I "played" for a certain little high school which was quite the experience. And by little I mean it was and still is the largest high school in the state of Virginia. 25 years after the season which inspired Disney to make a different-racial-backgrounds-coming-together-to-win-title feel good movie, the school was significantly more diverse. And there were no Gerry Bertiers walking through that door; we had around 10 white doods on the team and we all sucked.
Rolling in as a 6'3" 145lb Freshman trying to play QB because you think you can read a defense, throw an ok football and aren't fast went amazingly well for a team trying to run the triple option. But my try hard slow strategy ass did so, no matter how many times I got blown up in practice. Try hard slow strategy gonna try hard slow strategy, so I was the punter and holder in addition to being a back up QB on the freshman team. And sometimes did kickoffs.
Bulked up to 190 and grew to 6'5" and kept on being backup QB but since the triple option was not going away I added TE and DE to my try-hardness since playing football is fun. That kept me around for the next 2 years before I got tired of knee injuries. I joined the debate team instead and was much more successful there.
Real life Bill Yoast could not coach me into a decent QB; real life Herman Boone didn't teach me shit about how to drive a car from his drivers ed class and real life Petey was an amazing equipment manager and hall monitor. I am forever grateful to Petey for getting me extra rib pads so I could keep getting destroyed with my 5.0 40 speed without dying.
Hoe’s Hill I played in 9th grade. Had never played so they had me suit up for the JV game. Had two picks in that game and returned one for 6. On O I just blocked all game because we didn’t throw the ball once. Game tied, 7-7 and I ask the coach to throw it to me. Have no clue what route I ran but caught this dead duck out of the sky and ran it for a TD. We win, definitely peeked at football that day.
Fast forward, senior yr, hadn’t played football since 9th grade but ended up as the starting DB going into camp at EWU. Scrimmaging some hillbilly school and they do a TE screen to this dude twice my size. I did my best Ronnie Lott impression and turned my self into a heat seeking missile. Well, I flipped and got an awesome concussion.
Decided it was a good idea to organize boxing matches while there as well. Concussion #2 in two days.
Decided I wanted a pizza so while the pizza guy ran pizzas to another dorm, I stole a box and devoured it with an under classman who just smoked a J all by himself. There was a 10 pizza bounty on my head and other guy didn’t snitch.
Then decided to go off campus and hook up a QP for us and a few other players from other schools. Also buying cigs for all the underagers as I was 18 senior yr.
Then hooked up with a cheer leader. Who fucking holds a cheerleading camp at the same place and time as a football camp.
Lost my starting spot from concussion #1 and saw mop-up time the rest of the year. Eventually quit cause the coach didn’t like me coming to weight training class high as fuck and then stealing money from the lockers. Fucking Trump.
At least camp was cool... kinda.
CSB, thanks.
Important edit. Coaches name was Tramp, Tim Tramp, not trump.
So I went to a really big tim football school in Texas (played for the State 5A Championship last year and were always at least solid going back decades). I think pictures always speak a thousand words, so I'll just show a random picture of the team and you can draw your own conclusions as to what the coaches thought when a skinny 115 pound dipshit half breed showed up for tryouts. Getting shitcanned not only probably saved my life, but also allowed me to find my true love, competitive weed smoking. State Champion 1986-1989 and this is undisputed.
I didn’t grow until my senior year of HS. I played football and basketball. Pretty bang average for a varsity athlete, good enough to be an IM god in college though.
Real talk, I really love all the stories. More please.
At my peak I may have been one of the best all around IM athletes in the cuntry. I’m a regular Deion Sanders.
Does getting knocked by Kyler Gordon at a team camp count?
Bigly
I ran a whip route from the slot, come out of my break as I’m catching the ball, I felt like I hit a brick wall and according to my teammates it looked like i fell in slow motion. i was out before I hit the ground. CSB s/o to our QB my JR yr.
Real talk, I really love all the stories. More please.
At my peak I may have been one of the best all around IM athletes in the cuntry. I’m a regular Deion Sanders.
Does getting knocked by Kyler Gordon at a team camp count?
Bigly
I ran a whip route from the slot, come out of my break as I’m catching the ball, I felt like I hit a brick wall and according to my teammates it looked like i fell in slow motion. i was out before I hit the ground. CSB s/o to our QB my JR yr.
Real talk, I really love all the stories. More please.
At my peak I may have been one of the best all around IM athletes in the cuntry. I’m a regular Deion Sanders.
Does getting knocked by Kyler Gordon at a team camp count?
