AUTUMN MEANS FOOTBALL
Autumn has only meant one thing for me besides a dip in the temperature--football. We played tackle football on the grassy schoolyards when we were kids and occasionally we would have the excitement of a neighborhood against a neighborhood fracas.
I was born in 1950 and my first sounds were my dad listening to a game on the radio. He taught me the fundamentals in the three major sports, but we were Huckleberry Finns and Tom Sawyers in my youth and at seven and eight years old we were wandering the streets and exploring the forests around the Sacramento River, but usually we gathered for sandlot games. Competing with out peers and their older brothers refined our skills. There was never any quarter given. And for all the football we played from noon until dusk, I never remember one kid suffering an injury.
I was 5'4" and weighed 105 pounds when I entered Modesto High as a freshman. By Texas standards, Modesto High was a 6A school. It was also the school that 90% of the city's blacks attended. I played as a back-up corner and running back through my first three years until the summer before my senior I shot skyward to six feet and tipped the scales at 175. Since I had done push-ups from the time I was seven because I had a complex about being skinny, I had matured into the body of a middleweight champ.
I blossomed my senior year. I moved from halfback to end and went both ways at corner. The Panthers went 5-5, but I had an outstanding season as I caught 12 touchdown passes and ran back a kickoff and a punt for scores. I was the only athlete in the district selected first string on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.
Several of my friends received full-rides to Pac Eight schools, but the USCs and UCLAs overlooked me because they didn't feel I had the size to compete at the level even though my 40-times were as fast as anyone. I notched a 4.46 at a recruitment camp. After my performance in agility drills, the Sacramento State Hornets offered me a partial scholarship. I was content with the deal because I had family in Sacramento and Modesto was only 75 miles away.
I started at corner my first two seasons and I returned a punt for a TD my sophomore year, but I felt that the coaches weren't realizing my full potential. Though some of the receivers were taller than me, I was faster and had better hands than any of them. I wanted to score touchdowns and that wasn't going to happen too often as a defensive and special teams player.
At the end of my sophomore season the wide-receiver corps was depleted by graduations. I went to Head Coach Ray Clemons and pleaded my case. He had been the Hornets head coach for more than a decade and he spoke the final word. He was a gruff individual who never showed much emotion even when we scored, but he treated everyone the same and based his decisions on our performances. He never showed any favoritism.
He agreed to give me an opportunity. By the end of the spring practice drills, I had established myself as the prime receiver. I didn't grow in height, but I added 15 pounds as I hit the weights every day. I didn't lose any speed either.
In 1972 we opened the season against Pacific. I caught two TD passes and returned the season-opening kickoff for a touchdown. I had also convinced Coach Clemons that I didn't want to go both ways and he agreed. I wanted to be in peak form whenever the offense took the field.
After so-so games against Nevada and Cal Poly at Pomona, I exploded against a weak St. Marys eleven. I snagged three TD passes and took another kickoff back for the distance. On the last TD catch I sprained my ankle. Coach Clemons kept me out of the Cal State Fullerton game because he wanted me fresh for the Far Western Conference opener against Humboldt State.
In our next three league contests against Humboldt State, UC Davis and San Francisco State, I went on a spree and chalked up six more touchdown catches as well as returning a punt for six. In the fourth quarter of the SF State game, unfortunately, I pulled a hamstring and didn't suit up for our final two games against Cal State Hayward and Chico State.
My last year Sacramento recruited Babe Boxer from some hick town in Idaho. He was a freshman sensation and he would have been a NFL quarterback, but he committed suicide his senior year after he was accused of raping a co-ed. Regardless of his weaknesses, he could throw a football. He had pinpoint accuracy, he fired a bullet and he could loft a ball 60 yards. And I was usually on the receiving end of his brilliance.
It was reflected in my stats that benefitted from an injury free season. I caught 18 touchdowns; I returned two punts and one kickoff for touchdowns. Babe was the hand and I was the glove as we gained fame in the press as one of the top passing-and-receiving combinations in the state. As for my old high school buddies, most of them spent their college careers sitting on the bench.
I loved football and I wasn't ready to stop playing. Nothing gave me greater pleasure and I was a gym rat who could out work anyone and enjoyed every second of pain as I pushed myself to my physical limits. I was still six feet, but I was now displayed 200 pounds of solid muscle and I ran a 4.4. If the NFL had implemented slot receivers into their offenses like Julian Edelman and Wes Welker in modern times, I might have lined-up at the highest levels, but there wasn't an opportunity for this type of player during that era. Quarterbacks wanted to throw 40-yard passes to fast, tall ends.
I wasn't about to surrender. I investigated the Canadian Football League. I contacted the league headquarters in Toronto and I received a call the next day from the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The management gave me an address in Regina, Saskatchewan. "I hear you're headed to Vagina, Canada," potato-couch pals would ride me, but I went.
Those were two of the greatest years of my life. The people were wonderful and it's a wilder style of football that requires more passing since there are only three downs. I started, led the league in receiving yards my second year, but I suffered both ACL and MCL tears on a simple cut during spring drills my third season. Unlike today with all the medical advances, a player can recover, but a double tear like that in those days was the death knell.
I had unexpectedly reached a fork in the road. I returned to Sacramento and finished my degree before completing my Master's. I chose to continue my education and completed my doctorate at Stanford in Spanish literature. My two oldest boys were basketball players, but Michael has followed in the old man's footsteps. He bleeds football. He has a Marine mentality. He loves the feeling of getting smacked after he has snagged a pass between two defenders. He shone as a receiver last year as a freshman at Veterans Memorial and he is a projected starter as a sophomore on the varsity team. When I watch him on the sward giving a 100%, I'm filled with the same ecstasy that took me to a transcendent place.
Comments
Post a Comment