches. The first two years of college I didn’t say anything to any of my coaches (except Taps). Coach Bennion hated Blake and I when we first got here. We didn’t know anything about the weight room, we worked out in DC’s (due to lack of funds), and we bothered him daily about places to hunt and fish. But through a lot of hard work and dedication, along with being respectful and coachable we have earned the respect from almost all of the coaching staff.
Another thing to consider is taking care of your body. I promise you when you get to training camp it will be the worst three weeks of your life. Your body will be in complete shock. I remember my first day of training camp, it was what I thought at the time to be the worst I had ever felt in my life. We were running the conditioning test and I was dying. Lav’ar was holding me up by the neck telling me to quit being such a pussy and finish. After days like that, take care of yourself, ice bath but don’t run in there and be the first guy, wait your turn. Injuries happen…and they suck. But push yourself during rehab, pain is just an emotion. Block it out and work through it!
As long as you take it that you are a nobody now, learn from the old, don’t kiss ass, and take care of your body you should have a good career. And remember it’s just a game, that is now your life, your full time job, they own you now. Good luck.

coaches

Coaches
The coaches at Southern Utah University are the youngest coaching staff in America. By saying this your first thought is probably “I bet that is a shit show…coaches stuck between trying to be professional and the players friends.” But it is not like that at all, our coaches have great credibility and handle themselves with nothing but professionalism. The coaches have earned all of the players respect we know that they know best and we have too buy into whatever they say (not so much Ronnie). It is not like in high school when some twenty eight year old guy shows up to coach when he was only second string long snapper for the freshman until he graduated. What do you mean that only happens in Roosevelt?
Coach Lamb is an awesome guy, a little weird but a good guy. When I first met Lamb I had no idea who he was. I was going up to the coaches office to tell the old coaches that Blake was going to be gone for a week. This guy with this shit eating grin introduced himself to me. The next thing I know I am sitting there in his office being interrogated about the ins and outs of our program. I didn’t have a lot to say I was ineligible. So when he noticed that his questions kept leading him down a one way street to HeLLifiknow he said “see you Monday”. That is kind of the way he is, not much for small talk. He either questions you or tells you what you need to hear (whether you want to hear it or not) then he dismisses you. A good head coach though, great with words, and really honest.
Then there is another coach, where do you begin with this guy? He has split personalities, either thirteen year old giggly girl who is happy and joking, or a 33 yr. old having flash backs of being a wedge breaker in the NFL. He can be one of the coolest guys in the world. He is hilarious, calling people insanely vulgar names. Whether he is blindsiding and giving Ronnie whiplash/spinal injuries multiple times or throwing Steve Lamb (coach Lambs little brother) rolling ten yards across the weight room. He is a ticking time bomb waiting to unleash his un-human anger on some innocent by stander. His knowledge for football is incredible, and when he is in a good mood he is an awesome guy. But you can’t tell if he is faking being happy or not. Like before a game, he is weirdly happy like a thirteen year old boy who just saw his best friend’s older sister in her underwear happy. You don’t want to smile back or anything because he might break your neck and fill the water cooler with your blood.
Shhhwwitt!!! One of our coaches is classic for making that sound in meetings. Every time that he does it I just want to keep doing it over and over. Shhhwwit! He is the wordiest guy I have ever met. He could write a ten page paper on how to tie your shoe. My favorite is when we have an equipment announcement and he says “K” a hundred times like we don’t understand how to put our names on our helmets and pads, and return everything else to the soft room. I like it when we are either at practice or in meetings and he turns his hat on backwards. You know he means business, he is one of the really pale guys so he instantly goes beet red, starts kick stepping, yelling “boom” and “shhhwwwit”. But all in all he is a really good guy and means well. And if it wasn’t for him a probably would have quit.
It is hard to pick out our coaches little quirks but I don’t know all of them on a personal level. I would probably lose my followers if I talked about Ronnie. If there was a way to type in monotone I would try to talk about him.

