Just Dru it

Just Dru it (draft)

I grew up in a place of black & white. Much of what I experienced during the first half of my existence was seen through the lens of right & wrong, light & dark, yes & no. However, there were exceptions. One of my favorite exceptions to that rule is the subject I am writing on today: football.

We don’t have to get into the specifics of why a game where the ball makes contact with a foot only 2% of the time is called football. For what it’s worth, I’m with you. If you can come up with a cool name that will help this country rebrand the name of its favorite sport, I’ll help any way I can. Maybe Smashball?

In L.A. (lower Alabama) football is not relegated to the sixth page of the newspaper. Football is on the tip of everyone’s tongue from Sunday morning church to the budget meeting on Thursday afternoons. Men & women, children and seniors and everyone in between had a unique identifier: who do you go for?

I remember in P.E. class around 6th grade, we would play a different sport every week. The first week we played dodgeball. Instead of randomly assigning teams, the coach made it simple, ‘Bama fans on this side, Auburn fans on this side.’ The few transplants to our area who had parents that did not yet succumb to the strictures of this very specific understanding were left in the middle of the room with a puzzled look scrawled across their faces.

If none of the above makes sense to you, I get it, but let me try to explain. In the southeast corner of this country of ours, a special religion was born many years ago. Instead of meeting on Sundays throughout the year, this mass only took place on Saturdays during the Autumn and Winter seasons. People gather with those they hold dear to watch on television as the most athletic of their youths fight for supremacy on a field of green. Instead of prayers, each team has their own unique chant. Among my favorites: ‘Bodda getta, bodda getta, bodda getta bah, Rah, rah, rah, Sis, boom bah, Weagle, weagle, War Damn Eagle! Kick ‘em in the butt, Big Blue, Hey!

Some fans would wear their team’s colors, some would have those colors strewn about their home, some others still, would fly their colors from every corner of their existence. Flags, license plates, mailboxes, cookie jars, ties, etc. For most, this isn’t a hobby, this is their way of life.

Lifelong friends became bitter foes during these harrowing times. It was not uncommon for screaming matches to erupt during games or for friends having to be separated physically.

Religion? Dru, don’t you think that is a little much? Not at all would be my reply. Football runs through the veins of those fine folks. How else would you describe something buried so deep in the bones through generations of people?

The complexities of this religion are beyond the scope of my current writing talents. Maybe another time I will try to explain why War Eagle & Roll Tide mean so much to so many, but this story isn’t really about that. It is about me.

Being divided into ‘teams’ was not limited to football. A rigid dichotomy existed, for me, in every facet of life. Christians: good. Other religions, bad. Politicians: bad. Working man: good. Tradition: good. Different: bad. No one took me aside to explain these things to me. In the same way no one told me where the bathrooms were at school, you just knew.

In this country, you typically graduate high school around 18. At this point, you are asked to make a lot of big decisions. Chief among them: Who do you want to be? This came at a time a difficult time for me. I had a heart filled with love, shame, anger & fear. I’m certain I am not alone in those feelings. Needless to say, I had it all figured out.

It was the beginning of my senior year & I had decision to make. Would I play football this one last season?

Football has been a part of my life since I could remember. I was always a bigger kid so I became a stalwart lineman for my many coaches from an early age. Pair my size with a deep understanding of the game and I was a valuable piece of any football team’s puzzle.

I couldn’t have been older than 13 when I realized my football limitations. We were on the practice field late one night. My good friend’s dad was the head coach of our aptly named Rebels. (This was the deep south and no small amount of confederate pride remained in the hearts of many there. The team has since been renamed.) My dad was also a coach. I remember feeling happy about that.

Just like any youth sport team, it was obvious that some kids were naturally gifted & some were not. Enter Jesse. This kid was small but scrappy. Mean and not just on the football field, but on that turf mean played to his advantage. That night Jesse was going after a kid half his diminutive size on every play. Regardless of Jesse’s assignment, he was trouncing that kid on play after play.

To his credit, the kid getting knocked around kept getting up; although he rose with less fervor each time. I remember my dad pulling me aside and looking me dead in my eyes. He told me to go after Jesse. Teach him a lesson. And what a lesson I taught. Jesse’s on-the-field rage was nothing compared to my size. To those of you not familiar with the term ‘pancake’ used in football, it is exactly what you think it is. A player flattens another player on the ground, much like a pancake hitting the griddle.

