The Field I Used to Crush Young Men' Dreams On in Front of Their Mothers

Friday, February 02, 2007

ON TWO, DUMBASSES

Watching all the Super Bowl hoopla, I was just reminded of my high school days. Unlike pro qbs, the signal calling at our level was "down! set! go!" and we're off. The one "go" being called in the huddle as "on one", ie soon as you hear "go" start moving your ass. Now, if you wanted to be fancy and keep the defense on their toes, you'd go on two: "ready! set! go! go!" But. Our line being so fucking stupid, my brother could never call a play on two, cause we'd fucking jump offsides. Like clockwork. Once a year, first game of the season he'd try to call a play on two, but of course "down! set! go-" bam! we're running into each other while he has his hands on his hip, shaking his head in disgust. So from then on, always on one. Which I'm sure opposing defenses caught onto, which of course helped lead us to all those 48-6 (not as close as the score indicates) bludgeonings. Christ.

Another great move by the linemen was if my brother got sacked for a 15-yard loss, in the huddle there would be absolute bewilderment, as everyone SWORE they had their man. "I had my man!" "Yeah, me too!" "That's wild - I had my guy too! How did 8 different dudes break through to crush Brothatime!!? weird!" Every fucking time. And the beauty was that these brainiacs figured out a way to give themselves karmic justice; any time we did have a big play, maybe a 20-yard gain, back in the huddle everyone's like "whew! I completely missed my block!" Astutely guessing their uncanny honesty in a time of success would come to mind after the next play when a bulldozer would be called onto the field to dig my brother outta the ground after another jailbreak. "I had my man!" Good times!!