Halfway

Halfway
Everything that you do there is always a halfway point. And usually in SUU football when it gets to that halfway point your thinking, "shit it looked easy on paper." Whether it is in the weight room or a training camp, there is always a detailed paper that is going to squeeze every last(legal according to the NCAA) second out of your life. When you get your paper at the first of the week for your scheduled lift it never looks that bad. But halfway through every lift your muscles are on fire and your sweating bullets. Training camp is the same way. But it happens every day, every week, and every camp. During training camp by lunch thirty you have already been to yoga, ate breakfast, watched film with Ronnie, had a full practice, showered, and taken an ice bath. And that is only halfway through a day. Believe me at noon your thinking good day fellers see ya tomorrow morning. Days like that make for a long week, and an even longer three weeks. Wednesday night when you lay down in your twin bed inside Jupiter your thinking, "thank god it is halfway through this week."



We are halfway done with spring ball and it is bitter sweet. It is my last spring ball with my boys and I can't help but think that our time together has passed that 'halfway'. Pretty soon summer is going to be halfway, then fall camp, then our season, then halftime at our final game. Which by god better be long after what is on our schedule. Then we will be halfway home on a plane from somewhere. The next thing we know it will be halfway through the awards banquet, and if you get to speak at it, don't make me want to leave halfway through your life story. Then halfway through your life you will think, "shit are you sure I am only halfway?" Then you will look back at everything we had to go through, and think to yourself, "It better be down hill from here."

Recess Football

Every little boy grew up playing football during recess. Every little boy got in trouble for playing tackle football at least once. It is what kids do, what they look forward to everyday after their tasteless school lunch. Who knew that a sloppy joe could be so terrible, even if it is “extra sloppy”.

 

Everyone knows the scene in a movie where the teams are picked and one team gets all the good guys and the other team gets the circus. In middle school Ace and I used to wait in the lunchroom until the teams got picked. Then we would go out watch the game for a minute and get on the circus team. This team usually consisted of a couple kids that I can remember.  One kid, who was always on our team, had perma-runnybuggas out of each one of his nostrils onto his upper lip. It didn’t matter if it was the Fourth of July this kid was a snot factory that produced a never ending supply of runny,  wet, sticky, greenish yellow goo.  Another kid was the butterball of the team always wanted to play quarterback and as you can imagine wasn’t much good on defense. So we had him rushing the quarterback which is about as useful as a basketball bat. The kid was out of breath by the time he counted to three alligator. To say the least he never pushed the pocket.  We always had these twins on our team, they were more of our athletic team mates. But like most twins in the sixth grade they fought like cats and dogs. About halfway through the game they would be too busy beating the living hell out of each other that they weren’t much good to us. Then there was Mr. ADHD. This kid was and probably still is nuttier then a squirrel turd. I mean literally bat shit crazy. I just remember him being so chaotic and mad at everyone during the game. He was always trying to tackle people and getting knocked around like he was inside a pinball machine. The four square girls could have man handle this wirey little guy.   Every day Blake and I would go play on these guys team. Granted we probably fit right in on.  With Blake being the chunky kid who just grew into his body and me being so tall and skinny that awkward, gangly, or lerpy, would be anything but an understatement. But we never lost a single game, and those guys probably refer to that year of recess football as “The Glory Days”.

March Madness

March Madness
No it is not that sissy la la basketball tournament. It's spring football and it is HERE. It is absolutely crazy, and the weather blows...no literally the wind blows every practice. I call spring ball March Madness because it really does make you insane. It is five weeks of the coaches stretching every second of your free time into their "spectacular" meetings, "intense" walk throughs, lifting sessions, or hard nosed fast tempo practices. But as long as I don't have to spend any more time then I have to with Ronnie, I will do anything. Everyone on the team is on edge, almost everyone is competing for a position. So you have this feeling like someone is breathing down your neck and you have to perform at your best. And if you don't perform at your best, you will call plays all season.There are a lot of fights during spring ball, I think it is because we aren't working toward another team. So if someone gets held or if someone gets there hands up in their mask it is time to punch each other in the face mask. Which after wards always seems like such a bad decision. "Yeah, I showed him! I Pounded my fist against the steel protector in front of his face!" The coaches set up plays to exploit each others weakness's so they are just as much on edge as the players. For hell sakes last year after our spring game our coaches almost got into a fist fight. Street fight stuff to, our one coach took of his shirt and everything (always take off your shirt before in a street fight #1. They can't grab it #2. Blood isn't easy to get out). So with the players tension of earning a spot and the coaches tension of you playing good so they don't get fired adds up quickly. Leading to this insane five weeks I  like to call March Madness.