Bigly
I ran a whip route from the slot, come out of my break as I’m catching the ball, I felt like I hit a brick wall and according to my teammates it looked like i fell in slow motion. i was out before I hit the ground. CSB s/o to our QB my JR yr.
I "played" for a certain little high school which was quite the experience. And by little I mean it was and still is the largest high school in the state of Virginia. 25 years after the season which inspired Disney to make a different-racial-backgrounds-coming-together-to-win-title feel good movie, the school was significantly more diverse. And there were no Gerry Bertiers walking through that door; we had around 10 white doods on the team and we all sucked.
Rolling in as a 6'3" 145lb Freshman trying to play QB because you think you can read a defense, throw an ok football and aren't fast went amazingly well for a team trying to run the triple option. But my try hard slow strategy ass did so, no matter how many times I got blown up in practice. Try hard slow strategy gonna try hard slow strategy, so I was the punter and holder in addition to being a back up QB on the freshman team. And sometimes did kickoffs.
Bulked up to 190 and grew to 6'5" and kept on being backup QB but since the triple option was not going away I added TE and DE to my try-hardness since playing football is fun. That kept me around for the next 2 years before I got tired of knee injuries. I joined the debate team instead and was much more successful there.
Real life Bill Yoast could not coach me into a decent QB; real life Herman Boone didn't teach me shit about how to drive a car from his drivers ed class and real life Petey was an amazing equipment manager and hall monitor. I am forever grateful to Petey for getting me extra rib pads so I could keep getting destroyed with my 5.0 40 speed without dying.
Real talk, I really love all the stories. More please.
My dad was a high school quarterback and had a really good arm. Was also one of these asshole dads--in a good way in this case--who would laser footballs with all his strength at his 7 year old son. When I was in elementary school, I was a schoolyard legend. Faster than anybody else by a good ways and could catch anything because of my dads' abuse. It was a total Sandlot story: Every lunch recess, the rich kids on the actual peewee football team would play me and my unathletic ragtag group of friends in a game of touch (when the duties weren't looking). We would absolutely destroy them every day.
Thought I was hot shit, so I got signed up for REAL football when I was 10. At equipment handout, I was near the back of the line, being a new player. They handed me this helmet that was like a novelty thing you'd wear to a game if you're a 12: rubber disc floating below the shell, suspended by little ropes. About as protective as fuckall. I know @RaceBannon and @PurpleThrobber wore leather helmets with no facemasks and probably think I'm a pussy for this, but nothing about that helmet gave me confidence to be anywhere near a collision. I spent that year absolutely terrified, getting constantly blown up, and getting a mild concussion every time a strong wind hit me in the head. I learned that real football is very different than schoolyard football, and there was this thing called "hitting" I'd have to learn to deal with.
Or quit. So I did. At which point my dad said, "Over my dead body is my son going to be a pussy quitter." So I went at it again the following year.
Very early on that second year--now sporting a helmet that featured actual protection--I accidentally made a discovery early on: Peewee football is a game of chicken. Size is almost meaningless, and you can dominate by just being the kid that doesn't flinch. 99% of collisions in peewee football, one of the kids flinches first. If that's the bigger kid, he's about to get knocked on his ass my my tiny self. And so it came to pass: another try-hard was born. For the next seven years, I was always one of the two or three smallest kids on my team, yet positions I started at included nosetackle, OG, DE.
Freshman year, kids still hadn't figured it out. I was 5'3", 120 lbs., and stupid kids on the freshman team still feared me in hitting drills because they didn't understand physics. Except every once in a while, when a kid--usually on the other team--didn't flinch. Freshman year was the beginning of physics getting involved. The Jake Browning helicopter shot? That was me once or twice. I actually played quarterback because we didn't have anyone on the team who could throw. So we just ran triple option, and I was never asked to throw the ball more than 10 yards downfield (extent of my range). I couldn't wrap my hand around the ball, so I'd drop back to pass with the ball just up on my hand like a shot put. Pathetic. Anyway, a 120 pound try-hard QB can be helicoptered quite easily when pitching at the last second, so it was kind of a thing. Fun film reviews...
Getting back to the point, every time I got completely destroyed in my entire football "career," it was from going full-try-hard and launching right into somebody twice my size on purpose just to make a point or something. We had a receiver who later played at Eastern. We collided at full speed in practice just for fun on a broken play. He laughed, I walked a 10-yard radius picking up every piece of my helmet. In a game my junior year, I had to miss several plays while my facemask was reattached to the helmet shell, as half of the plastic clamps ripped right off. When I was 13 and Amon Gordon was 11 and playing on my team because he was so huge, I decided to give him all I had in practice and picked myself up in the next town over.
