Da Dos

Tag: I Bleed Navy + Orange

  • Doubles Troubles (The Year of the Tiger, Part 1) by guest writer IBNO

    Doubles Troubles (The Year of the Tiger, Part 1) by guest writer IBNO


    SETTING:

    A late-1980s football practice field, next to a Frankenstein high school patched together with multiple annexes over multiple decades. The school sits near the center of a conservative former farm town, now wealthy western suburb of Chicago. In the distance behind the field is a small Jewel grocery store. Above the Jewel sign, the town clocktower can be seen. The clock gongs 8 o’clock on a dewy August morning that promises to turn the dirt-spotted practice field into a brick oven well before noon.

    CHARACTERS:

    John Towne, Chemistry teacher and Head Coach of the varsity football team. Short of stature and stern, unless actively smiling he appears quietly furious–with the pent-up rage of a church pastor who found out his daughter enjoys servicing the basketball team under the bleachers. JT’s close-set eyes are piercingly blue, and he wears his ballcap pulled low to shade his eyes from the morning sun.

    Ross Horn, Athletic Director, Offensive Line and Assistant Head Coach of the varsity football team. With a haircut that only recently graduated from a Beatles Bowl, and a mustache that would do Ron Jeremy proud, his deep baritone is incapable of anything below “too loud for a small room.” The team will soon come to fear three simple words spoken from the man in charge of their conditioning: “On the ball.”

    Ron McTavish, P.E. teacher and Defensive Coordinator. A young Mike Ditka–minus a neck–he is plain-spoken and an extremely effective communicator to young men. A graduate of the Christian college across the train tracks from the high school, he neither wears his faith on his sleeve, nor judges his players by theirs–but the strongest epithet he is ever heard to utter is “gosh darn it!” And even then, he blushes.

    Billy “Sky” Walker, Defensive backfield coach. The most junior of the coaches. When not wearing mirrored aviators, he appears to be staring off at clouds. No one is entirely sure what he teaches at the high school.

    THE BACKGROUND:
    The school has legendary graduates, including football luminaries, but the football program has fallen on hard times. Last year’s Varsity team had great potential scuttled by a teachers’ strike (and resulting forfeited games) and reckless personalities. During the prior school year, an alcohol-fueled party resulted in several seniors and then-juniors getting caught with or near alcohol–a violation of the school’s rigid Athletic Code. Several of this year’s seniors were banned from sport, and several more were allowed on the team only on the strictest probation. It is suspected that even more seniors–including football players–were at the party and escaped Athletic Code justice.

    THE SCENE:

    Somewhere around 80 varsity recruits are lined up in rows, facing the four captains. The first day of practice, every player is in helmet and practice jersey color-coded for offense and defense–and for many, late-80s neon shorts. The captains call out the order of warm-up stretches and calisthenics. Jumping jacks. Hamstring stretches. Then push-ups. Captain Dan calls out “down!” and “up!” and the team counts each push-up until they reach 20.

    COACH JOHN TOWNE [Loudly]: That was awful! Out of synch. Do it again!

    [The captains look at each other, mentally hit rewind, and call out the instructions. Captain Dan again calls out “down!” and “up!” and the team again counts out 20 push-ups.]

    JT [Louder]: Those aren’t push-ups! Jurgens isn’t even going all the way down! Do them again!

    [Jurgens, a hulking sophomore defensive lineman elevated to varsity during equipment pickup the prior day, starts to protest, but thinks better of it after immediately being shushed by the teammates near him.]

    JT: Start over! All the way down, all the way up, as a team!

    [The captains call out the cadence for another 20 push-ups. After 20, some players put their knees down to rest or to stand up. John Towne calls out:]

    JT: Still out of synch. Sloppy! A bunch of individuals! Do it again–as a team!

    [The captains look at each other again, wordlessly converging on the realization that their first day of leadership will cast them as the soldiers guarding the trains going to Auschwitz. The fourth set of push-ups begins, this time the count stopping at 10.]

    JT: Carpenter’s back isn’t straight! He’s got his butt in the air. You guys expect to play football when you can’t even do 20 push-ups? Everyone straighten out your backs! All of you!

    [The team holds a plank through a minute or more of denigration from the head coach before…]

    JT: Start over!

    [The count makes it to 15 before John Towne again interrupts with a shout. Players freeze in the plank position, many with arms shaking already. Ross Horn looks on, his jaw clenched. Ron McTavish keeps his head down, and continues scuffing a hole in the dirt with his cleats. Billy Walker stares off into the distance.]

    JT: You have to decide–right here, right now, if you want to be a football team. Or if you want to be Mr. Hot Shot, star of your own show. To be on this team, you don’t have to be the fastest, or the strongest–Lord knows, just about the only guys who passed qualifications are your captains–but you do have to put the team before yourself and give 100 per cent every day. That’s the rule. And you have to follow the rules! Start again!