INJURIES

 Injuries
Injuries are terrible no matter what school you go to. But going to a school where the miracle cure to anything short of a compound fracture is “ice, stem, and ibuprofen three times a day” to say the least is getting the short end of the stick. Our head trainer, I won’t mention Ricky’s full name....Mr. Mendini is a very knowledgeable guy, he just is never in his office, never answers his phones, acts like it costs ‘him’ a fortune to send a player to the doctor, and always thinks that people are faking injuries. I will be the first to say “quit being a sissy la la”, but when someone could be seriously hurt…why take a chance? It is zero skin off of his back.
I haven’t made it through a season yet without getting hurt in some way or another. I know now that I cursed myself my senior year. My dad told me I should play baseball instead of football because all I would do is get hurt playing football. I just laughed at him and said “Shit Smurf…you can’t hurt this.” The Football God’s have rained on my parade every season since.
Freshman year- Reconstructive shoulder surgery/ scapula, rotator cuff, coracoid process, interior/anterior labrum
Sophomore year- Tore Hamstring
Junior year- Fractured Medial Malleolus
Senior year- Cross your fingers
My freshman year started out with a bang. I was absolutely loving my life, I was the wedge breaker on kickoff, and I was the middle man on the wedge on kickoff return. I only played a couple of plays every game and every practice but I was on cloud nine. If we scored, I got to run full speed (which is not very fast), and hit someone who outweighed me by a hundred pounds, who was running faster than me. Then if they scored, I got to be the middle guy on the wedge ( I replaced a 300+ pound guy for this job), and block a guy who had the job to try and blow my guts out of my spine. I always got nervous as hell for this job. I was worried about missing my block and someone destroying Nick Miller. I could just see it on the headlines “Miller suffers career ending injury due to Arnold’s missed block of the century”. Taking on two jobs like this is not a matter of “if” you are going to get hurt but “when” you are going to get hurt.
When I broke my shoulder it was the worst feeling in my life. The whistle blew, Pulver raised his hand, the ball is kicked. I am running I read the return, it is a 34 right, a four man wedge right at me. I think to myself cross face, take two for one. Then there is a crack twice as loud as any bull whip, going off in my head. Pain shot through me, it was like bolts of lightning cursing through my veins. I couldn’t see I couldn’t hear. It was like I was watching myself in a movie. I tried to push myself off the field. Another burst of lightning rushes to my brain just to erupt and fill my vision with stars of pain. I could hear VanLamb screaming “Good job Brady, Get up!” I got up…I can’t feel my fingers. I went and found Hick’s, I knew she wouldn’t tell Ena that I couldn’t play. My shoulder was dislocated. She sets it. And the next thing I know I hear the whistle, I see Pulver raise his arm, and the ball is kicked. I am running down the field my right arm won’t work, it is just dangling there. I read the return it’s a 34 right, a four man wedge right at me. I think to myself use your left shoulder, cross face, take two for one. No lightning, no bursts of pain, it is beyond this point, I feel nothing, I see nothing, and I hear nothing. Halftime, the pain hits me like Paul Bunyan swinging a sledge hammer into my forehead. Mr. Mendini tells me I just separated my AC joint, he gives me his miracle cure and sends me home. Applebee’s is a disaster. I throw up the whole meal because I am coming out of shock. I threw up three more times in the middle of the night from the pain. The next Thursday Ricky gets me an X-ray after slowing my recover by six months from the workouts he had me doing, the movements were cutting my ligaments with the 9mm fracture (nine dimes wide). I now have two, two inch screws through my shoulder blade.

after surgery

size of my break

The next year I pulled my hamstring running the conditioning test the first day of camp. The conditioning test consisted of a 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 100, 90, 80,……..20, 10 yd. timed sprints with like 20 sec. rest between and if you don’t make the time you fail. Anyway I pulled my hamstring on the first 70 yd. sprint. I finished the test screaming every profanity under the sun at Bennion as I was running. I bet you can guess what I did for treatment.

