Fresh Squeezed

It was halftime and my small Catholic school varsity football team, tragically pathetic and victims of upper middle class families, stood toe to toe with one of the state's best high school programs.  The score was 0-0 at the half and I'm confident that we marched into that sweaty, urine stenched locker room both shocked and exhausted.  As an underclassman, I chose to find the furthest corner of the locker room knowing that my role, to this point, extended as far as making sure that my jersey was still tucked into my pants.  It turned out to be good decision. 

Like most "Thanks, Coach Dick" stories," this 0-0 halftime accomplishment was overshadowed by a man overcome with passion.  Physically, he was a short, mustached fat man (approximately 5'8" 230lbs, mid to late 30s) who fit the stereotype of most high school football assistant coaches.  As far as I remember, he wasn't a drunk, and in all likelihood wanted to help shape the lives of young men.  However, a General Patton, he was not.  He stormed into the locker room, face brighter than cherry and foaming at the corners of his mouth.  Walking into the middle of the locker room, he screamed in a high pitched tone reserved for little girls and family dogs, "You've got‘em by the gonads…all you gotta do is squeeeeeze!!!"  That was it.  I don't remember another word.  I tucked my head down into my knees and prayed that no one would see me laughing (I later found out that I wasn’t the only one). I don't remember the final score of the game, but I do know we lost.  Whether or not the intensity was gone by the halftime speech can be left for the pundits to debate. But the only thing I do remember from that game is that by squeezing another man's gonads...well, thanks, Coach Dick.

Soccer Bunnies

This story is in honor of the World Cup!  I've learned to love soccer, but in high school I played football.  American football.  There was a stigma perpetrated by the older players and coaches that the male soccer players were basically just too wimpy to play football.  Our practices were always confined to the football field, but the soccer players would often have to run long loops around all the fields in the sports complex.  Whenever they ran by our field, all the football coaches and players would snicker and laugh off their superior display of endurance; "hahaha soccerbunnies."

As a lineman, I ran the least on the team.  We constantly ran 5 yard sprints to get quicker off the snap but never anything long distance.  One time in the off season, one of my coaches saw me running a mile near my house.  He pulled over his car, and he yelled at me for wasting my time when I should have been in the gym bulking up.

Needless to say on a particularly hot day of football practice, I was ill prepared to go toe to toe with the "soccer bunnies".  They overheard our snide comments and told their coach.  The soccer coach came onto our field and challenged our coaches to a soccer scrimmage.  For the next 45 minutes, the entire tough and manly football team were decimated by the "soccer bunnies".  I think the score was something like 12-0.  They ran circles around us.  Maybe it was partly because our head coach made us play the scrimmage in full pads and helmets.  Thanks, Coach Dick!

The Lonely Tailgater

I wrestled most of my life, but Coach Dick made all my other coaches seem sane in comparison.  Coach Dick looked like a beer bellied Paul Bunion in gym shorts and Asics.  When he was in high school he won state in the 215 weight class, but as a grown man he had definitely slipped into the heavyweight class.   He was a great coach: talented, dedicated, and inspirational...when he was sober.  Unfortunately, you never knew which Coach would walk into the gym for practice.  When he was late, our captain would send a spy (freshman) up on a recon mission to the parking lot to see if Coach Dick's rusted old Buick was already in the parking lot with him partaking in the most depressing tailgate ever imagined.  You never knew for sure until he strolled in chewing something insane like 5 pieces of gum.  Bingo!

On one particularly epic pre-practice indulgence, Coach Dick came into the gym and screamed, "Alright, Mary's, you think you're all tough now cause you won last week, but let's see how you do against a state CHAMPiooooon!"  Practice was pretty much over before it started that day.  We circled up, watched, and waited as coach proceeded to wrestle every single one of us from the 92s to the heavyweights.  Every.  Single.  One.  I think he went easy on the lower classes, but he still pinned them.   My teammates and I traded fearful glances as our own weight classes loomed.

215s: It was finally my turn against this gum chewing, agitated, black bear.  As we locked arms and heads on initial contact, I remember thinking that I had never been hit that hard on the back of my head before.  Before I could think, "I have to try that next meet!" Coach Dick swooped to my right hip and locked his arms around my left hip and pushed.  I fell backwards onto the mat.  My ankle didn't:  broken, end of season.  Thanks, Coach Dick!

Are You Hurt or Are You Injured?

"Are you hurt or are you injured?" was a question asked by Coach Dick whenever someone got hurt in practice or in game.  Coach was a tall thin man who was constantly seen wearing an aged school cap and an all-knowing smirk.  He believed the T formation was never improved upon, and all those other offenses were just cowboy showoff shit!  He was a strong proponent of iron man football, and he had no qualms about having people play both ways all game whether they were able to or not.  However, he did it in a way that left the "choice" up to you.  If you’re hurt, you can still play.  If you’re injured, you need medical attention.  This led to a weird grey area of players mummifying their arms with white tape in order to play with broken wrists or taping their ankles into immobile stumps in order to hobble onto the field.  I walked onto the team as a freshman and quickly learned the hard way what the question "Are you hurt or are you injured?" meant.

One practice, I was playing defense against the starting varsity offense.  I took a hard hit from a 6'4" 280 pound senior tackle.  And something just snapped in my shoulder.  Pain began shooting down my left arm and up my neck. I went up to Coach Dick and he said, "Son, are you hurt or are you injured?"  I squeezed out an, "I think I'm injured Coach."  He looked at me disapprovingly and put me on the sideline.  The whistle blew soon after marking the start of calisthenics.  I watched from the sideline of the 50-yard line as Coach Dick lined the players up for full field suicides.  Right before everyone starts running, Coach Dick turns to me and with cupped hands booms, "Son, you may have got injured, but you don't run on your shoulder do you?!"

I had to run the suicides with my left hand dangling limp beside me. All the coaches seemed to enjoy the spectacle.  That night the doctor told me I DID break a bone in my shoulder.  Thanks, Coach Dick!

Shot Put Like a Girl

I went to a small Catholic high school in rural Vermont where it was difficult filling the football roster with enough players let alone less popular sports such as track and field.  The school even had trouble finding a proper coach; so they allowed the junior varsity football coach, Coach Dick, to simultaneously coach football and track and field.  Coach Dick enjoyed the simple things in life such as reliving his own high school football championship 15 years past, chewing tobacco, and punting footballs high in the air in hopes of hitting unaware players during practice.  During our daily lineman drills, he would regale us with his fourth quarter heroics in the state championship where with a broken arm held together merely by tape he landed the perfect block to get his running back over the goal line.

Once he became the track and field coach however, Coach Dick spent much of his time hounding myself and the other lineman about signing up for shot put.  I finally relented with the promise that I would never have to attend track and field practice and all I had to do was show up for the track and field meets.  At the first meet, I still had not touched a shot put.  Coach Dick ran me and another lineman through the two basic shot putter techniques a half hour before the event began!

Needless to say, we did awful.  But I thought a bad score was better than forfeiting for lack of players.  On the bus ride home, Coach Dick made a big production out of walking from the front of the bus to where I and the other “shot putter” sat in the back.  He approached with a huge smile and a sheet of paper in his hand.  The whole bus listened as he loudly read off the other teams’ shot put distances of the day.  Then he read our embarrassingly lower distances.  Then he looked at me and said, “Ohh, I was reading shot put distances of the girls teams!  You couldn’t even throw like a girl!”  Thanks, Coach Dick!