"Green-Stick" Submission #24

8^th grade football continued…

(Can you believe I’ve devoted three blog posts to this singular subject?)

green·stick frac·ture

ˌɡrēnstik ˈfrak(t)SHər/

noun

1.    a fracture of the bone, occurring typically in children, in which one side of the bone is broken and the other only bent.

That’s what I had. A “Green-Stick Fracture.”

Bruised, huh Coach Janovick?

“Yeah, but can I still play football?” I wondered as the doctor rubbed his chin and stared at my x-ray.

As if he read my thoughts, “I guess your football season is over, partner. This will take a good four to six weeks to heal.”

My thoughts were racing ahead of him. “Do I have to wear a cast?” I inquired.

“No, I don’t think so.” He explained as my dashed hopes revived. “We will fit you for a splint that you will wear for the next four weeks or so. You can actually take it off at night, after your activities have died down. But absolutely no physical activity involving your wrist until it heals.”

Let’s see… today is Friday. Practice is Monday. I have three days to heal sufficiently. I’ll be fine.

I went straight from the doctor’s office to football practice… wearing my newest fashion accessory on my left wrist. Coach Janovick glanced my way and then did a double-take as he spotted my splint.

He walked over to me. “Guess it was more than a bruise, huh?” He joked. “Did you break it?”

“No.” I lied in an attempt to downplay the injury. “I’ll be ready to go next week.”

Janovick gave me a skeptical look as he smirked and cocked his head.

“Next week?” He asked rhetorically. “I don’t think so, Munson.”

“Seriously. I will be fine.” I said with all the conviction that I could muster.

The following Monday, I sprinted to the locker room as soon as the final bell rang. I was on a mission.

The locker room was downstairs, just off the north side of our old gymnasium. The equipment room was adjacent to the locker room. I turned the door knob and was thankful that it was unlocked. I went in. It wasn’t well lit and it stunk of stale sweat.

I started rummaging through the leftover shoulder pads, helmets, practice pants… not exactly sure what I was looking for. Eventually, I settled on a couple knee pads and a roll of tape.

I carefully removed my splint and began to disrobe. It was amazingly difficult to perform this seemingly simple task with one hand. Reflexively, my left hand wanted to dive into action and help with the process and every time it did, my wrist sent an immediate bulletin to my head saying, “STOP IT! THIS HURTS, YOU IDIOT!”

Putting on my pads and practice clothes promised to be even more difficult and I wondered how in the world I was going to actually practice when I could barely undress myself. I dismissed the question from my mind before my brain had a chance to analyze it. I was going to practice! And the next game, I was going to be wearing my #32 orange jersey, ready to be the best safety that I could be!

My teammates began to filter into the locker room as I awkwardly attempted to pull on my undersized, practice pants. Impossible.

Paul Mott’s locker was right next to mine. He watched in amusement as I tugged on my pants with my right hand… hopping up and down… as though that might help the process.

“Do you need some help, Muns?” He offered.

Paul was a big kid. The biggest kid in our grade. He was gifted with intelligence but athletic ability? … Not so much. That never stopped him from participating in sports.

Paul and I never talked to each other much. (There was no Facebook back then.) We were certainly acquaintances but I wouldn’t classify us as “friends.” And so I was a bit surprised that he was so willing to help me get dressed for practice. I was grateful.

The final detail was to arrange the knee pads into a protective barrier on my fractured wrist. One on the top of my wrist and one on the bottom. Mott handled the tape job too.

“Thanks Paul.” I mumbled.

“Yeah. Any time.” He smiled.

Mott and I played out that ritual every day for the rest of that season. Each day, we got better… more efficient.

I trotted out to the practice field on the northeast corner of the school property and tried to blend in with the other players who were assembled in straight rows, ready for calisthenics. I didn’t say anything… I didn’t want to call any attention to myself. I was hoping that Coach Janovick had forgotten about my silly little injury.

He didn’t forget.

As we began our jumping jacks, I couldn’t get my left arm in sequence with my right arm. It hurt to move it and so I let it hang limply as I continued in the semi-circle motion with only my right arm. I looked like a pair of windshield wipers with only the passenger side wiper in motion.

Janovick walked over to me, gently grabbed my face mask and led me out of the formation, to the side of the practice field. He looked down at Paul’s handiwork on my left wrist.