bruise on the back of my leg/pulled hammy

This last year I broke my medial malleolus…I don’t know what it is other then it is a weight bearing bone in your ankle, and it hurts like bloody hell if it is broken and you put weight on it. There is not a significant story about when I broke it. It was a two minute drill, I came off the line I heard it pop. I went into shock yelling like a girl, “It is broke, I heard it pop!” But thanks to big Keith I hobbled to the training room Ricky said it was a high ankle sprain, told me his miracle cure and sent me home. The next morning is when I knew it was broken I went to stand up out of my bed that is just a mattress on the floor and did a front flip as soon as I put weight on it. Thank god Poot’s had some crutches. Three days later I demanded an X-ray. My wish was granted and I got an X-ray at one in the afternoon. That night I received the news in a professional manner. It was 10:45 p.m. and I got a text saying “Your ankle is broken, don’t walk on it, or do the calf raises we told you to. You will get a hard cast tomorrow at 2 pm.”

broken

This year during the fall of 2011 I hope, pray, and will even make animal/human sacrifices to stay healthy!

Friendships

Friendship’s
                During all of the years I have ever played any kind of ball, I have made some of my closest friends. I have stayed in touch with pretty much all my boys that I played ball with in the glory days at good old Union High. These friendships are molded out of the sweat, blood, and sacrifices that come with every sport. Back in "God’s Country" if you are a decent athlete you can start all three sports with very little sacrifice, even less athleticism, and brass balls. One thing I can say about the Basin boys though, is they are some dirty tough work horses. Most of these work horses played all three sports so we spent a lot of time together, which branded their friendships deep into my heart.
                College is a totally different story. I didn’t meet any of these guys back in Peanut Pre-School. The difference between high school friends and college friends is that in high school you go home to your family. In college you are with you friends from 6:30 morning runs until seven that night in the training room. Yeah there is that thing called class or something like that in between. But for the most part we are together, “building the brand”, “fighting the ‘3’ fights”. I love spending time with the boys, I wish we would just have a huge house with fifteen rooms, fifteen bathrooms (I don’t want to smell them), and at least five kitchens with eight fridges cause we eat like horses.  Now that would be a college experience at its best. The thing about the SUU boys is that they are dedicated as ever. For some of them football is their life. They make the sacrifices; they have work ethic, and have a lot of god given talent.
                There are very few guys on any team I have been a part of that I honestly and truly would not DIE for. If you are one of those few guys I wouldn’t die for you probably know who are. I don’t even feel bad; your own mother probably has trouble loving you if I don’t. I have been that way my whole life. My teammates are my brothers. I think that for some guys the bond stays on the field. But for me it is something more, something that makes me jump at the opportunity to help my brothers on or off the field at the drop of a hat.

Then there are my boys who have been there from the beginning until now and there aren’t words for either of them.