    [The captains call out the instructions and start the cadence. Again, the count gets to 10 before interruption. The team again holds a plank. Most players are breathing hard. Some are gasping.]

    JT: Weller isn’t going down all the way, start over!

    [A pattern seems to be emerging, with Head Coach John Towne singling out the younger players as failing. The seniors avoid critique. The captains start the count over.]

    JT: Stop! Half the receivers don’t have their backs straight. Maybe it’s because none of you made qualifications in bench press…

    [Sweat streams liberally from player’s faces while they hold planks and attempt more sets. Gasping and grunting and coughing comes from most players; some sound like they’re beginning to retch. No one knows the total count for certain, but somewhere north of 180 push-ups, Ross Horn’s stoic mask cracks.]

    ROSS HORN [muttering loudly]: Jesus, John, I think they get the point.

    [John Towne glares daggers at Ross Horn, who returns the stare without flinching. Ron McTavish suddenly looks up from the ground and shouts.]

    RON MCTAVISH: OK, we’ll save the rest for the afternoon! Let’s break into position groups. Front seven, on me! D-backs, follow Coach Walker to the south fence. Offensive line, with Coach Horn at the sled. Backs and receivers, with Coach Towne…

    [The players get to their feet, shakily, and head towards their coaches. Joe Fisher, a junior tight end, is the first to vomit that day, noisily through his face mask.]

  • Ghassan the Nut-man by Guest Reg IBNO

    Ghassan the Nut-man by Guest Reg IBNO

    In grad school I had a fellowship to study Arabic in Syria. Even for a seasoned Middle East scholar like myself, it was an eye-opening experience.

    I lived near a couple little corner shops–basically Syrian bodegas–right next to each other. For some reason, I mostly patronized the shop owned and run by Ghassan, who was one of the nicest people I’d ever met – not just in Syria. Snow-white hair combed straight back, with a charcoal grey mustache; he was a gentle grandpa type. His shop was in the Christian quarter, but I wasn’t sure if he was Christian or Muslim, and he didn’t give hints one way or the other. He always had a smile, and and displayed Jobian patience even with my stumbling Arabic.

    Ghassan’s shop had bins by the counter filled with various roasted nuts, and my colleagues and I had fallen into a routine of climbing up to the roof of our building in the evenings, having a beer and snacking on nuts. So most days included a stop to buy from Ghassan the Nut-man.

    One day I walked into Ghassan’s shop to buy something small, but I didn’t have enough coinage while my next-smallest denomination was a bill worth about $40. Ghassan couldn’t (or wouldn’t) break the large bill for such a small purchase, and instead he told me to go ahead and take the goods–maybe a dollar’s worth – and I could pay “next time.”

    “Tomorrow,” I agreed, thanking him, and left.

    The next day I was in, again buying something small, and as I put my money down on the counter for him, I added in the amount I owed him. He pushed those coins back at me, smiling shyly, repeating the price for today’s purchase. I reminded him I owed him from yesterday, thinking maybe he had forgotten. He smiled kindly and just replied, “Next time.”

    This ritual continued for a few weeks. I’d come in and buy something, try to give him what I owed, and he’d just smile and shake his head, “next time.”

    The summer didn’t last. Israel started bombing Lebanon and Syria. Everything exploded. Ghassan, ever the smiling cipher, had a Hizbullah flag hanging outside his window – as did most of the businesses and some of the homes in the Christian quarter. A photography studio across the street exhibited big pictures of Bashar al-Assad and Hasan Nusrullah (the leader of Hizbullah) in the window as well.

    Damascus was still relatively safe even as refugees poured in from Lebanon; nevertheless our program managers and bosses recommended we all leave, and offered to pay our bills to get home early. The nascent war had jammed up flights going West, so for me and my colleagues, this meant we could get paid to take the Long Way Home. A couple guys went to Cairo for a few weeks. My office-mate went to the Gulf to get a head start on some dissertation research. I was going to take the train to Istanbul and hang out for a while before flying home.
    So on my last day in Damascus, I stopped in Ghassan’s shop to buy some almonds for the bus ride to Aleppo, where I’d pick up the train to Istanbul. Again we did our routine.

    I put extra money on the counter, and he pushed it back to me, refraining, “Next time.”

    “I owe you this money, but you keep saying ‘next time,’ “ I replied.

    “Yes, and you keep coming back? I’m a smart businessman, no?” he laughed.

    I laughed, too, and pushed the money back across the counter. “But I’m leaving tomorrow because of the war, and I owe you this.”

    His smile fell, but he pushed the money back to me, saying, “Next time, God willing.” He put his hand on his heart, adding, “Safe journey, my friend.”