“Has your doctor cleared you to play?”

“Yes.” I fibbed, as my lying eyes refused to make contact with his.

“So… you’re telling me that if I called your doctor right now, he would tell me that you are cleared to play football less than a week after injuring your wrist?”

“Yes.” I lied… again… less convincingly this time.

He stood there and stared at me for about 10 seconds. Silent. If he was waiting for me to break… and tell him the truth… I wouldn’t… and didn’t. But he knew the truth. One look at me trying to do one-armed jumping jacks was all one, of reasonable intelligence, needed to see.

He sent me to the sidelines to watch.

Tuesday and Wednesday… I tried it again. Mott helped me dress and taped my wrist only to have Coach Janovick send me to the sidelines to watch. Each Wednesday, at the end of practice, the coaches would tell us the various starting teams for Thursday’s games. Punt team, punt receiving team, kick-off team, kick-off receiving team, offense and defense. Not surprisingly, I never heard my name mentioned.

I went home that Wednesday after practice and went straight to my room. I was depressed. I cried… and cried. I sobbed. Nobody knew… nobody cared. I was nobody’s priority during that time in my life.

I remember lying on my bed with red and swollen eyes… and quietly but audibly repeating a phrase over and over. “I can play, coach. Really, I can play. Please let me play.”

Now… you may say that this is strange, over-the-top behavior for a 13-year-old boy. I agree. It is odd. But it happened and it was such deep emotion that I can still feel it in my chest as I write about it today. I’m not a psychologist. I can’t give you a professional analysis. But I can hypothesize that this emotion was tied to the fact that playing on this team was about the only thing in my life, at that time that was positive, fulfilling and fun. And now… it had been ripped away from me.

I don’t remember exactly how many more 8^th grade games that were played that year… maybe six or seven. What I do know is that I didn’t play a single down in any of them. I still showed up and dressed out for every practice but sat on the sidelines most of the time.

My wrist did heal quicker than expected and I was allowed to practice during the final week of the season but what happened next only added insult to injury.

The 7^th grade team had their one and only game that final week. The coaches grabbed me and three additional scrawny 8^th graders and told us that we would be playing with the 7^th graders in their game, since none of us played much during the season. Talk about total humiliation.

Ed Burke, Mark Gibbons, Scott Lombardi and I… playing with the kids. I went from being the starting safety on the 8^th grade team to suiting up with the 7^th grade team. It couldn’t get any worse, could it? Stay tuned.

Before the start of the 7^th grade game against arch-rival, Woodward-Granger, Coach Janovick hauled the four 8^th graders to the center of the field to meet with the officials and the opposing coach. Initially, I thought “Cool! They are making us the team captains and we are going out for the coin toss!”

Not so fast. The purpose of the little pow-wow was so that Coach, in the spirit of full disclosure, could tell the officials and the other coach that he planned to use four 8^th graders in the 7^th grade game. We were brought out as props… visuals… so that they could see for themselves that we didn’t pose much of a physical threat on the football field. So humiliating. Could anything else go wrong? Stay tuned… again.

The officials glanced at us, shrugged and appeared apathetic. The opposing coach, however, was indignant that Coach Janovick would blur the lines of propriety by inserting illegal players into his line-up. He was willing to compromise, however. Once the game reached the fourth quarter, if one team or the other was clearly in control… then… and ONLY then, could we insert the 8^th graders.

Woodward-Granger took control of that game early and never came close to relinquishing the lead. I saw the field for one series of downs with less than two minutes to play in the game. I played right guard on the offensive line and got pushed around by a chubby 7^th grader wearing a green and yellow uniform.

That is how my illustrious football career came to a crashing conclusion. I never played organized football again. I had worked all summer to get in shape and showed so much desire even while injured… to no avail.

This was a microcosm of my life at that time. A bitter snap-shot. Another disappointment.

"Snap!" Submission #23

8^th grade football continued…

The coaches gave us Monday off. We practiced on Tuesday. I was still fired up about the game last week and was ready to run through a brick wall in practice if called upon to do so.

After some stretching and running, the coaches divided us into two groups. Offensive backs and

defensive backs were in one group, linemen and linebackers in the other group. One by one, the backs were given the ball and had to run through a line of tacklers who were all positioned between two cones. If you could put a move on them and get past them while staying between the cones, you’d go to the next tackler. If you were tackled… you’d get up and make your way to the next tackler.

