"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!