Attempting to play football

As I mentioned before, my parents would not allow me to take part in Band in the sixth grade, so I was left with taking Athletics. It was like a regular PE class, but somewhat more brutal because we would get to slam into each other while practicing football.

One of the things about playing sports like football is that you really need to have a real grasp as to how the game is played. I had watched football on TV, but I never really understood what was going on. I knew about scoring goals, kicking field goals, extra points and interceptions, but I had no clue about how it was played, and I don't think Dad knew either, so he wasn't really much help. He only knew how to throw the football.

This had an impact, because the coaches all worked under the assumption that every single student in the program knew how to play and understood the rules. I did not know that if you move the football at least 10 yards during the first four downs, you get another set of downs to try to move the ball another ten yards. The way we practiced, we would do four downs, and because we were way too uncoordinated to actually do anything with the ball, we would give it over to the other side, and the pattern repeated.

When I watched football on TV after that, I kept wondering why the teams appeared to get way more than four downs to get into scoring position. I didn't figure out the concept of 1st downs until I was probably 25 years old.

I did understand how the plays were to be executed. The plays we had were very simple. In the sixth grade, when I played offense, I had the position referred to as left guard. All I had to worry about was if the play ended with an odd number, I block to the right. If it ended with an even number, I block to the left. On defense, I was on the back line and just had to worry about trying to find the person with the football and trying to tackle him.

I didn't enjoy football in seventh grade as much. I got "promoted" to halfback that year, which meant I would be required to carry the football from time to time. I hated getting tackled. It's a lot more fun when I'm the one doing the tackling and hitting.

But again, I did not know the rules. If I were playing football in real life, I would have racked up a real pile of penalties because I clearly did not know what I was doing.

Another issue is that, as a halfback, I could never catch a passed ball. I could never time my running to be right where the ball was going to be. I was literally the laughingstock of the team. Many years later, I would volunteer for the Super Bowl's NFL Experience in San Diego. I was way in the back to help catch balls for the Punt, Pass and Kick activity. I was surprised to see how many footballs I was able to catch as an adult that I was not able to as a child. Perhaps I was too young to try to play football, but I sort of didn't have any other choice.