I was ready… all 90 pounds of me. If I got tackled, I wanted them to know that they had just taken down a tornado! I thought I was so tough.

Mike Gibbons was the first of eight tacklers waiting to tear my head off. He was a pretty big guy who had at least 40 or 50 pounds on me, but I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t even attempt to put a move on him, I just ran at full tilt and buried my helmet in his chest. He grunted at the unexpected challenge but quickly recovered as he tried to take me down. My legs kept churning as I refused to be tackled.

Soon, the coaches got caught up in the epic David versus Goliath battle unfolding before their eyes. They started yelling encouragement to the underdog in this fight and that fired me up all the more. Suddenly, Mike did what he probably should have done in the first place. With my helmet in his mid-section, he wrapped his large arms around my waist and with his chest on my back, simply fell on top of me. Under the burden of his mass, I felt a snap and immediately experienced a sharp pain in my left wrist.

I slowly got up, holding my wrist, examining it for any visible damage. It looked okay but it certainly didn’t feel okay.

The coaches were still amped up. “Do it again, Munson! Let’s see if these other fat linemen can tackle you!”

How could I say “No” to that? Rather than telling them that I was hurt, I proceeded to go at half speed through the remaining seven tacklers who had no trouble taking me down as I offered little or no resistance. The coaches lost interest in me and started focusing on some of the others.

After being tackled the final time, I reluctantly walked over to Coach Jim Janovick and informed him that I had injured my left wrist. He grabbed my wrist and turned it. My knees buckled in pain as I grimaced, yet remained silent.

“You may have bruised it.” He diagnosed. “Go sit on the sidelines. You’ll be fine.” Easy for him to say!

I sat on the sidelines for most of the rest of practice. Wrist throbbing. Toward the end, I was summoned to take some snaps from center. In addition to being the starting safety on defense, I also filled the insignificant roll of being the third string quarterback.

I rattled off the cadence and the center slammed the ball into my hands. My left wrist was forcibly bent backwards and I yelled out in pain as the ball fell harmlessly to the turf below.

Coach Janovick sighed heavily and scanned the remaining talent pool in search of someone who could take my place behind center. He looked back at me as though he were ready to say something to me… and then sighed again.

“Try it again, Munson. But this time, hold onto the ball. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?” Janovick blurted out with obvious frustration and impatience.

“No!” I thought but didn’t say out loud.

Second verse, same as the first. Cadence… hike… pain… a mostly inaudible murmur of semi-silent agony… ball on the ground.

“That’s it! We’re done! Hit the showers!” Coach yelled with obvious frustration.

I stood there… motionless, waiting for him to explain in detail, my ineptness. Yet another heavy sigh and finally, “Go shower Munson. We’ll get back at it tomorrow.”

My heart was truly heavy. I disappointed my coach. With so much negativity in my life, this was my outlet… my escape from the reality of my tortured home-life. I needed to not be injured. I needed this pain to subside.

For some reason that I presently do not recall, I found myself at my sister’s apartment that evening. She had taken up residence in the apartment above Jack’s bar after she divorced her first husband and moved back to Madrid from California.

It was a nice little abode if you could put up with the noise from the likely inebriated and enthusiastic patrons. It certainly could have used some more extensive noise insulation. The crack of the billiard balls colliding; the raucous laughter of an amused drunk; the overly loud conversations that seemed to increase in volume as the drinkers reached higher levels of intoxication.

The pain in my wrist hadn’t subsided. In fact, it had grown worse. It throbbed. Yet… my primary thought was wrapped around the fear that I may miss a football game. My overwhelming hope was that I would wake up in the morning and the pain would be gone.

I stole away for a while and sat on the stairs, crying… softly, as I held my wrist. Before long, Barb came looking for me. She came around the corner before I had a chance to wipe the tears away.

“Bart, what’s wrong?” She asked… genuinely concerned.

Barb has always been a second mom to me… sometimes a first mom. She was 13 years my elder and had practically raised me. We had… and still have… a very special bond. To this day, she is the “Switzerland” in our family. The peace-maker. The neutral one. The glue that holds us together. The one that we can all go to without fear of judgment. I’d be lost without her.

