Football fever is in the air.
I almost played football when I was in the sixth grade at Burbank Elementary School. I went to the first practice and was shown how to get into a three-point stance on the offensive line.
“Block the guy on the other side,” the coach barked.
I did block him. To the ground. He wasn’t as big as I was and he was hopping mad.
I went back to the huddle and one of the players said, “You just made the coach’s son really mad.”
I quit the team and never went back.
I’m glad I did. I would never have had a future in football, even at the high school level. I went to Nathan Hale High School and they played the “game of the century” in 1969 at Skelly Stadium against the Booker T. Washington Hornets.
There were some rough dudes on that Ranger team.
Anyway, my Dad had two rules for his five sons:
- Don’t ride a motorcycle.
- Don’t play football.
Dad actually was a three-sport star at Cherokee High School where he played baseball, basketball and football. His sport was baseball – which loved. He played some minor league ball but never made the Major Leagues due to the outbreak of World War II in 1941.
Dad always wanted to be drafted, but by the New York Yankees – not the U.S. Army.
He didn’t want us to ride motorcycles because few wore helmets back then and it was easy to get killed in an accident. He didn’t want us to play football because he worried that we would permanently damage our knees.
I didn’t play football, baseball or basketball in high school because I wasn’t very good at them and we had more than 850 kids in my class at Hale.
(In college, I fell in love with basketball and simultaneously played in an intramural league and a church league. I still wasn’t very good but I did get in great shape).
In my years at Oklahoma University (1973-76), OU won two national titles and lost only one game (to Kansas) under Coach Barry Switzer.
I was a journalism major and a sportswriter for the Oklahoma Daily, the campus newspaper.
Believe it or not, sometimes my friends from the Baptist Student Union would stage a pickup flag football game in Owen Stadium on Sunday afternoons and I would join them. The stadium was open and no one seemed to carry that we were fulfilling our dreams on the same turf that 24 hours earlier had Steve Davis, Joe Washington and the Selmon Brothers.
We played 11 on 11 and we took turns playing quarterback. One Sunday, both defenses were dominating. No one could score. When it was my turn to quarterback, I said we are not going to run the ball – we would just pass. I marched the team 50 yards and we scored to win.
(OK, others may remember that afternoon differently but I’m pretty sure that’s how it went.)
I kept looking to see if Coach Switzer was in the stands scouting for walk-ons. He never was.
Later, I decided to sign up for intramural flag football. That was a mistake. I caught a pass and this guy who was a standout linebacker in high school tackled me. He put his shoulder right into my upper thigh. They had to carry me off the field. I went to the campus infirmary and they said I had a deep thigh bruise and I was on crutches for a week.
By the way, back then, students paid like $25 a semester to get health coverage at the infirmary. My overnight stay there cost me a $10 copay.
After that, I quit playing football.
I love watching football but it is a violent sport. I have been on the sidelines of hundreds of games and I am always worried about getting hit by an errant out-of-bounds play. You see them on TV. Some poor soul gets rolled and he’s in the hospital. Sometimes, it’s an aging official.
I had two rules for my two sons:
- You can’t ride a motorcycle.
- You can’t play football.
I think they took me seriously – so seriously that they don’t even like football. My son Brian is an excellent sports photographer and he shoots OU home games (he lives in Norman). But if I try to talk to him about the game itself, he pulls out his cellphone and starts playing a video game.
My daughter Sarah actually likes watching football. But my son-in-law Josh doesn’t care too much for it.
It will be interesting to see if a love for football jumps a generation down to my grandchildren.
I love college football and I am warming back up to the NFL. Players from OU and Oklahoma State are all over the league and it’s fun to see them do well.
In Oklahoma, football is king.