I first started playing football when I was ten, in fourth grade. One could have had the option of starting a year earlier than that, but my mother felt that was too young. Kids my age could only compete for games if they didn’t exceed a weight threshold. As I recall, I could weigh no more than 90 pounds that season. Every year of Pop Warner football meant I could add on another ten pounds. When I reached middle school football, no weight limit existed from then on.
My position was offensive lineman. Grown men who had time to observe the body type I would grow into praised me for my prowess on the field and my skill in blocking. As for now, at age 40, I am 6’0 and weigh 250 pounds. That would have been much too small for a marquee, blue-blood school. Had I not been moved to a different position, which coaches were considering, I would have been expected to be several inches taller and at least 20-30 pounds heavier, if not even more than that.
I would have played for a minor Divison I school like Vanderbilt as an offensive lineman or perhaps even down a class at a Division II school. That said, offensive lines and defensive line positions grind you up and spit you out, regardless of where you enroll. Every play is war. Every snap is a battle for dominance and a head on collision. Even men with the right body type and frame often only last two or three seasons, should they be lucky enough to make it to the pros.
It is fortunate that I wasn’t more seriously hurt. I may have had a concussion or two myself. I’m simply not sure. What I almost certainly had after every game were deep, painful bruises on my forearms and in other places on my body. I could count on those, game in and game out. Honestly, if you play with pain—it all seems to muddle together. There’s no good way to determine specific physical damage for certain. What I will say is that what prompted me to quit was a boxer’s fracture. I’ll never forget how it happened. I was pulling from the right side of the line to the left, intending to take on a linebacker on a running play. Upon contact, he speared me with the face mask of his helmet and I felt the bone crack in two. I continued to play for a little while, but the pain became too much to bear.
I convinced my mother to take me to an orthopedic specialist, after which X-rays were taken. Yep. Broken bone. It would have to be set. An expert at his practice, the doctor harmlessly felt the area up, as though he was merely examining the site, then quickly and unexpectedly grasp each end of the edge of my hand. He pushed downward, hard. A sickening click-clack sound was heard and felt. I experienced some momentary discomfort, but nothing terrible. This was the worst it would ever get.
The doctor seemed pleased with himself. As for my season, it was officially over. Though I was never placed in a hard cast, I was instead placed in a half cast that could be removed. A hard plastic mold that looked a little like a claw was sculpted around the site of the injury, I kept it in place with an ace bandage. It would take around two to three months to heal. I was a starter then, so losing me was detrimental to the team.
I watched the games from the sideline until the rest of the year, as the injury happened halfway through the year, then prepared for spring workouts. I played in the annual spring game, but after returning from the field after a play, something didn’t feel right. I returned to the orthopedic doctor for another series of X-rays. This time, I had a hairline fracture of the original site. Not as bad as before, but still a problem. I simply hadn’t waited long enough for it to heal. Coaches had been pushing me hard to come back ASAP. But, to be honest, I got off pretty easy compared to some players.
I will never regret my decision to walk away from the game. While I love watching the contests now that my playing days are long since past, I note from personal experience that football is a contact-driven, aggressive sport. But in, fairness, I’d been playing full contact football early in my childhood. It’s a wonder I wasn’t hurt seriously before I put on a pair of shoulder pads and a helmet. Those are the risks that one runs. If I had been better at baseball, I might well have made that my sport of choice. But, as I have written here before, I was merely one of millions of other kids in the state of Alabama with dreams to one day suit up and play for the Crimson Tide in football.
So long as little boys harbor that intoxicating dream, they will lay their bodies on the line for the right to be superstars. But I am glad to see someone like Brett Favre (who I might add, defeated Alabama in 1990 when he was a college player at Southern Miss), who is taking a strong stand. If I had a son, I would have severe reservations about him playing football, at any level, for any length of time. Even my father’s father, a product of a very different generational mindset regarding male toughness and masculinity, never wanted my father to play football ever. The risks of serious injury are high, but the rewards, especially when college players now can make honest money by promoting their athletic prowess, often outweigh the negatives.
I do wonder in ten year’s time whether we will have evolved in our cultural perspective of contact sports like American football. The purists think we’ll end up with a weak, ineffective game. Today’s generation is very aware of the combined impact of brain trauma. But then again, nothing felt more gratifying in a game than to legally level some defensive end or linebacker, springing our running back for a huge gain or even a touchdown. It’s an adrenalin rush and a private celebration. But lest one develop too much hubris, you are only as good as your last play. You win some, you lose some, Hopefully, the former is true rather than the latter.