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!