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Robert Stockton
It’s August, still summer, and already the radio and TV talking heads are trying to get us pumped about football.
As a kid, I was crazy about football. I can remember listening to U of M games on the radio before we had a television. This time of year all the neighborhood kids would switch from baseball to football and we would be out playing all day in a vacant lot. Much different today, whenever I happen to be in a suburban area, I hardly ever see kids out playing anything. It’s kind of sad and their loss.
My first taste of organized ball was in the eighth grade when Len Capelli and I played for our church CYO team. The team consisted of only twelve kids so we got to play a lot and it was a great experience.
I remember in August before Freshman year worrying about the upcoming week of two-a-day practices that started the preseason. Would I be able to cut it? This was high school, the “Big Time.” I even had to get a physical and unlike CYO, I would be going up against older guys, seventeen, eighteen, almost grown men, kind of scary for a skinny thirteen year old with no idea what to expect..
In order to get to practice, Len and I had to walk. Over in the morning, back for lunch, over in the afternoon, and home after the second round of fun. For me, it was about a mile and a half each way, for Len closer to two miles. Each of those sessions that year was an ordeal I thought would never end. But I wanted to play and was willing to try to pay the price. It was a time of shared misery. I met Bill Cox sometime that week, when we carried in a tackling dummy after a long day was over. I knew Jerry Wiebeck from junior high, but Joe Halonen was new to me along with others that would become friends, cemented together, at least for a time, by the experience.
It was easier after that first year. I knew I could make it and my desire to play never diminished. By Junior year some of the guys had access to cars so I didn’t have to walk every day. Before Senior year, I was already a little saddened knowing a high school chapter was coming to an end, but I still dreaded the start of those two-a-days.
Something any guy that played those years will remember is wind sprints. Coach Young got the nick name “Goal Line Gordie” from his habit of standing on the goal line, blowing his whistle to start each sprint and he certainly earned that name. I’ve often wondered how many whistles he wore out. To make it through his longer sessions I tried to put my mind in a happier place and it usually worked, though I won’t share where I went. I tried counting, but on bad days, somewhere after forty it would all get blurry.
Coach Young had a gadget play designed for right after we received a kick-off. We tried it once each year and it never came close to working until our last chance. It was a pass play that resulted in about a seventy yard touchdown, first play from scrimmage. I don’t remember who we were playing. I am pretty sure we won the game.
We were never a championship team, not even close, though I think we won about as many as we lost. The thing is I do believe every player benefitted. While not every guy was a friend, and there were a few I flat out didn’t like, we were a team and we learned to work together, friends or not, a valuable trait to learn for the game of life.
One more comment and I’ll shut up.
I remember watching GAA basketball games, thinking it was unfair that the girls weren’t allowed varsity teams or that they couldn’t play by the same rules. Those half-court rules back then didn’t allow the girls to really play the game and I knew they could.
Fortunately that all changed by the time my daughters were in school. They both played. My older girl, Robin, played everything, basketball, volleyball, track, and softball. In basketball, she played with a reckless abandon and a “take-no-prisoners” attitude, just for the joy of the game, mixing it up every chance she got. Vicki, my youngest, was more ladylike, though she didn’t take any crap from an opponent either. I flatter myself thinking there’s a little of me in both of them.
By the way, I’m still a football fan. The operative word being fan, I have finally out grown the urge to play.
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