Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday season, and the approaching climax of the pigskin parade: division titles, conference championships, bowl games. My enthusiasm for the sport has waned in the years since Roger Staubach threw Hail Marys to the sure-handed Drew Pearson; nowadays, I cheer only Boise State and its blue turf squad.
But now and then ‘ll glimpse a great tackle, a “flying wedge,” a beautifully timed sack that takes me back to a day when giants walked the earth, and I was, for one fleeting afternoon, a figure of rare glory on the Melvin E. Sine Elementary eighth-grade playground.
That kind of honor doesn’t come often to whispery boys of five-feet-seven-inches and 75 pounds, who wear thick glasses and exhibit no instinct whatsoever for knowing what direction the ball will be going.
One might have thought junior high P.E. class a good place to glean practical instruction in the arts of the gridiron, but our instructor had no interest in passing along whatever backfield lore he’d acquired. He just blew his whistle, threw out a ball, and strode back to his office ‘til the next bell rang.
Which left the 15 or so boys in my class to face Byron Nelson alone.
Byron was six feet, two inches tall. He weighed about 160. He was thick, but not fat. He was smart, sly, and a superb athlete who towered above every other boy in school. When he walked, children and teachers scattered before him. When he ran, you could swear you felt the earth moving beneath your feet.
The following year, he would be the only freshman playing on the Apollo High School varsity football team. Four years later, he’d repeat that feat at the University of Arizona.
When a boy like that comes out on the eighth-grade flag football field, the whole game is reduced to one simple question: whose team is this guy playing on? Every day at 1:40, we chose captains. They flipped a coin. The winner picked Byron first. And then the rest of us stepped back – play after play after play – to watch him run the length of the field unopposed.
That’s how it worked when Byron was on offense. When Byron was on defense, things went just as smoothly. The other team hiked the ball, the offensive line split like the Red Sea for Moses, and Byron approached the opposing quarterback with his hand held out. The obliging quarterback promptly tossed the ball to him, stepped aside, and Byron trotted down the field with his interception.
This got old.
I liked Byron, and had as much respect for his estimable dimensions as the rest of the boys, but the sheer injustice of the situation really began to nag at me. For one thing, no one but Byron was getting any exercise. For another, even if you were on his team, no one but Byron was allowed to carry the ball. It just wasn’t right that one guy should have complete run of the field, without someone making some effort to stop him.
This was flag football, after all. One need only run alongside the hurtling behemoth and snatch at the piece of plastic dangling from his waistline. What’s the worst that could happen?
One day, playing for the team unlucky enough to oppose the Giant In Residence, I grew especially agitated, watching the score go up and up: 7-0, 14-0, 21-0, 28-0. Twenty minutes of that was enough. I resolved to put an end to it.
My strategy was nothing sophisticated. I’d just stand seemingly idly by while Byron came thundering past me – then lunge at the last second for his flag. How the mighty would fall!
The quarterback hiked, Byron grabbed the ball – but in the adrenalin of the moment, excitement got the best of me. Instead of snatching at him as he blew by, I took it upon myself, at the last possible moment, to leap directly into his path, arms wide. I believe something like, “HA!” came out of my mouth, in that terrible split second before a wide-eyed Byron piled into me …
… ploughed the earth with me …
… paved the grass with me …
… tripped over me …
… and hurtled headlong through the air.
A silence, they tell me, fell over the field. I didn’t hear it – couldn’t hear anything, deep in the far, dark places where addled minds go to collect themselves. Byron, it turned out, didn’t hear much, either.
Gradually, we came back, groaning, from the gray swirling mist … sitting up, gazing a little stupefied at each other, gently trying to rearrange various components of our spinal columns into their proper working order.
I staggered back to my feet, shirt torn, glasses bent, hearing a hushed, incredulous chorus of “Chris stopped Byron!” “Chris stopped Byron!” Yells. Laughter. Considerable pounding on my aching back. Much rubbing of the hair on my concussed head.
I was, for one glorious day, a legend in my own P.E. period.
And learned three things.
You can become a legend doing stupid things, as well as smart ones.
You can really hurt yourself, following your impulses that way.
And – especially – something I am finding cause to remember, these dark days … watching as impossibly strong, brutal, arrogant forces move rapidly to solidify so much power, and to pose such profound threats to our nation’s freedom.
Giants can be brought down.
Giants fall.
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