Stories of Courage and Rites of Passage

Thoughts drift back to three weeks under a hot summer sun in Nebraska. We were a scraggly lot of high school freshmen, all 14 years old and about to get the first challenge to our manhood. We had signed up for the football team, not because we wanted to but because in this small town, we had to. It was either that or risk being called a sissy.

So, for three weeks in late August and early September, we wheezed and panted our way through two-a-day drills, all in preparation for the season opener. In practice, we ran until we dropped; then the coach barked at us to get up and keep running some more. If we fell by the wayside during wind sprints, there was an assistant coach yelling in our ear: “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you keep up with everybody else? What are you going to do in a real game?”

We dreaded the end of the school day, because that meant football practice was at hand. It was a sick mixture of dread and disgust--dread over the likely physical battering we would take as lowly freshmen and disgust at what seemed like the coaches’ incessant hectoring.

It was supposed to be fun--after all, it was only high school sports--but to many of us, it was hell. Too physically inept to make a dent on the football team, we were reduced to cannon fodder for the varsity at practice. One coach was partial to high-and-low tackling drills, which involved having a freshman trying to elude two varsity players.

After getting pummeled during one of those drills and spraining my shoulder, I got a doctor’s excuse to miss a couple practices. It was a blessed relief, but when I went in to tell the coach, he gave me a look that suggested I’d sabotaged the entire team. So, I learned a lesson about sucking it up and playing hurt.

But practices were just the macabre buildup to Friday night. Bright lights, big crowds, the real thing. This wasn’t Humpty-Dumpty practice. Everybody came out to watch the team play, to see how good we were.

From the sanctuary of the sidelines, the playing field looked like some giant, lighted game board. I saw danger at every turn. It was the same field we’d been practicing on, but somehow it all looked different on game night. My scrawny compatriots would see the size of some of the opponents and walk as far away from the coach as possible, as if hoping he’d forget that we were available for duty.

Some of my friends relished Friday nights. They loved the idea of playing for real, of getting in a few licks. But for most of us, it was more complicated. Just how much butt can you kick at 125 pounds?

And so, fear dominated most Fridays. Oh God , I would silently pray every Friday night, don’t make me go out there. Don’t let me be the one who screws up and costs us the game.

But as soon as that prayer escaped, another voice from inside would rise up to snuff it. You have to get out there. This is what it’s all about. If you don’t play, how are you going to face everyone on Monday morning? How are you going to explain that you never got in the game? Are you a man or not?

Most weeks, the coach would nod to me near the end of the game--once the outcome wasn’t in question--and the scrawny freshman would put in his mouthpiece and trot out on the field and try not to let everyone in the stadium know he was scared to death. And if I had to throw a block to try to spare one of my teammates from getting creamed, I would do it. I did it once against some guy who looked like Bronco Nagurski. Upon impact, my safety glasses went flying about 10 feet, and I was temporarily cuckoo. But I got up, dusted myself off and basked in the glow of knowing I’d helped a teammate.

What seemed so horrifying then settles clearly in my mind now as a rite of passage. The games, I now realize, were irrelevant; what mattered was the state of evolution from the timid little kid into the would-be man. Playing football didn’t make us men, but it took us another step.

Are you a man or not ?

The answer always came back, Yes, coach, I’m a man. I can do it .

We can never be sure which lessons from our youth we’ll carry with us. We were certain that we couldn’t step onto that field on Friday night. We were certain we couldn’t function under that kind of fear.

But did we step onto the field? Yes, we did.

Could we overcome the fear and do what was asked of us? Yes, we could.

There was a certain comfort in understanding those things. In my 14-year-old world, I’m sure I thought that the dread of getting into a football game was about as scary as things could ever get.