The gods of football

The drill was called Oklahoma; why, I don’t know. It had nothing to do with the wide open spaces; it was just the opposite.

The drill had two huge offensive tackles, a center sandwiched between them and a running back – all against one, small defensive lineman. The defensive lineman’s goal was to split the double team, find the running back and tackle him before he made it to the line of scrimmage.

Not an easy task if you weigh only 190 pounds and the combination of the beef directly in front of you tips the scale at well over 600 pounds.

The football gods had deemed it was my turn, and I learned early on in my football career, you don’t question the gods, especially if you ever want to play. So, I tightened my chin strap, bent over and picked up the pad that kept falling out of my pants. Then I lined up against the two biggest tackles that ever wore the mighty Buccaneers football jersey: Bubba Hanks and Big Brother James.

My strategy was simple: survive. As soon as the ball moved, so did I — by diving between the center’s legs. The two massive tackles crashed into each other and into the center, all of them crumpling to the ground in a huge heap. Goofy Steve, the ball carrier, then ran over me, but I had survived. In doing so, I had also angered the gods.

After my two laps around the infamous Death Valley practice field and a drink of warm water and salt tablets, it was my turn again. As we lined up, the gray dust of the field swirled all around us, stealing what little oxygen that was left in our lungs. Just before the ball moved, I whispered, “Hey, guys, take it easy, okay?”

Bubba and James exchanged a knowing glance and then smiled back at me. When the ball was hiked, the two of them knocked me off my feet and five feet into the air. I landed so hard that the pad bounced out of my pants. Before I could struggle to my feet, Goof ran over me again, his cleats making me feel like an IBM punch card. Bubba lumbered over, picked up both me and the pad with one scoop of his massive tree trunk appendage and grinned. “Sorry, Coach said we couldn’t take it easy on you.”

How I survived to the end of practice, I’ll never know. Why I kept going back to practice day after day, I do know.

From the least of us to the best of us, from the biggest to the smallest, we were Buccaneers. Our coaches cared about the players more than winning because without us, all of us, they knew they had no team. It’s a concept that has escaped some of the coaches in this county. They are truly out of touch with what’s important.

Looking back, the coaches at Briarwood High School weren’t gods, and the coaches of today aren’t either. Although, I fear some believe they are close. Keeping kids out on the field until 8 or 9 at night is not putting the player first. Playing only the kids who can help you win a game is also not putting the players first.

If you ask how many games we won in the five years I was a Buccaneer, I truly can’t tell you. What I do remember is I got into almost all of them, even though I wasn’t the best player. We also won region and went to the state playoffs three of those five years, and never once were we still on the practice field after 6:30 at night.

We didn’t have $500,000 stadiums, huge interactive scoreboards, sod practice fields equipped with sprinklers, or fancy field houses that would make most colleges drool. We also didn’t have the pressure that is put on parents, booster club members, or players these days to pay for it all.

The most important lesson that the game of football can teach our youth, I’m afraid, has been lost during the last 35 years: It’s not whether you win or lose; it is how you play the game.