Full Time Job

          Football is a full time job. Actually, it is more demanding than any full time job I have ever had, and I don’t get paid. At a "normal" job you go to work, clock in and clock out. But football...comes home with you. You’re always thinking about it, dreaming about it, eating for it, and always trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep because of it. And I love every second of it.
           Off season is not bad when it comes to the mental part of football. All I have to do is wake up at 6:04, either go and run, or do some Yoga (take your damned plank pose and shove it up your downward facing dog). Then I go to class, do some homework (maybe a dozen times a semester), lift some weights, then call it a day. But waking up for football is not like waking up for work. When I am in “God’s Country” working it is not a big deal to wake up at four or five, and not think twice about it. On the other hand, waking up to go run my guts out with a giant rubber band around my waist is damn hard to do. And it is even harder to wake up to do extreme yoga. Chuck Norris cried on Sean Claud Van Lamb’s shoulder after doing yoga with Rachel. After running or yoga I go to class and stare at the teacher with probably the dumbest look on my face because I am so tired. I am usually not listening to a word they say but staring at them, taking notes in my illegible cave man writing. After class it’s back to the weight room. The weight room is always fun for me. The guys make it a good time, we work ourselves to death while having a few good laughs. Whether it is Deezy and Whitz quoting a movie, or Eddie… well just being Eddie, I always look forward to it. Unless it is incline day, I hate weights on incline day. I always get embarrassed when I get choked out by ninety five pounds. I wasn’t even strong enough to wiggle out from the bar before I passed out. Thirteen year old girls can incline more than me. But the worst part about off season for me is gaining weight. I am not meant to be a big guy. My brothers are 5"11' inches and 170 pounds. I graduated high school at 6"2' and 185 pounds of solid steel sex appeal. Now I am expected to be 245 pounds. The bad thing about me is I never really gain muscle mass. So I eat a lot and I try to gain weight. But instead of filling out and getting buff like a normal human being, I keep the same frame and my beer gut just grows. When I say beer gut I mean beer gut, I don’t have love handles, just a pregnant woman looking gut. A beach bod is totally out of the question for this guy. Eating all of the time and eating that much food is a pain in the ass! Not literally….But it is a lot of work to cook that much food. A day for me usually goes something like this. Breakfast- 3 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, 2 hash browns, 2 pieces of toast, a glass of milk and glass of juice. I get to school get me a cran-grape juice with a banana or kiwi. Lunch- since "FebruANY" has been going on I have been getting the chicken bacon ranch foot-long, double the meat, light lettuce, tomatoes, lots of onions, mayo, ranch, southwest sauce and tons of salt an pepper. Usually it’s just left overs or a couple packages of Ramon-Noodles (not as exciting…I know). Dinner- Is three pieces of chicken with a side of three baby red spuds and a whole can of vegetables. That is pretty damn healthy! If I could choose I would have coffee and a Pop-Tart for breakfast, a P.B.J for lunch, and a little hamburger helper for dinner. Throw in a couple Keystones and that is high class white trash.
Spring ball is the worst for time management. It is like fall camp with class in the middle of it. We watch pretty much the same film every day during spring. Why? Because practice is the same every day, we run the same exact practice every damn day. We have no one to game plan for. Practice goes exactly like this: stretch, individual, challenge, one on ones/seven on seven, inside run, blitz, special teams with Ronnie, pass situation, run situation, specials teams with Ronnie, third down ladder, two minute, get a team break, then run gassers. It is like your life is on repeat. The only difference is who is going to get mad and fight that day (which is always a good time to watch or get in the middle of). We still have morning runs and workouts, a long with practice during the spring. Plus we have scrimmages on Saturday’s that proceed whether there is 8 inches of snow on the ground or not. Practice/Scrimmages always go home with me. All night I will be thinking of every little thing I could have done better or wish I would have done different. And when I was playing for Ena it felt like he was stomping on my brain and ripping my worth as a man from me every day. I was told that countless nights while I was asleep I would be screaming the “F” bomb over and over at the top my lungs. At the same time I was screaming this I was tearing all the sheets and pillows off of my bed. I would wake up with no recollection of anything just confused, sweating, and out of breathe with only one thought in my head “the hell with you Ena!”
          But that is just the strains that everyone goes through on a day to day basis. Some guys might hate every aspect of football the lifting, running, practice, film, school, and yoga. But we all do it day in and day out. We live college football. College football is not easy for anyone. Everyone has their own personal battles. It could be injury, family problems, playing time, a girl, too many girls, financial problems, kids, their wife, the list is endless. Nothing about football is easy. We eat, sleep, and breathe, football for 365 days a year, for half a dozen Saturdays. Each Saturday is only four hours of payoff for all that hard work. That is only 48 hours of game time, for over a thousand hours of preparation.

FRAN

The ‘F’ bomb! Actually she is the mother of all ‘F’ bombs. Fran! Yes I said it, she does not sound or look that hard. But it is hell on earth. Fran is a workout where you try to finish 21 thrusters, 21 pull-ups, 15 thrusters, 15 pull-ups, 9 thrusters, and 9 pull-ups as fast as you possibly can. The benchmark time to finish the devil woman is 3 minutes 16 seconds. But after the first time I wobbled my way through her I never wanted to ever try it again let alone try to get below 3:16. I remember thinking to myself “I will main line “Draino” before I ever put myself through that again”.

This is a story of my first time doing Fran. Take into account that none of us had ever done a thruster. The team barely learned how to do kip pull ups on Thursday. Fran was scheduled that Saturday, this was the first Saturday back from Christmas break. Also take in to account that before Lamb it was a lift at your leisure type program.

