I was neither good nor bad at most sports. I was somewhere in the middle except in softball. Hardball was not allowed on the school field, as the field was too close to the windows. Several of the boys always tried to aim for the windows with a small degree of success. I was acceptable at running bases, and could hit occasionally, but I was pathetic at throwing and catching. I was always picked near the last. That does nothing for ones ego.
I somewhat enjoyed basketball and developed a reasonable right hook shot but had a bear of a time with anything else. It didn’t help that our gravel covered “court” (I use the term loosely) sloped from left to right and rain had developed the Grand Canyon on an angel through the eastern key. I twisted my ankle on more than one occasion in the rut. I wasn’t the only one.
The school did not have a gym. It had two rooms in the basement that were more like kids playrooms. The smaller one was a closed room where square dancing was taught and games were played. The larger room had no wall to the hall and had quite a few mats used primarily for tumbling. I loved tumbling. I learned how to take a fall, dive over people and roll. Wrestling wasn’t taught, but when the opportunity presented itself, the guys wrestled.
The ceiling throughout the basement was only 8’. Throwing anything was a challenge. Dodge ball was also popular among the guys. Girls hated it and usually sat it out. I can understand why it was eventually banned. That sucker could really sting at times. Mom didn’t like it when I came home with red welts on my body. She never understood that was a sign of valor.
My favorite sport was football. Creighton University was only three blocks east and had a beautiful stadium. They no longer had a football team, but some high schools used the field at times. There was one place slightly obscured by shrubbery where the fence had been torn away from a pole and it was easy to climb through. A lot of neighborhood kids played football there. In fact, the local junk collector organized a team to compete in the city wide midget league. Things were pretty loose in the 50’s and there were no permission slips to take home. Maybe there should have been, but Frank never got around to preparing any.
Our neighborhood was a very eclectic mix of races and nationalities. Creighton sat on the southeastern edge of the neighborhood and Frank had his junkyard right across Burt from the stadium. No one that I know of ever had permission for us to practice there, but we did and we all crawled through the fence.
We all played on both sides of the line. We just barely had enough guys to play at all. If anyone missed we were down a player or two. That didn’t seem to matter we played anyway. I played defensive tackle and wide receiver. I wasn’t very fast, but I could cut quickly and turn a defender around. I felt somewhat useless as a tackle. One the other hand, the only time I was ever a hero in any game, I was playing tackle.
The whole league was a mish-mash of uniforms, parts of uniforms and no uniforms. We were in the have not category. We wore Converse high tops, jeans and either white T-shirts or sweatshirts —color didn’t matter. You just had to know your team.
On the big game were playing a team out west who had helmets and shoulder pads. The big play came when we had them backed to the goal line and they were about to kick it out of there. I rushed in and stopped the ball with my nose. I fell to the ground on top of the football. It wasn’t planned, It just happened. My team was yelling and cheering and patting me on the back. I was a hero. But this hero was lying on the ground with a bloody nose and tears running down his face that he was desperately trying to hold back. I did not want to get up. I didn’t want anyone to see my face. The game must go on. I was eventually pulled off the ground and dragged to the sideline where I given a few hankies to stop the bleeding. Coach let me sit out the kickoff, which gave me the opportunity to let the tears flow briefly. His only comment to me was, “Buck up. You scored a touchdown.” Yeah for me! I tried to be happy and excited like the others, but I was already wondering what mom was going to say when I came home with a puffy nose and blood down my dirty white T-shirt.
I told her the truth. I got hit in the nose by a football. I didn’t exactly share I had been out west in a midget league game, or that Frank drove us there in the back of his partially empty junk truck. I’m sure she thought it was just a bunch of neighborhood kids playing. It certainly was.
No comments:
Post a Comment