Failure

I had come from playing on a football team in the Boy's Club league that had not lost a game in memory. The coach was a tough but nice guy who came after working as a supervisor at a canning plant all day, but he was also a football scout for an NFL team and simply loved the game. He even owned a semi-pro team called the Broncos for several years. Their uniforms were the powder blue of the Baltimore Colts. All I'm saying is that he was very dedicated.

But our junior high school team couldn't win a game. The coach was a hardheaded jock who had been on the Dallas Cowboys for a minute before getting cut. He'd finished his P.E. degree in order to get a job. We were the unfortunate victims of his lifetime's disappointment.

Practices were grueling. He was a sadist really who simply loved to see young boys get punished. We didn't spend as much time on running plays as on "getting tough." I knew I could have run a better team than this. He was equal parts dumb and mean.

I should have been the quarterback of the team, but he picked someone of his own intelligence, an older boy who just fell under the cutoff age for being too old to play. He had recently moved here from Mississippi, I think, and his eyes were dull like cardboard. I played fullback and linebacker, but it didn't really help. We were three downs and punt all year long.

Near mid-season, I couldn't stand it any more. The other team was sending all their linebackers and linemen straight up the middle where we ran over and over again. I went to the quarterback and said, "Listen, they keep sending everybody straight up the middle. You have to call a fullback pitch. Fake it up the middle and wait before you pitch it to me. Let me get wide."

Nutboy went straight to coach and told him "his" idea. Coach just about peed his pants, slapping goofy on the shoulder pads and yelling, "That's what I'm talking about. Keep your head in the game," the arc of his spittle flying through the night.

When we took the field again, goofball called the play. I knew it would work. Everything was right. And when the ball was snapped, everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion. The quarterback faked the handoff and then pitched it wide to me. And I was free, passing the line of scrimmage, running open under those great stadium lights, the roar of the crowd coming to me as in a dream. I could feel my mother and father watching me. But suddenly I saw one of their players streaking across the field. He was really fast, but all I had to do was run the sideline and I could beat him. It would be an eighty yard touchdown.

But it wasn't. I don't know what happened to me. My legs became lead. I couldn't breathe. My vision narrowed until I seemed to be running through a very dark tunnel. Try as I might, I couldn't make myself run away from my nemesis. He was a giant magnet. And slowly, slowly, I ran toward the middle of the field, straight to him.

I was down at mid-field. I couldn't believe it. What had I done. I didn't want to get up. I simply lay there avoiding my teammates. Even my father had seen this. It was awful.

Back in the huddle, I looked at the ground. Nutboy was screaming at me. "What the hell is wrong with you," he drawled. But I didn't have to answer. I got a tap on the shoulder by my substitute. I was out.

On the sideline, coach asked me the same thing. I wanted to cry.

We ran out the series and didn't score. We hadn't scored much that season. I'd had my chance.

It seems a silly thing, but it wasn't. It was a turning point in the surging tide of self-awareness. Who was I, I wondered. I'd thought myself a hero, a saviour, someone to be carried by the cheering crowds through the center of town. I couldn't shake it. I was haunted.

That next week, coach had me practicing at linebacker. If I were to seek redemption, it would have to be elsewhere.