Football Saved My Childhood

Written By: Big Dirty on September 22, 2009 No Comment

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

yamato The summer after my disastrous 6th grade school year started off with great promise. I was happy to be out of school and excited about the thought of finally attending public school in the fall even if my departure from Catholic school was a bit dramatic (another story another time). The second morning of my summer vacation started rather abruptly and sooner than I had hoped. It was about 10 am and I was still sound asleep when my father’s size 14 shoe struck the box spring of my bed causing me to wake up startled and alarmed. “What are you doing in bed?” my father asked “its 10am.” I didn’t respond but it was just as well because he wasn’t waiting for an answer. My father then proceeded to tell me that I had to go to the bottling plant to meet Mr. D because he had a summer job for me. Even though I was still a groggy I knew what a job meant. A summer job at the bottling plant signaled the death of my summer plans. Plans that included watching Star Blazers everyday at noon, time at the pool, and of course girls! Public school girls… the kind that wore jeans to school and cut off shorts to the little league park. “I don’t want a job.” is the only sentence I could come up with. My Dad just smiled and said in his typical low voice… “No one wants a job dummy but you aren’t going to hang out do nothing all summer.” I knew better then to plead my case so I took a quick shower and went up the street to see Mr. D and discuss my future in the soda bottling business.

sleepy_bear I have to admit even after all these years and countless jobs that the job at the plant was the hardest job I ever had and it just so happens to be my first. The deal was arranged between Mr. D and my Dad and it worked out like this… I would work 8- 4:30 every day for $2.00 an hour taking bottles off the line and putting them in case boxes. I worked next to four old Hispanic men who if they did speak English never bothered to do so in front of me. It was back breaking and ball busting work. But since I had no choice I did the best I could trying to learn the different ways to stack different cases on pallets so they could be stored in the warehouse. I eventually got the hang of it and while I was never employee of the week I did ok.

10156_350 One weekend about a month after I started my soda career some guys from the neighborhood were hanging out and talking. There were about a dozen of us and most were talking about what girls were looking hot at the pool and the ball park. I could only listen because hot girls didn’t hang out in the bottling plant. Then the talk turned toward football. A few of the neighborhood guys had played football at the junior high school in town the season before. They were telling stories about how they have to give up part of their summer to play, how tough the practices are, how mean and scary coach Jackson was (he was famous for hitting people with clip boards & footballs as well as dragging people around by their facemasks), etc… But then one of them said something that I will never forget, something that I clung to as a glimmer of hope to save what was left of my summer… “Practices are three hours long from 9 am until noon!” My mind was racing… 9 am??? I could sleep until 8 am and still get to practice!!! Noon?! At noon I still had four and half more hours to work at the bottling plant. How bad could practice be?! It is only three hours. Then it all hit me at once; “If my Dad lets me play football then I can quit that f*cking job!” It was an epiphany!!!

Surprisingly with virtually little resistance my father agreed to allow me to play football. I was to give two weeks notice at the plant and work up until the start of practice. No sweat!

The guys in my neighborhood were right, practices were as tough as advertised and Coach Jackson was as mean and disagreeable as they said. Interesting thing is Coach Jackson was the first male teacher I ever had. He stressed hard work, and the importance of winning. He was the first man I had ever heard talk about “winning” until I played for Coach Jackson it was always about doing your best and having fun. He was also the first adult I remember saying the “F” word.

roger_staubach6_1024

S5001476 Each practice started with two laps around the track followed by calisthenics (not stretching). Then hour after hour of drills… hitting the two man sled… up downs when someone screwed up or the dreaded log rolls… bear races… bull in the ring… driving dummies…. Tackling… and finally sprints!!! There were no water breaks because everybody knew that water made you cramp up. It was grueling but it was only three hours. Anytime I felt the urge to pack it in I had to remind myself that it was better than working. Anytime Coach Jackson would yell at me I would sort of smile on the inside and tell myself at least it is English he is speaking.

There were 85 people who showed up for football on day one… of that a dozen were from my neighborhood. When school started three weeks later there were 45 of us on the team and only three of us from my neighborhood. I was one of them. That was a good year for me. My membership on the team allowed me to make friends and socialize with different people. The next summer I still had to work but I got to go to a football camp for a week and I worked half days for Mr. D which allowed me to pursue other interests.