"Echo Meadow" 16"x 20" oil painting by Steve Alpert
“‘Ya know what that smell is?” My stepson Matt asked me I while we walking through Central Park late in August, about fifteen years ago. He thought he had me. Matt was a young football player then. I knew he knew, but he didn’t think I knew like kids don’t think their parents know anything.
“Yeah, I know what it smells like…”
“Ok, what?”
“It smells like football.”
Matt’s eyes opened wide and his mouth hung open. He couldn’t believe it.
“I played football, I know that smell,” I said.
End of August the earth is changing, the leaves are almost done with their work and are preparing to pack it in. It’s a musky earth odor, with a tinge of sweet grassy hay. As a football player you spend a fair amount of time on the ground with your face in the dirt. You become a part of it. Late August is when football practice starts. The dreaded, “two-a-days,” two practice sessions in a day. Killer. In the heat and humidity. Full pads, helmet. Back then coaches didn’t let you drink water. Water was for pussies.
I loved football. The fear I felt in my belly in the hours before a game is indescribable. Butterflies? Hardly. We’re talking dragons. Knowing how badly you could get hurt was what it was about for me. The thought of all that violence was much worse than the actual hitting and inevitable injuries. Soon as you got on the field, though, it was great fun.
Games were one thing. Practice was another matter. There was only one thing I dreaded in all the sports I ever played. It’s a drill known as, “head-on tackling.” The pros called the, “nutcracker.” Nice ring to it. Those three words alone still stiffen my back and harden my neck. It was a few weeks before ninth grade. I was beginning my fourth season playing organized football. We boys were older, stronger, faster, and angrier. The physical contact was now at a level one could consider, serious. The main commodity in football is pain and business was now brisk. The kid stuff was pretty behind us. Most of us had hair on our bodies, hormones were beginning to flow. The boys wanted to strut their stuff.
This guy is a sadist. My new coach, Mike Ward. He was well known for being rough and tough. His blue eyes bugged out of his red face. He had a booming penetrating voice. And he was pissed off, always. As a player, you definitely feared Coach Ward. I was one of the new boys on this squad and Coach Ward wanted to see what was what. For some stupid reason I showed up this first day with full pads. I was the only one wearing pads. Why I didn’t take them off or one of the coaches tell me to, I’ll never know. Fate was at work, I guess. So when we ran sprints, I had on all this gear and could not keep up with other guys. Mind you, up until this time in my life, no one could run faster than me, anywhere, ever. But with pads I couldn’t run as fast, and a few of the other boys crossed the finish line before me. This is not the way it’s supposed to be. Next thing you know a coach is directing me to practice with the lineman. “I’m not a lineman, I’m a halfback or an end,” I pleaded. I was told to shut up and go with the linemen. That’s like asking Willie Nelson to sing opera. Things were getting off to a very bad start here.
The long hot two-a-days dragged on. This was not the football fun I had experienced in the last three seasons. No fun at all. In fact, it sucked. It all came to a head that final afternoon. The ground smelled like football, it was hot and humid. The nearest drop of water was at the grocery store a half mile away. It went from worse to awful when Coach Ward blew a long whistle and bellowed those three words, “Head-on tacking!!! Two lines!!!” It occurred to me at that moment that starting a butterfly collection was sounding like a much better pursuit than football. I knew I was in trouble.
One man gets the football ten yards away from you and he tries to run you over. You try and tackle him in a head-on collision. In game situations I had no fear in engaging in gridiron violence either being tackled or tackling. Actual games provided me with all the adrenaline I needed to throw my body around like an implement of violence. It was exciting, and a great high, actually. But in practice, on this day, I wilted like a daisy. No adrenaline. And nowhere to hide.
I was opposite Nathaniel Boyd, a strong and aggressive fullback I faced many times. He was a power runner, I had tackled him many times in past games and he was definitely an animal. I knew Nathaniel in school for years, he was a very nice quiet fellow. But on the football field Nathaniel was all business. You tackle Nathaniel Boyd and you will remember it the next day. A year before Nathaniel once laid a hard slashing tackle on me after I intercepted a pass and was headed up field. A clean hard hit on the sidelines that took out a few parents as well. Nathaniel was a nice fellow but he was coming at me with the ball like a mad bull, head down and snarling. I veered slightly to avoid Nathaniel, and a ride on a stretcher. I tried to corral him with my arm, and of course he went through me like last year’s economy went through your 401K. “Ok, what’s your name, son?” Alpert, Coach. “Get back in there and do it again.” I was embarrassed in front of all the fellas. The guys who knew me encouraged me to go get ‘em. The guys who didn’t know me yelling for Nathaniel Boyd to break my head.
Emotional rage works really in football. I was a running back and pass catcher, and more interested in getting the ball and avoiding people by running quickly away from them. I was fairly successful at these things and also took my share of brutally devastating hits at full speed. A guy could get hurt playing this game. Nasty bloody scrapes, bone contusions from guys stepping on you, thigh bruises from tacklers spearing you – games were Sundays and Monday my whole body was sore, but by Wednesday you were usually okay. After a while, you actually got used to it, I can say I even liked it, loved it. I was not an angry football player; I was more interested in helping you miss me. How would you be with eleven guys trying to maim you while you are carrying a hunk of leather. Angry? Hell no, you’d be scared out of your deodorant. Catching a football sailing twenty or thirty yards in the air while running at full speed, looking over your shoulder while another guy is with you step for step trying to make you miss – that’s about focus, not anger.
Not to say that didn’t occasionally enjoy the legalization of violence on the football field. We were playing against a team whose quarterback thought he was hot stuff. His father was the coach and they were both pretty smarmy about themselves. In fact, father and son were both conceited jerks. He dropped back to pass one time, and one of our linemen had him tied up, and I sprinted in from my safety position and hit him very hard at full speed in his chest and head. I saw his eyes close involuntarily as I crashed into him. Ref blew the whistle warning me not to hit so high. But then how would I take his head off if I hit him low?
Coach Ward stuck the ball in Nathaniel Boyd’s gut again and Nathaniel worked up a head of steam coming right for me. The Bull. Nostrils shooting out smoke. He smacked me so hard that I rolled backward. Everybody was yelling and screaming at the sound of the crack. It sounded like a car crash test and I was the dummy. “AGAIN!!!” Please God! Make Coach Ward die! I had witnessed these scenes before with other guys, where one guy shrinks before our eyes as the angry mob calls for his annihilation – this was the first time this ever happened to me. Coach, my mom said I had to be home at certain time, would it be okay if I left now?
I knew I was so screwed. I could conjure no adrenaline. Hey Nat, we’re buddies, remember? Boyd the Bull got the ball in his gut and ran over me like a bus squishing a melon. Demolished in every way, a nightmare I remember so well.
I pedaled my bike the three miles home knowing I was done with football. Coach Ward had weeded me out. I weeded myself out. I didn’t go back the next day or, ever. I was done with football, it was done with me. I was not cut out to be a rough and tumble high school football player. That night I put the cleats in the closet and became just a plain old football fan. Life suddenly and unexpectedly moves on. Some regrets, I would miss the games, for sure. A door closed, another about to open. A new love awaited me, the 100 yard dash, but I didn’t know that yet.
My stepson became a wonderful football player, a quarterback, and played football in a church league and then all through high school eventually captaining the University of Chicago Maroons to a league title his junior year, breaking three school passing records along the way. We were at most of all those games. Matt is 27 now, an executive at a major investment bank. Last August I sent Matt a text message, “Smells like football.”
