Episode 4: Flashback for Champions

We love a winner.  Number 1.  Champion.  The Big Cheese. 

Quite a number of people my age like to talk about the glory days.  When they were younger.  More energy, they could give it all they got.  High school.  Sports teams.

In the past few years, my hometown—The Appomattox Raiders—have gone on to football achievement the likes of which we’ve never seen:  five football state championships in the last six years.

So when people ask me how Appomattox Football was when I played, I tend to say something like this:  I was a mediocre player on a really bad team.  Now, that sounds harsh.  Shouldn’t I see it a little differently? Maybe have perspective? Perhaps even give credit to our opponents?

Well, let me put it this way: we had terrific athletes. It was not an odd occurrence to have multiple all-state athletes on the football team. They just weren’t all-state in football.  Track? Sure. Baseball?  No doubt.  Wrestling? Of course.  Football—you’re kidding, right?

So, how bad were we?

My sophomore year, people said, “The football team is 1 & 9 & feeling fine.”

My junior year, people said, “The football team is 2 & 8 & feeling great.”

My senior year, I quit listening to what people said about the football team.  I often tell people I was too small to play college football, but I made up for it by being too slow.  I have the mind of an athlete and the body of a scholar.  No glory days here—they’ve never existed.

Going to high school football games now, as an adult, I gotta say it’s strange.  For me, football was always a pretty quiet sport. As loud as the crowd got when I was playing, I rarely ever heard anything coming from the stands.  Not the parents. Not the coaches. Not the cheerleaders.

I overhear the loud complaints of parents who are frustrated with the coaches and the lack of tackling ability of the players. These parents can’t stand to watch their sons lose. There are times when I listen and then look back at a man (usually a man) who doesn’t look like he’s tackled much in the past decade or so, if you don’t count the buffet at The Golden Corral. 

It's pretty unfair, to learn how to play. In public. Against good competition. With people shouting their disappointments at you, losing hope.

Sometimes, you gotta have someone cheering you on, without looking at the scoreboard.