My lack of what to do when the play was called didn't really matter much, because I wasn't on the first team, whose members were made up of the guys that had been on the pre-high school team the year before. I always was assigned the position of sitting on the bench during the games, which was alright with me. But during one game, I was suddenly thrown into a real panic, when the coach motioned for me to come over, then told me to go in for one of the first string players.
Luckily, when I entered the game, our team was was on defense, so I didn't have to interpret any of the numbered plays. In defense all I had to do was just keep the other team from scoring. I did okay, I was even able to divert a pass, so I felt pretty good, when, a minute later, the first stringer came back in and I reclaimed my place on the bench.
"Boy, I really dodged that bullet," I thought to myself with relief, as I settled back to watch the game. But soon, I was seized by panic again, and this time in earnest, because the coach once again began to motion to me to come to him, and this time our team was on offense. I grabbed my helmet, put it on, and made myself scramble over to see what the coach had to say.
"Go in, tell Carter to come out, and tell the quarterback to run ’73-47-2” or something akin to that; whatever it was, it meant nothing to me. I knew that I was supposed to give the message to the quarterback and then stay in, taking Carter’s place and help with the play. I was really stressed out, because I didn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to do as my part of the play.
"Okay, coach," I said, trying to sound as confident as I could, despite being terribly insecure. I turned and ran onto the field, where our team was in a huddle.
I knew I had to come up with a plan, and decided the best one would be just to play dumb, so I ran up to my teammates and gave them the message: "Run: 73-47-2", then I immediately I turned and ran back to the security of the bench and sat down. In retrospect, leaving our team on player short.
My team ran the play, then went on to run the next one. When the coach turned around he noticed me sitting there on the bench. He said, "Hey Marchant, you were supposed to stay in there and play," I hunched my shoulders, conjured up an expression of confusion and replied, "Oh,"
I don’t recall playing in any other games, maybe the coach had mercy on me. I finished off the year of freshman football, but I had suffered through enough insecurity, and so I didn’t go out for the high school football team any more.
The photo above shows our freshman football team. I was surprised to see how many players there were on the team.
You can take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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