Play after play I brought the thunder to Jesse. So much so that he began to rise with a little less fervor each time. Dad was happy, I think, and so was I. But I learned something that night on the ride home in dad’s black Toyota Tundra: I had every reason to get mad at Jesse and translate that anger into my physicality yet, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry at him. This would be a running theme in my football career.

Years later, I had kept playing football every year and it was finally time for me to join the varsity. Two things were about to change for my high school’s football program. One, we had reached the student population size to move up to the next division. Two, we were bringing in a new coach who had won championships in our neighboring state of Georgia.

Unfortunately, the success would not follow him to our humble town. That didn’t stop myself or my classmates from giving coach Rumble everything we had. I am not making that name up. As a man approaching his 60s, Coach Rumble was not an X’s & O’s type of coach. Our philosophy would be about grit, determination and will. He had a few often repeated lines he would shout at us in hour four of practice in the humid August heat:

‘DO YOU BOYS KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WOLF AND A DOG? A DOG CAUGHT IN A BEAR TRAP WILL STARVE TO DEATH, A WOLF WILL CHEW OFF HIS LEG AND LIVE! ARE YOU GONNA BE DOGS OR WOLVES!?!’

‘I KNOW YOU’RE TIRED. YOU KNOW WHO’S NOT TIRED? THOSE BOYS DOWN THE ROAD WE ARE PLAYING ON FRIDAY NIGHT! THEY’RE AT HOME WITH THEIR MOMMIES WHILE YOU ARE OUT HERE GETTING BETTER!’

And my personal favorite: ‘YOU KNOW BOYS? IF THIS GAME WAS A TRACK MEET, WE’D LOSE 9 TIMES OUT OF 10. LUCKILY FOR US, IT AIN’T A TRACK MEET!’

Expectations were relatively high but our team was prepared to field about half the players of our competitors. That season of my sophomore year, I remember looking across the field at the other team having about 80 players to our rag tag group of maybe 45.

Despite our best efforts, we won 1 game out of 10. The blood, sweat and tears had not amounted to much, but we still got our letter jackets.

A year later, we would try again. I had emerged as our best lineman and, as a junior, had to take more of a leadership role on the team. If someone in my group was flagging at practice, I had to get them going. If an upperclassman was picking on one of younger team mates, I had to take them aside. I did my best. Coach Rumble declared one Thursday before a big game that ‘DRU’S THE BEST LINEMAN WE HAVE. WE ARE GONNA RUN BEHIND HIM ALL NIGHT.’ That would be my 3rd proudest moment in football and it didn’t even happen on the field.

That night, we did run behind me all night. It had been a day of heavy rains and the field was pockmarked with deep ravines of water. The ground was saturated to the point where the rivulets of incoming rain had pooled up all over the field. This was perfect conditions for a run heavy football team like us. We pounded the rock all night and kept it interesting in one of many tight games that we would end up losing. On one play that night, our runningback broke off a big run for about 50 yards. The refs & the players from teams followed him down the side line. At the same time, a little guy I had been beating up on the line all night caught me off guard with a big hit right into my left ear hole. This is the only time I remember blacking out on the football field. It must have only been for a moment because opened my eyes on the ground with my face half submerged in a puddle of water.

The losses piled up that year too. It was as draining mentally as it was physically to see all your efforts working out over the summer and practicing four hours a day after school in the fall just to get demolished in front of your girlfriend, your family, your friends. My high school’s band would always play for us at the end of the game as we left the field. Most of the guys on the team would stand together on the field proudly as they serenaded us. I would always remember, why are they celebrating us? We just got our asses handed to us.

A few games later, I would experience my 2nd proudest football moment. We were scheduled to play Eufala. Probably the toughest team on our schedule and the word was that this year they had a player who was being recruited to play for Alabama the following year. This was huge news and, as fate would have it, he would be lined up across from me. He was a defensive end who had been eating quarterback’s for breakfast all season. Needless to say, I was nervous.

I had watched film all week and I had been working with a coach one-on-one to tighten up my footwork. Sidenote: Anyone who knows anything about being an offensive lineman will tell you that two things are important to be successful. Footwork and balance. I had always understood how to throw my weight around while maintaining my balance, this typically counteracted my less-than-ideal footwork.

