What’s that? You’re worried that maybe this ahistoric moment in sports may have scarred me for life?
Just wait until you see the other guy…
“You gotta be kidding me, man! I gave you a hole you could drive a truck through!”
I was one irate pirate, to say the least…
Now, we all know that scholars maintain that I wasn’t exactly what one might call an “athlete with some semblance of coordination.” But that didn’t stop me from playing football for good ol’ Rolla High School, no sirree, Bob!
Well, to be honest, it wasn’t like I really had a choice. With a student body weighing in at a whopping 69 students across 4 grades, just about every male was peer-pressured into joining the football squad so the Pirates could actually field a team. So despite my near complete lack of athletic ability, I was nevertheless involuntarily drafted to play.
And since I had hands of stone and an athletic mind just as dense, I landed on the offensive line–the center to be exact. Coach L figured that apart from the concentration needed to snap the ball to the quarterback or punter without screwing up, that position required the least thinking, and therefore where I could do minimal damage to our offensive efforts.
Heck, by my junior and senior years–when I was actually on the starting squad–I had made the poor life decision to eat so healthy that it was unhealthy, and was pretty light for a lineman (like, a good 20 lbs. lighter than your average corn-fed Kansan lineman). So for the most part, having me on the field was only marginally better than having no center at all and just having the quarterback snap the ball to himself.
In short, I plain sucked at football. And I felt bad for the 3-4 truly athletic guys who had to suffer thanks to me and the rest of the crew of mediocre players.
So, then, pray tell, why was I so pissed off that day in the locker room? Because despite all my sucking, there was one play that I executed like a mothertrucking champion: “21-Trap.” And how did I know I was so dang good at running this so-called 21-Trap? Because I, along with the entire team, was staring at videographic evidence of me actually doing my job right for once.
Just one tiny problem: our running back, an otherwise fine and intelligent athlete, couldn’t grasp the concept that he was supposed to run through the “1” gap.
Oh, what’s that? You’re not familiar with 8-man football plays? Well, fear not, Dear Reader, because I found a little resource to help you out. Please, observe the diagram below, in which the players on my team (on offense) are represented by circles.
In this diagram, I’m the center (black circle) and once I snap the ball, I take a hard right and block the dude trying to rush through the hole that will soon be created by our right guard (“RG”–red circle, and the “2” in “21-Trap” but not the “2” in the diagram) who was “pulling” left behind me and “trapping” whatever schlub he first ran into. And the result of this should be a big-ass gap where the left guard (“LG”, the “1” in “21-Trap”, but not the “1” in the diagram) was before he blocked to the right like me.
So now, our running back (the yellow “2” in the diagram)–who will remain mostly anonymous–had it easy: our running back, who I shall only call “Double-B” (who, incidentally, was the brother of “Double-D”, of Shotgun Wedding infamy), just had to run slightly left and directly on through that hole and, more often than not, right into the end zone.
But three games into the season, and what did every game tape show? They all showed the same dang thing: RG pulling left, LG and me blocking hard right, and Double-B…absolutely not running through the huge fricking patch of amber waves of grain in the 1-Gap. Instead, homeboy would do something like this:
Now, it doesn’t take a wild imagination to realize that about 1.5 seconds after the ball is snapped, the black circle and the yellow “2” circle will be occupying the same physical space. So is it really a surprise to hear something like this:
“STOP GETTING IN MY WAY!”
Yes, that’s right, upon watching the game tape, Double-B had the, um, ‘footballs’ to yell at me. So I had to set the record straight.
“You stop running into me, you dumb jock! The “1” gap is on the LEFT…you know, where the GAPING HOLE in the line is,” I retorted. “I’m tired of being the one to receive the credit for the tackle just because you don’t know how to count to 3. Do you know how embarrassing it is for the announcer to give me credit for doing the other teams job? You’re making me look like a ----- moron out there…”
“Holy sheets, dude, that is one gaping hole!” Phillip K. Ballz, my best friend and star tight end on the football team, exclaimed as we trotted off the field after failing once again to make into the end zone against those pesky Satanta Indians.
“Thanks..I guess. But you meant to say ‘that was one gaping hole’, right? Yet another gaping hole that our ol’ dipsh*t Double-B didn’t have the sense to run through…” I muttered in disgust.
“No, man, I mean your elbow…you got a flap of skin flowing in the breeze and you’re gushing blood everywhere!”
I looked at my right elbow, which was a little sore after the full force of the barrelling train we called Double-B smacked into it during–you guessed it–21-Trap.
I gasped lightly in horror at the sight of an almost entirely red forearm.
“Darn you, Double-B! Darn you to heck!” I shouted as I shook my fists–one pink and dry and the other one sanguine and bloody–into the air.
“Dabnabbit, BJ, stop being such a drama queen!” I could literally hear Coach L’s eyes rolling behind me. I turned around toward him to reveal my bloodied arm, channeling my inner Carrie.
Coach L was non-plussed.
“Put a BandAid (TM) on that and get your lily-white ass back in there! I need you to at least pretend to play defense…”
“Bum Ba-dum Bum Bum Bum Bum!”
The photographer handling my senior pictures cocked her head at me quizzically.
“Huh?!?”
“You know, the commercial1Okay, so I’m pretty sure this commercial wasn’t out back in 1998; I openly admit I am using it here for comedic effect.…’We are Farmers, Bum Ba-dum Bum Bum Bum Bum!’ ” I replied.
“The insurance company? Okay…”
“You asked me about the BandAid (TM) covering half my right arm that you are going to have figure out ways to strategically cover up, right?”
“Yeah…and…? I’m not making the connection here,” she said, with a lost look in her eyes.
“Ok, I admit that it’s a bit of a stretch…you see, my family and I are a bunch of farmers, and therefore very ironically, don’t have health insurance to cover stitches when you lose half the flesh on your elbow playing football. Yup…it’s just superglue, BandAid (TM), and bit of Duck Tape holding me together,” I regaled her.
“Oooh…maybe we shouldn’t cover that up after all. It’s like a badge of honor showing off your raw masculinity while playing a man’s-man’s sport–“
I cut her off before she could make the situation any more awkward.
“A teammate did this to me. I caught some friendly fire during the one play that I know how to run…which happens to be the one play where he cockily thinks he knows where he’s supposed to go, but actually doesn’t,” I explained.
“Oh,” she murmurred quietly, “I see. So are you, like, holding a grudge or something? You sound pretty bitter…like this is something you would still be ranting about 25 years later…”
“What? Who me? Do I look like the type of guy who would let something like some mild physical disfigurment fester for a quarter of century and then finally air his grievances in a semi-public forum? Pfft! Please!” I said dismissively.
“Ok, I believe you. But then tell me this: how are you emotionally handling this betrayal then?” she asked gently, as if this had somehow become a therapy session instead of a photoshoot.
“Oh that’s easy. With my incredibly poor blocking abilities up front on the line, my dude gets the living sh*t knocked out of him just about every other play. By my calculations, they guy’ll have CTE by the end of the season. So it all basically evens out.”
“Really? You think long-term brain injury and a barely noticable scar on your elbow are roughly equivalent?” she asked humbly-yet-increduously.
“Look, that butthead ruined my senior pics, so no, I ain’t never letting that sh*t go…”
Content created on: 14/15 October 2023 (Sat/Sun)
Footnotes & References:
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