Kicked In The Head
I wasn't always a runner. I ran around as a kid and always played sports but I never really just ran for runnings sake. But I thought about it.
I was 14 years old and I was playing my last year of football. I didn't know it was my last year, it just ended up that way. This would be my fifth year playing football but my first year for my school. The other years were in the "jr. pro" league. Until now, I had been one of the bigger guys. not the biggest but i was a lineman. Now I was one of the smaller guys. Not the smallest but after I found out that I had made the team, it didn't take long to realize I was just one of the "tackling dummies" for the bigger guys. When I say "bigger," I could just as easily say older. They were way older. Ineligible, actually. We were in 7th and 8th grade, 12-14 years old. These guys were driving their own cars to school.
This coach would do some ridiculous stuff. like, he would have the starting guys line up along side of each other in three lines. About 30 yards down field he would have us "tackling dummies" line up behind each other in a single file. Then...he would stand next to the starters and throw the ball to us. "Us" meaning the one guy at the front of the line. He would throw the ball pretty high so just as the ball was almost in our hands, these three 16-17 year olds who've failed grades at least twice and probably weren't even virgins anymore are right on our ass. It wasn't awesome. Especially if you were way down the line and you were seeing kid after kid getting up crying. I wasn't worried about the pain but I was a 14 year old little dude getting bussed several towns away. I had enough issues I was dealing with. I didn't need to be fucked with for crying.
One of my closer friends was a "tackling dummy" as well and while he was on the ground from getting rolled on I kicked him in the helmet. Not hard, just a tap to fuck with him. He didn't give a shit, he got up laughing. The coach gave a shit though. We had already had some "issues" a few weeks earlier....the coach and I.
It was the first week of school and he hadn't started us on any "program" or anything. At this point, he was tossing out a bag of basketballs, we played basketball and at the end of class he blew a whistle and we brought them back. A couple days in he blew the whistle and instead of "taking" the ball back to him and putting it in the bag, I "punted" it to him hitting him square in the face. It was bad. He went stumbling across the floor, hit the wall and fell down. He got up and shouted, 'Who did that?'
EVERYBODY pointed at me...EVERYBODY. He called me over and asked me a bunch of stupid shit like, 'why did I do that,' 'would I like him to do that to me,' 'how would I like my education to end right there?'....blah, blah, blah. Stupid shit. Anyway, for the next few days I had to just run laps around the gym while everyone else did whatever.
So, back to football practice and kicking my friend in the head. After getting my coach's attention with what appeared to be an act of aggression but was obviously a display of camaraderie, i guess he decided some sort of punishment was due. up to the front of the "tackling dummy" line I go where for several times in a row he threw me the ball as a fresh set of "goons of three" barreled down on me over and over. I want to say I took about half a dozen or so throws before he let up but in reality it was probably only three or four go's. After all those hits he just had me run laps around the field the rest of practice. This went on the rest of the season. The school day would end, we would head into the locker room, get changed in pads and shit, head out to the field where we would do a couple warm up laps, some calisthenics and then everyone else would head out to start running plays while I ran laps around the field the next couple of hours.
This went on the entire season. One day my dad came to practice. I didn't really get along so well with my dad but he had been one of my coaches one season and football was where we kind of met in the middle. I guess it was the only thing we both had in common with each other. Afterwards he asked me why the coach had me running the whole time and all I could really say was, "I don't know."
This was kind of an unspoken agreement between us. That meant that I didn't want to talk about it and that he could probably assume it was my fault. This "unspoken agreement" would be used when asked about who had been using his gun while he was out of town and why his truck smelled like beer after I had used it. That last one would be unspoken while I was on acid. No easy feat.
I hung in there, finishing the season and after several years as a starting player, I spent my last season running laps for two hour stretches and only getting to three plays of game time. On our last game where we were losing by over 40 points.
I never went back to football. Choosing music instead. This didn't make things any better between my dad and I but most of us know what's better for us than our parents do. As far as running goes, it didn't. I stayed a musician for the next 20+ years, eventually discovering cycling and eventually doing a marathon as a "bucket list" thing. I didn't really get back to running for another 10 years. It was a form of cross-training at best but I was far from being a "runner." Then a few years ago, someone close to me was living out their last days in the physical world and one day just said to me, 'You know what I want to do?' They said. 'I just want to run. I just want to run and run and run until I can't run any farther. I just want to do that.' I understood this. Fuck, that's how I felt about everything. About cycling, eating, drinking and doing drugs (although I had long since been living sober), sex, spending money on my credit cards, and yeah....even running. About a year later, that's what I started doing. Running. Just running until I can't run anymore. I'm not sure I've found that "anymore" spot though. At that point I usually just start walking.