Guys crawling on the ground, guys outside puking, guys lying in the hall, guys that I consider to be the strongest mentally and physically that I have ever met. There is a look of such pain and discomfort on their faces that it makes me scared to put myself through that same hell. I chalk my hands that are beyond clammy, my knees shake, my guts twist, and I can hear my heart thumping. I step up to the bar close my eyes and inhale deeply, the air is filled with a thick mist of anticipation and heat. A heat that comes not only from the guys who are about to start the workout but from the guys who anticipate their lungs and muscles to be released from the pain. I exhale through my nose literally taking my last burn free breath of the day. I wrap my fingers around the bar, it feels unforgiving, and cold, but still very much alive. Coach Bennion yells “BARS UP!” I clean what at the time being seems to be a light 95 pounds. My wrists wrench back and I feel the steel bounce off of my collar bones. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, there is only a breath between the two demands but it feels like an eternity before Bennion unleashes the devil. “GO” he yells. After the first rep I am thinking this isn’t bad. Reps two, three, and four, I am thinking that “shit I am the man, I got this.” Fourteen a fire is burning in my quads. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, I am thinking “oh my god, what in the Fran is happening.” One more, twenty one! Holy shit, find an open pull up rack. I jump up and grab on to the handles to start my pull ups. All that I can think of is how am I going to find the strength to do fifteen more thrusters. Excitement gets me through the first twelve pull ups. I get to pull up seventeen and I am thinking that this is never ending. Holy shit! I realize I have never done twenty one consecutive pull ups in my life. I do the running man in the air to wiggle my way up to Tico’s "arms at a 90 degree angle, head six inches from the top", pull up position and call it good (thanks Doc I forgot about that). I drop down from the pull ups. I am light headed and confused doing the “Fran walk” back to my platform. I bend down to grab the bar but can’t force myself to clean this “light” ninety five pounds immediately. I try to breath but I can’t get any air. I clean the bar and the weight pushes me down to start my set of fifteen. I can see their lips moving but I can’t hear them. The fire in my quads is a fire that is hotter and more extreme than anything I have ever experienced. I black out for the rest of the reps. All that I remember is walking over to the pull up rack and  with every step my vision bounces when my foot hits. I have to crawl up the safety bars on the side because the thought of having to jump seems physically impossible. I start doing my last set of pull-ups that seem like a blur.  I can feel my reconstructed shoulder holding on by the last tendon every time I bottom out.  I can’t see anything as I walk back to my platform. My throat is so dry! My tongue feels like sandpaper as I try to swallow. By this time the only thing that is on my mind is finish. I just want to get this over with. I have never felt anything like this before. I somehow finish my thrusters. My knees buckle as I walk to the pull-up rack. My legs are shaking so bad that I can’t even find the safety bar to put my foot on. I have tunnel/kaleidoscope vision. Only god knows how I finish my pull ups. Herman and Tui yell “DONE” and Bennion gives them my time. Six minutes and thirty eight seconds. “BULLSHIT” I say well think I say (Fran destroys all motor skills). It had to have at least been six or seven hours.   

I pick myself up and start to walk outside, the next group is about to go. By the time I have taken five steps the real pain kicks in. It feels like someone injected battery acid into my veins and it intensifies with every beat of my heart. It feels like I can feel the acid running through my body.  The burning that is in my thighs and forearms is unbearable. My lunges feel like I inhaled tiny balls of fire. The burning in my chest is like a million bees stinging my lunges. I can taste blood. Are my lunges bleeding? I am dying! I spit but it’s a frothy foam that could hold an anvil to the ceiling. I can literally see my heart beating through my shirt.  Just looking at my hands or forearms make them scream with twice as much pain. My hand and forearms feel like god is pulling every tendon from my elbow to the tips of my fingers with all he is worth. A Charlie horse is a fraction of the tightness in your forearms. I can’t see! The ground looks like it is the ocean. How long is this going to last?  If I wind up in hell this is what I imagine I will feel like. I tell Blake “Ace you drive. I can’t see.”  When we show up to our College Way #23 apartment I can’t hold it anymore. I start to throw up. Not a graceful car sick throw up. A throw up that is like no other throw up. I have zero words to describe how terrible this throw up was for me.  My legs quiver with every stair that leads up to my room, I lay down, six or eight hours later I gain conciseness. Never again I tell myself never again.  

This guy kills fran!