She hated to see me cry. She always tried to comfort me. I can now reveal that I used her soft heart to my advantage on occasion as I grew up. I guess she probably knows that. I manipulated my way into attending a movie or eating a free meal at a restaurant as I would cry when Barb was set to go out on a date. She would simply tell her date… whomever that might be… that I was going with them. Isn’t that crazy? I mean… if I were the guy, I would have bolted! Taking a chick on a date and having her little brother tag along? No chance! But Barb seemed to have this mysterious power over those of the male persuasion and they simply nodded and went along with her program.

But there was no manipulation going on now. My tears were real and born out of great pain.

Barb made arrangements for me to see the doctor the next day. The pain had eased somewhat later that night… at least as long as I kept it still… and so I was confident the injury was minor and that I’d be back on the football field the following day.

When the doctor came in after reviewing the x-ray, I was so nervous that I felt I’d throw up…

"I Still Had Sports" Submission #22

With so many facets of my life headed south, I could still focus much of my energy and passion on sports. I grew up in the Los Angeles area, a hotbed of year round athletic endeavors and a plethora of college and professional teams to root for. I was submerged in the sports culture for as long as I could remember.

My brothers collected baseball cards and when I was just 3 or 4-years-old, with my brothers' help, I had memorized the names of the players and the names of their teams just by looking at the baseball cards. This was so impressive to my mom that she would trot me out, like a dog and pony show, to demonstrate my amazing memory power every time a neighbor or friend stopped by to visit. Heck, I think she even walked me over to a few neighbor's houses so that they could get a special, in-home viewing of "Bart, the Magnificent!" She would mix up the stack, like a Vegas dealer shuffling a deck of cards, and then one by one, show them to me as I rattled off the player's name and his team.

That's sort of embarrassing to think about now. I'm sure there was a lot of eye rolling going on.

I was a decent athlete back in the day but far from great. If I wanted to succeed, I had to push myself.

The summer before 8^th grade, I spent a good portion of my time trying to get into shape by running everywhere I went. When my neighborhood buddies would ride their bikes downtown, I’d run alongside of them. I was hardly an intimidating physical specimen, in fact, I was a scrawny runt. All the more reason to work myself into football shape and improve my chances to earn some playing time.

My first year in tackle football was the 7^th grade. For some reason, back then, the 7^th grade team had a single game all season. The rest of the time, we served as tackling dummies for the 8th grade team.

I played linebacker during that one game and even picked off a pass. It was such a rush to make a big play like that in a game, I was exhilarated. I was also in a daze. I think I shed the initial tackler before being blindsided before I could gain any positive yardage. But that one play in that single game got me so pumped up for 8^th grade football.

The 8^th grade football team had a full complement of games… eight of them, if I remember correctly.

When the school year started in the fall of 1972, football practice started also. I went all out. I was dedicated to being the best I could be. I lacked size, I lacked speed, I lacked strength… but I did my best to mitigate the effects of those inadequacies with my heart and my hustle.

After practicing a few days in our gym shorts and t-shirts, we were advised to head to the equipment room to be assigned our gear, which included our pads, our helmet, our practice jersey and our pants. By the way, our practice pants would be one in the same as our game pants.

I remembered from 7^th grade that most of the practice/game pants were ancient. Vintage 1958… or somewhere close. I did know that there were a few newer pairs sprinkled in there because I remember last year, the Gio twins (Tim and Greg Gioffredi), had newer looking pants and they looked more sleek and intimidating than the players with the old, torn and baggy pants.

So my objective was to be at the head of the line to snag a newer looking pair of pants. I was the first in line and indeed, got a newer looking pair of pants. Unfortunately, after loading them with a hip girdle, thigh pads and knee pads the next day before practice, it took the help of three players for me to get them on. As small as I was… these pants were way too small for me. I couldn’t run in them… I could only waddle… real fast. But I looked cool because my pants were newer. Enough said.

The day before our first game, the coaches sat us down to read through the starters on offense and defense. He started with offense and I waited excitedly to hear my name… “Quarterback, Isolini. Tailback, Cowles. Fullback, John Long.” He continued until he finished with all 11 starters. My name was not called. Not a huge surprise, I guess. I wasn’t fast enough to be a back and I wasn’t big enough to be a lineman.

So, I waited to hear the defensive starters to be named.

He started with the linemen and then moved to the linebackers. I waited. He got all the way down to the two safety positions. “Mac Cowles, strong safety.” One more position. “And Munson, you’ll be at the free safety position.”