I was 14 years old and I was playing my last year of football. I didn't know it was my last year, it just ended up that way. This would be my fifth year playing football but my first year for my school. The other years were in the "jr. pro" league. Until now, I had been one of the bigger guys. not the biggest but i was a lineman. Now I was one of the smaller guys. Not the smallest but after I found out that I had made the team, it didn't take long to realize I was just one of the "tackling dummies" for the bigger guys. When I say "bigger," I could just as easily say older. They were way older. Ineligible, actually. We were in 7th and 8th grade, 12-14 years old. These guys were driving their own cars to school.
This coach would do some ridiculous stuff. like, he would have the starting guys line up along side of each other in three lines. About 30 yards down field he would have us "tackling dummies" line up behind each other in a single file. Then...he would stand next to the starters and throw the ball to us. "Us" meaning the one guy at the front of the line. He would throw the ball pretty high so just as the ball was almost in our hands, these three 16-17 year olds who've failed grades at least twice and probably weren't even virgins anymore are right on our ass. It wasn't awesome. Especially if you were way down the line and you were seeing kid after kid getting up crying. I wasn't worried about the pain but I was a 14 year old little dude getting bussed several towns away. I had enough issues I was dealing with. I didn't need to be fucked with for crying.
One of my closer friends was a "tackling dummy" as well and while he was on the ground from getting rolled on I kicked him in the helmet. Not hard, just a tap to fuck with him. He didn't give a shit, he got up laughing. The coach gave a shit though. We had already had some "issues" a few weeks earlier....the coach and I.
It was the first week of school and he hadn't started us on any "program" or anything. At this point, he was tossing out a bag of basketballs, we played basketball and at the end of class he blew a whistle and we brought them back. A couple days in he blew the whistle and instead of "taking" the ball back to him and putting it in the bag, I "punted" it to him hitting him square in the face. It was bad. He went stumbling across the floor, hit the wall and fell down. He got up and shouted, 'Who did that?'
EVERYBODY pointed at me...EVERYBODY. He called me over and asked me a bunch of stupid shit like, 'why did I do that,' 'would I like him to do that to me,' 'how would I like my education to end right there?'....blah, blah, blah. Stupid shit. Anyway, for the next few days I had to just run laps around the gym while everyone else did whatever.
So, back to football practice and kicking my friend in the head. After getting my coach's attention with what appeared to be an act of aggression but was obviously a display of camaraderie, i guess he decided some sort of punishment was due. up to the front of the "tackling dummy" line I go where for several times in a row he threw me the ball as a fresh set of "goons of three" barreled down on me over and over. I want to say I took about half a dozen or so throws before he let up but in reality it was probably only three or four go's. After all those hits he just had me run laps around the field the rest of practice. This went on the rest of the season. The school day would end, we would head into the locker room, get changed in pads and shit, head out to the field where we would do a couple warm up laps, some calisthenics and then everyone else would head out to start running plays while I ran laps around the field the next couple of hours.
This went on the entire season. One day my dad came to practice. I didn't really get along so well with my dad but he had been one of my coaches one season and football was where we kind of met in the middle. I guess it was the only thing we both had in common with each other. Afterwards he asked me why the coach had me running the whole time and all I could really say was, "I don't know."
This was kind of an unspoken agreement between us. That meant that I didn't want to talk about it and that he could probably assume it was my fault. This "unspoken agreement" would be used when asked about who had been using his gun while he was out of town and why his truck smelled like beer after I had used it. That last one would be unspoken while I was on acid. No easy feat.
I hung in there, finishing the season and after several years as a starting player, I spent my last season running laps for two hour stretches and only getting to three plays of game time. On our last game where we were losing by over 40 points.
I never went back to football. Choosing music instead. This didn't make things any better between my dad and I but most of us know what's better for us than our parents do. As far as running goes, it didn't. I stayed a musician for the next 20+ years, eventually discovering cycling and eventually doing a marathon as a "bucket list" thing. I didn't really get back to running for another 10 years. It was a form of cross-training at best but I was far from being a "runner." Then a few years ago, someone close to me was living out their last days in the physical world and one day just said to me, 'You know what I want to do?' They said. 'I just want to run. I just want to run and run and run until I can't run any farther. I just want to do that.' I understood this. Fuck, that's how I felt about everything. About cycling, eating, drinking and doing drugs (although I had long since been living sober), sex, spending money on my credit cards, and yeah....even running. About a year later, that's what I started doing. Running. Just running until I can't run anymore. I'm not sure I've found that "anymore" spot though. At that point I usually just start walking.