SORE

Excuse me son…are you okay? You are walking like you got a stick up your… “Yes sir, I am fine!”. There is nothing worse than being sore. Not the usual sore, but that feeling of uncontrollable shaking while walking down a flight of stairs sore. My quads quivering before I sit down sore. That dreaded moment that I have to actually exert myself to stand up after sitting on my sore ass for the last hour sore. So sore I have a battle with the mirror in the morning. “You did this to me you son of a bleep!” I say in that tone of total disgust myself (You know, that tone your dad used the only time you came home drunk in high school, yeah that tone). Which is actually a hundred percent true, it is my fault. There is some crazy thing that comes over guys in the weight room. That thing that makes us compete and push our body to its max every day. That same thing that makes the weight room stink so good, the windows fog up, your shirt looks like you walked through the car wash. It even makes some guys groan, fart and spit simultaneously. This competitiveness (known as our “egos” to the general public) is what makes us work ourselves to this state of soreness. Which I do love for some reason! To be honest I didn’t know what sore was until I was introduced to college football. There isn’t a lot of lifting out there in “God’s Country”. The closest thing I ever knew to being “sore” was when I was twelve and bailed hay. But the first time I ever felt this butt cheek burning, hamstring tearing, quad killing feeling was my senior year of high school. My brother for eternity, Stillman Blake Fenn and I just got our summer work out book from Coach Bennion. Of course we lied to him and told him we squatted 450 lbs., benched 350 lbs., power cleaned 305. So our eight sets of fifteen reps were out of this world hard for some homegrown boys like us. It didn’t help that we had never really squatted before. Yes, the occasional three sets of ten with 135, but nothing too exhilarating. Two days after this work out we couldn’t move, we had never felt this foreign thing before. This, what the hell, oh sweet lord, cheese and rice, son of a…, "MOM help me put on my britches” sore… (Blake). But now four years later I would have to say we almost look forward to putting on that extra ten or twenty five lbs., maybe staying after and doing “21’s” with the buff dudes. We just have to make sure you get that unmistakable, never hurt so damned bad, gotta love it, stick up your… soreness.

Recruites......

High school hero’s…. there is nothing like them in the world. The Friday night stud is finally getting to go on his official recruiting trip! So what is an official recruiting trip? In a nutshell it’s were colleges recruit either senior high school students or junior college transfers to play sports at a university.
The NCAA outlines the rules for an official visit.
• You can make up to five Official - expense paid visits to college campuses. The visit to the campus cannot be longer than forty eight hours in duration. You are not allowed to have an official visit until after your first day of classes of your senior year.
• College coaches need to have an official ACT or SAT score and a copy of your official high school transcript before you can make a visit.

The past two weekends I had the great HONOR to host these recruits. Apart from them or their parents telling me how great they are (4.4 sec./40 yard sprint), and how great they are going to be (twice as good as Poots), it was kind of fun.
From the moment that the recruits get here we stroke their egos. Like our staff telling them how excited they are that they came. The players telling them that they can't wait to play next to them. Girls making them pinkie promise that they will come here. President Benson having them over for dinner and giving them his three promises (which I don’t remember). Then they are off to a basketball game or a gymnastics meet. After the game or meet they are let free with no curfew to go out with their host and have the time of their lives…
And that is where my weekend goes to H E double hockey sticks. What am I supposed to do with some kids who want to go to every party and every dance when I have football the next morning? Of course I don’t want to be the old burn out grandpa who is in bed by ten. So we go to these unforgettable school dances. I find a wall or post to lean against and put on my cool guy smile like “hell yeah I do this every night”. When in all reality I can’t dance they, aren’t dancing and it’s a complete waste of the ten bucks. So then it’s midnight they are 18 and eat like a horse so I take them to Alberto’s for a “Cali B and some Carne Asada fries” that is thirty bones in one night I will never see again. By the time they are done eating it’s pushing one, one you get them to the hotel and get into bed its pushing two. Nothing like a Saturday run and workout with only five hours of sleep right? Saturday night may as well be on repeat just substitute the presidents house with Rusty’s (which is my favorite part). Then we are off to another one night only best dance ever featuring “DJ N-1-GAD” (no one gives a damn) that plays the same music as the night before. Alberto’s again. Listen to them reminisce about their glory days. Then I take them home, tell them they were the best recruits EVER. We exchange numbers, so they can bother me until three in the morning about a girl they will die without. Then text me for the next six months wondering if they can come down for a weekend, or if they can stay with me over the summer and work out together. And my all-time favorite, they want to be roommates for next school year. How I love official recruiting trips. 

If your one of my recruits over the past three years know that I really have grown to love ya.