That night, I held the highly touted Courtney Upshaw to ZERO SACKS. All that stood between him and my 145-pound qb was me. And I held firm. Was he taking it easy because he knew there was no chance we would win? Probably. But I know he gave his best effort in the first half and I know that that night, he couldn’t beat me. He would go on to star on a championship Alabama football team. He would then be drafted in the second round of the NFL draft to the Baltimore Ravens.

The next week in practice, a teammate and close friend of mine accidentally rolled over my ankle. A few more weeks would go by before I heard a pop in my right shoulder. It was near the end of practice so I didn’t say anything to coach until the following day. I could barely raise my arm but it was the last week of the season. The player who would substitute for me was not ready. So I played with one arm.

I’m not sure I agree with Coach Rumble’s methods at all looking back at it now. The long practices, the constant shouting, making everyone run laps if any player made a mistake. These were harsh tactics, but it did bring us together. Playing with a jacked-up ankle and shoulder was not the right decision for me but I wasn’t playing for me. I was playing for the other guys in the huddle. Coach Rumble gave us that.

Fast forward to the summer before my Senior year. Things were different for me now. I had a girlfriend that I loved. That love eclipsed everything in my life. I was looking at the world through the filter of our love then. Where was I going to college? Well, where was she going? What am I doing after school? What time does she get off work? What do I want to be? Whatever she wanted me to be. It was a love you can only experience through the haze of teenage hormones.

This made it an easy decision that summer to not play football my senior year. I didn’t want to ask mom for money so I could take my girlfriend to the movies or out to eat. I needed to get a job. How could I have a job and play football after school? I couldn’t. That summer, Coach Rumble asked me to lead summer workouts for the lineman. That would mean calling them and hounding them to show up to school to practice. Arrange transportation for the guys further away. I called Coach back the next day and it went to voicemail. I told him I wasn’t playing this year and that I was sorry. He called back an hour later, I didn’t answer. Again the next day, didn’t answer. Again the next week, didn’t answer. Eventually the calls stopped and I got my first job as a Scooper at Bruster’s Ice Cream.

That Fall came and went. I worked after school most days and met my girlfriend smelling like freshly rolled ice cream cones and sweat. It was nice and I tried not to think about what I had missed out on that last year.

Close friends on the team became acquaintances and by December, we barely spoke at all. I would see Coach Rumble in the hallways and he would not make eye contact with me, nor I him. I remember going to the bathroom during pep rallies and just waiting for it to be over so I wouldn’t have to see the team in their jerseys while I was dressed in my stupid red polo for work after school.

There was a tradition for seniors playing their last year of football. The practice before the Homecoming game was always light. And at the end of practice, the seniors would line up about 10 yards away from a practice dummy held by another upperclassmen. The coach would blow their whistle and the seniors would run as fast as they could and hit the dummy. One by one they would slam the dummy down to the ground. This was done amid the sounds of all the other players cheering them on. A silly moment but one I doubt many players forget. I know I wouldn’t have.

After my last letter, I wanted to send you something with a bit more of a redemptive arc. Good news, this story has an epilogue!

I had decided to go to Auburn University with my girlfriend and it was the summer before I would finally make the move. I was packing my things and realized I had a library book from my high school still at my house. I drove down to the school and it was open. It was the week before students returned and faculty were preparing for the school year. I returned the book to the librarian and convinced her not to charge me the overdue fees.

As I trudged through the empty white hallway towards the exit and my car, Coach Rumble rounded the corner going the opposite direction. I managed an apologetic and awkward smile but he only grimaced at the site of me. I kept walking and so did he. As I opened the glass exist door, something took hold of me. I would never come back to this place again and fate had reached out its hand to give me this last chance.

I closed the door and took off running in the direction I thought he had gone. From down a long hallway, I spotted him. Coach! I shouted. He turned and watched me close the distance between us awkwardly. I didn’t know what to say. All I could manage was, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

He reached out his hand and I took it. “It’s alright son. What are you gonna do now?” I told him I was going to study at Auburn. “You’re going to do great son.”

I turned to leave and he said with a grin, “Don’t party too hard.”

I said, ‘Yes sir!’

This remains my proudest football moment.