My Failings in High School Freshman Football

             I had always loved to play “sandlot” football with my neighborhood friends.  We played whenever we could on Neal’s front yard.  We normally played “tag” football, where instead of tackling the carrier, we had to just tag him below the waist.  The other fundamentals of the game were the same;  there was running, passing, catching the ball, kicking the ball, etc.  I was good at it.

        Fortunately as a kid, I had a lot of innate athletic abilities.  I was fast, agile, coordinated, and strong.  One time a few of us went over to play tackle football, a more rough and tumble style of football, with some friends from another neighborhood.  I always felt bad that during one play I tackled the runner, and he ended up with a broken leg.  I never went back to play with those guys anymore.

        Anyway, since I was good playing neighborhood football, when I was about to enter high school, I thought I would try out for the Freshman football team.  Upon inquiring about doing so, I was a little surprised (and dismayed) to discover that we had to start football practice ridiculously early ( 7:00 AM) in the morning, and that was in August, a whole month before school started.  The reason we practiced in the morning was because of the intolerable heat and humidity that blanketed the dog days of summer, in Indiana.

    I was also surprised upon going to that first football practice to learn that a lot of the other guys there, had already played organized football on a pre-high school team that I wasn’t even aware, existed.  I, of course, knew the basics of the game, but I discovered that high school football was a whole lot more technical than the front year football that we always played at Neal’s yard.  

    The practices were pretty exhausting, having to run around during the quickly warming mornings, with the shoulder pads, helmet, and padded pants on.  We ran lap after lap, we sprinted out, faked one way,  then cut sideways and tried to catch passes.  We had to run across old tires on the ground and not trip and fall, wearing the clunky cleated old football shoes.  Needless to say, we adolescent boys were always much in need of that shower, by the time the practices were over.

More on the story tomorrow.

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