When you walk your dog, you're invariably going to come across somebody walking a little terrier or something, and that terrier will inevitably think it's the biggest badass on the whole trail and puff up and attack your dog 10 times its size while you laugh at it in pity. That terrier was sooooo me.
Real talk, I really love all the stories. More please.
My dad was a high school quarterback and had a really good arm. Was also one of these asshole dads--in a good way in this case--who would laser footballs with all his strength at his 7 year old son. When I was in elementary school, I was a schoolyard legend. Faster than anybody else by a good ways and could catch anything because of my dads' abuse. It was a total Sandlot story: Every lunch recess, the rich kids on the actual peewee football team would play me and my unathletic ragtag group of friends in a game of touch (when the duties weren't looking). We would absolutely destroy them every day.
Thought I was hot shit, so I got signed up for REAL football when I was 10. At equipment handout, I was near the back of the line, being a new player. They handed me this helmet that was like a novelty thing you'd wear to a game if you're a 12: rubber disc floating below the shell, suspended by little ropes. About as protective as fuckall. I know @RaceBannon and @PurpleThrobber wore leather helmets with no facemasks and probably think I'm a pussy for this, but nothing about that helmet gave me confidence to be anywhere near a collision. I spent that year absolutely terrified, getting constantly blown up, and getting a mild concussion every time a strong wind hit me in the head. I learned that real football is very different than schoolyard football, and there was this thing called "hitting" I'd have to learn to deal with.
Or quit. So I did. At which point my dad said, "Over my dead body is my son going to be a pussy quitter." So I went at it again the following year.
Very early on that second year--now sporting a helmet that featured actual protection--I accidentally made a discovery early on: Peewee football is a game of chicken. Size is almost meaningless, and you can dominate by just being the kid that doesn't flinch. 99% of collisions in peewee football, one of the kids flinches first. If that's the bigger kid, he's about to get knocked on his ass my my tiny self. And so it came to pass: another try-hard was born. For the next seven years, I was always one of the two or three smallest kids on my team, yet positions I started at included nosetackle, OG, DE.
Freshman year, kids still hadn't figured it out. I was 5'3", 120 lbs., and stupid kids on the freshman team still feared me in hitting drills because they didn't understand physics. Except every once in a while, when a kid--usually on the other team--didn't flinch. Freshman year was the beginning of physics getting involved. The Jake Browning helicopter shot? That was me once or twice. I actually played quarterback because we didn't have anyone on the team who could throw. So we just ran triple option, and I was never asked to throw the ball more than 10 yards downfield (extent of my range). I couldn't wrap my hand around the ball, so I'd drop back to pass with the ball just up on my hand like a shot put. Pathetic. Anyway, a 120 pound try-hard QB can be helicoptered quite easily when pitching at the last second, so it was kind of a thing. Fun film reviews...
Getting back to the point, every time I got completely destroyed in my entire football "career," it was from going full-try-hard and launching right into somebody twice my size on purpose just to make a point or something. We had a receiver who later played at Eastern. We collided at full speed in practice just for fun on a broken play. He laughed, I walked a 10-yard radius picking up every piece of my helmet. In a game my junior year, I had to miss several plays while my facemask was reattached to the helmet shell, as half of the plastic clamps ripped right off. When I was 13 and Amon Gordon was 11 and playing on my team because he was so huge, I decided to give him all I had in practice and picked myself up in the next town over.
When you walk your dog, you're invariably going to come across somebody walking a little terrier or something, and that terrier will inevitably think it's the biggest badass on the whole trail and puff up and attack your dog 10 times its size while you laugh at it in pity. That terrier was sooooo me.
/csb?
You gave yourself voluntary CTE just to prove a point? I respect it.
Made me think back to "Grid Kids", the best player in our league was a midget...he was shaving in 3rd grade, faster than lightning, had biceps, not expected to live much past 20...he was a legend. Played baseball with him in PONY league, every game the coach would yell "watch the bunt", they would play way in, and he would light up the third baseman, or smoke it over the outfielders...great dude, he's still kicking...
Made me think back to "Grid Kids", the best player in our league was a midget...he was shaving in 3rd grade, faster than lightning, had biceps, not expected to live much past 20...he was a legend. Played baseball with him in PONY league, every game the coach would yell "watch the bunt", they would play way in, and he would light up the third baseman, or smoke it over the outfielders...great dude, he's still kicking...