    “God willing,” I repeated, with a lump in my throat, taking my almonds and Ghassan’s money, and left.

  • “Gridiron Glory” by guest reg I Bleed Navy and Orange

    “Gridiron Glory” by guest reg I Bleed Navy and Orange

    It was the last football play of my life.

    I knew it would be my last game; I saw no future in it for me – only finality.  We were a sub-500 Division III team ending the season on a low note. So deeper meaning largely escaped me.

    With less than 3 minutes to go, we were down 20-3, and the other team had all their subs, scrubs, and seniors playing instead of their starters. In the defensive huddle, our SAM spit blood onto the ground. He had lost his mouthguard a few plays back and bit his lip during a tackle. I remember pulling my foot out of the way; for some reason I didn’t want to get my weathered shoe bloody. We broke the huddle and I laughed at myself: why should I care? I was going to throw those cleats away before nightfall.

    The offense lined up in an inverted wishbone. I was Rover–a strong safety who could line up in a number of different places, depending on the offensive formation and down/distance. Our SAM set up on the inside shoulder of the tight end, acting like he was going to rush. I bounced around his outside shoulder a yard off the line, faking like I would blitz, too. The QB took the snap and after a half step forward, the SAM and I both dropped into coverage–he dropped to his hook zone, and I zoomed toward the flat.

    Sure enough, the tight end looked to block someone, but no one was engaged with him. The offensive line stuttered, then let the defensive rush through. The strong-side halfback snuck forward, and I felt like the rest of my team knew with as much certainty as I exactly where the ball was going.

    The backup playing QB didn’t have a speck of dirt or grass stain on his uniform, and for all I know hadn’t played in a game before this one. He was hyped up, and his pass rainbowed way too high, over halfback and over even the linemen setting the center screen. Our SAM caught the overthrow against his shoulderpad, took one step and caught the arm of one of the offensive linemen, who was diving to make the tackle.

    I knew that fireplug of a SAM, all 5’10” and maybe 230lbs, could break that arm tackle. The play had started from about their 20 yard line; there was a chance we could actually score on defense! one last burst of glory. I saw the tight-end in his pristine jersey, still not engaged with anyone, and knew my SAM would need help getting past. I ran to block so my SAM could score.

    I popped the tight-end and tried to drive him as  I felt my cleats catch in the cold turf. In spots, the mud was half-frozen and plastic.

    And then my SAM broke the tackle, but not clean. He fell into my right leg. All 230 lbs of him, right into the side of my knee. Somehow everything was moving slowly enough that I felt him hit, and knew the only way I wouldn’t blow my knee out would be to collapse it, so I did.

    But my cleats were stuck in the mud and grass, and could not release–especially with my weight, the goon tight end’s weight, and now 230 lbs of linebacker pushing everything down.

    I felt the bones grinding together in my ankle and screamed, but that didn’t help, and the pain didn’t end. What I remember the most was the feeling of tension–of things being pushed and pulled in ways they aren’t supposed to go–and a grinding that sounded in my brain like massive stone blocks being dragged over each other. I remember squeezing my eyes shut and seeing bright red against the backs of my eyelids, despite the late-afternoon shadows on the field.

    The next thing I knew, I was crawling off the field, refusing to look back. I was certain my foot had been ripped off my leg, and at best was dragging behind me by my sock… but more likely, it had been pulled clean off and was still stuck in the turf. The pain was immense, but the fear was even bigger. How long before the amputated foot couldn’t be reattached?

    I got to the sideline and I guess I was whimpering something about my foot being gone, and before the trainers got to me, someone told me no, everything’s still attached.

    “Is it hanging there limp?” I asked, still not bearing to look.

    No, they reassured me. Looks like it’s pointing the right direction and everything.

    The trainers got me into a seated position and I risked a look. It was already swelling, and they cut my shoe off, but it didn’t look as hideous as it had felt when it happened. It was bad–very bad–but I wasn’t going to lose my foot.

    I didn’t find out until much later that the interception had been for nothing. The game ended 20-3.

    For years, I avoided the fate my original ortho predicted–that the bone was degenerating and within 10 years I would need my lower leg unzipped from both sides and a graft from my hip put into the tibia.

    But this past spring, my new ankle doc gave me the bad news from a new MRI. Next week I get a bone graft in the talus, and cadaver cartilage to replace all the stuff that got ground away 33 years ago.

    This is the price we pay for fleeting glory on the gridiron – in a forgotten game at the end of a meaningless career, on a frozen field. The last time I took off my helmet wasn’t some moment of meaning that I kept crystallized in my memory; I tore it off and tossed it aside while injured and never saw it again.

    My buddy and I had a saying: “broken bones heal; pain is temporary; chicks dig guys with scars.” I add another one to the collection in June.