When I heard my name called… I swear I also heard angels singing, fireworks exploding and all of Boone County breaking out in raucous applause.

Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but the point is, I was almost delirious with excitement. This was the age in which I absolutely fell in love with the concept of competition. I was consumed by it. I thrived on it.

Even into adulthood, "competition" had a great influence on me. I can remember living alone in my apartment in 1980, a few months before getting married. I played church league softball on Saturday mornings and I would spend Friday nights tossing and turning because I was so excited to go out and compete the next morning.

Back to 8th grade football...

Our first game was at Ogden. We didn’t take a school bus for some reason. I distinctly remember riding in a van with about three or four of my teammates. We were a rowdy bunch, each taking turns bragging about what we were going to do to our opponents. We were so tough!

I sat next to Curt Chapman and wondered why he wasn’t participating in the bravado like the rest of us. He just stared straight ahead. Didn’t say a word. I mean… Chappy was cool like that… didn’t always say a whole lot. But man… this is the first game… surely he was amped! Maybe he was just getting his game face on. Meditating. Praying. I don’t know…

As we pulled into the parking lot of the football field in Ogden, we found out why Chappy had been so quiet as he showed us, in living color, what he had eaten for lunch. Before any of us could pile out of the van, Curt projectile vomited all over the seat in front of him and onto the floor. Apparently, that’s all he needed because following that event, he instantly became as hyper as the rest of us.

As for the inaugural game of my 8^th grade season… we lost 32-0. But… I played the entire game on defense. I don’t think I did anything spectacular but I don’t think I played bad either. All I know was that I had a blast and I could not wait until the next game!

"Three Against One" Submission #21

Meanwhile, on the home front, things grew worse. Not only was my step-father a full-blown alcoholic, my mom, who had never really imbibed much alcohol prior to this, was now matching her husband drink for drink. To ever see them sober was a rarity indeed.

To make matters worse, my step-siblings, Jackie and Phillip and my cousin, Bruce, were definitely not a part of the “Bart Munson Fan Club.” Frankly, they couldn’t stand me. They began a united campaign to make my life miserable (more so than it already was), and it worked. They would berate me, exclude me from any plans and insult me in their “private” conversations… knowing that I was within earshot.

I remember one time, I was sitting on my bed with my feet on the floor when Jackie burst into my room and with great force, slammed the bedroom door into my knees. It hurt… badly! I yelled out in pain as she looked at me with a smirk on her face as I heard Phillip and Bruce laughing from the living-room. Mission accomplished, she returned to the living-room and gleefully joined in the laughter.

Another time, I remember drinking a can of pop that tasted very odd and yet, I took several drinks thinking that my taste buds were playing tricks on me. When I finally voiced my complaint about a horrible tasting Coke, Bruce proudly proclaimed that he had urinated in it when I had briefly left the room. I immediately rushed into the bathroom and made myself vomit.

Although I would never, ever recommend this sort of treatment for anyone for any reason… I was not blameless. I needed to be humbled. I was acting out with displays of arrogance, rudeness and disrespect. I don’t know why. Maybe it had something to do with the trauma that was ripping through my life from the point of my father’s death through the present set of tragic, familial circumstances.

By the end of my 7^th grade year, I felt a large shift in my interpersonal relationships. I already outlined my experience with my family but even my friends at school seemed to be pulling away from me.

A school year that had started out so promising for me, was ending in disaster. My parents were totally detached from me, the sober wing of my family hated me, my “friends” at school began to ignore me, Joni had broken up with me and I was miserable. The walls were caving in on me and I had no clue how to deal with it.

Beyond these years, I never had a relationship with Jackie and Bruce. Once we parted ways, any sort of relationship was completely severed.

Barb, me, Butch and Phil

It was different with Phillip. I never felt that he was a real willing participant in all of this crazy activity directed at me. I think he was sucked into it by “sibling pressure” more than anything. If you know Phil, you know that he has a great heart and it is hard to fathom that he would ever desire to hurt anyone. I have enjoyed numerous occasions of visiting with him over the years and I love him as a brother.

I didn’t see God in all of this but He was there… working, molding, drawing me to Himself. But in my frail, childlike mind… I couldn’t comprehend what was happening to me; why it was happening to me. I had no viable recourse. I had no power. I had no faith. All I had was pain and misery.