Made me think back to "Grid Kids", the best player in our league was a midget...he was shaving in 3rd grade, faster than lightning, had biceps, not expected to live much past 20...he was a legend. Played baseball with him in PONY league, every game the coach would yell "watch the bunt", they would play way in, and he would light up the third baseman, or smoke it over the outfielders...great dude, he's still kicking...
You played with Kelly Leak?
He was the original...wouldn't shave late in the week to make liquor store runs...A lasting memory is him taking rips on a 3 foot bong...no one would lend a "hand", and he took his shoe off and used his big toe...csb
Comments
Rolling in as a 6'3" 145lb Freshman trying to play QB because you think you can read a defense, throw an ok football and aren't fast went amazingly well for a team trying to run the triple option. But my try hard slow strategy ass did so, no matter how many times I got blown up in practice. Try hard slow strategy gonna try hard slow strategy, so I was the punter and holder in addition to being a back up QB on the freshman team. And sometimes did kickoffs.
Bulked up to 190 and grew to 6'5" and kept on being backup QB but since the triple option was not going away I added TE and DE to my try-hardness since playing football is fun. That kept me around for the next 2 years before I got tired of knee injuries. I joined the debate team instead and was much more successful there.
Real life Bill Yoast could not coach me into a decent QB; real life Herman Boone didn't teach me shit about how to drive a car from his drivers ed class and real life Petey was an amazing equipment manager and hall monitor. I am forever grateful to Petey for getting me extra rib pads so I could keep getting destroyed with my 5.0 40 speed without dying.
Thought I was hot shit, so I got signed up for REAL football when I was 10. At equipment handout, I was near the back of the line, being a new player. They handed me this helmet that was like a novelty thing you'd wear to a game if you're a 12: rubber disc floating below the shell, suspended by little ropes. About as protective as fuckall. I know @RaceBannon and @PurpleThrobber wore leather helmets with no facemasks and probably think I'm a pussy for this, but nothing about that helmet gave me confidence to be anywhere near a collision. I spent that year absolutely terrified, getting constantly blown up, and getting a mild concussion every time a strong wind hit me in the head. I learned that real football is very different than schoolyard football, and there was this thing called "hitting" I'd have to learn to deal with.
Or quit. So I did. At which point my dad said, "Over my dead body is my son going to be a pussy quitter." So I went at it again the following year.
Very early on that second year--now sporting a helmet that featured actual protection--I accidentally made a discovery early on: Peewee football is a game of chicken. Size is almost meaningless, and you can dominate by just being the kid that doesn't flinch. 99% of collisions in peewee football, one of the kids flinches first. If that's the bigger kid, he's about to get knocked on his ass my my tiny self. And so it came to pass: another try-hard was born. For the next seven years, I was always one of the two or three smallest kids on my team, yet positions I started at included nosetackle, OG, DE.
Freshman year, kids still hadn't figured it out. I was 5'3", 120 lbs., and stupid kids on the freshman team still feared me in hitting drills because they didn't understand physics. Except every once in a while, when a kid--usually on the other team--didn't flinch. Freshman year was the beginning of physics getting involved. The Jake Browning helicopter shot? That was me once or twice. I actually played quarterback because we didn't have anyone on the team who could throw. So we just ran triple option, and I was never asked to throw the ball more than 10 yards downfield (extent of my range). I couldn't wrap my hand around the ball, so I'd drop back to pass with the ball just up on my hand like a shot put. Pathetic. Anyway, a 120 pound try-hard QB can be helicoptered quite easily when pitching at the last second, so it was kind of a thing. Fun film reviews...
Getting back to the point, every time I got completely destroyed in my entire football "career," it was from going full-try-hard and launching right into somebody twice my size on purpose just to make a point or something. We had a receiver who later played at Eastern. We collided at full speed in practice just for fun on a broken play. He laughed, I walked a 10-yard radius picking up every piece of my helmet. In a game my junior year, I had to miss several plays while my facemask was reattached to the helmet shell, as half of the plastic clamps ripped right off. When I was 13 and Amon Gordon was 11 and playing on my team because he was so huge, I decided to give him all I had in practice and picked myself up in the next town over.
When you walk your dog, you're invariably going to come across somebody walking a little terrier or something, and that terrier will inevitably think it's the biggest badass on the whole trail and puff up and attack your dog 10 times its size while you laugh at it in pity. That terrier was sooooo me.
/csb?