The Top Out of View
sport-coated attendants.
He had that kind of familiar celebrity face
that you could recognize from younger photos you’d seen,
with tanned golf-course skin crinkled into fragile crepe.
I don’t remember the brief comments he made
--after getting another nice plaque for still being alive.
It was strange to be so close to this Rockne protégé.
This far distant cousin to us callow rookies.
Later I saw him sitting in the coffee shop
still with his attendants, not speaking,
and I wanted to go and shake his hand,
to physically connect to an ancient coaching past.
But I hadn’t the confidence to presume to interrupt
his cup of tea that way, and so the moment passed.
When next I looked up they’d left through a side door,
the nonstop traffic sounding through white closing wedge.
Boosting
The Booster belched deep, and said with a laugh,
“Pardon my French”, then continued.
“Coach, a good team has got to have that discipline.”
The coach nodded.
This guy had big bucks and two sons on the team.
“Sometimes, Coach, you got to be an SOB to win.
Those boys you got want their butts worked off in practice,
they want that discipline, they crave it in fact,
because way down deep they know—they know—
it’s how you win championships.
He set the red plastic cup down on the table between them,
“The more you goddam work ‘em,
and I firmly believe this,
the more you'll goddam get!”
“Yes,” said the coach. “Buy you another?”
Coach on Gameday
He nicks himself shaving in the morning,
teaches English with blood on his collar all day
before seeing it there after he’s done,
when he’s already entered that suspended limbo
between team meal and game.
Too late for any changes now.
The players arrive in threes and fours
not talking much, a good sign,
nervous, ready, alive.
He dresses in the office
careful when double-knotting his laces just so
not superstitious—precise.
The staff now all in place
and, having covered it all,
joining to wait out the countdown.
In the locker room, quiet.
Then the machinery sets into motion
the settling rhythm of traditional rites
specialties read to remind personnel,
time for offensive notes on the blackboard,
time for the defense and the call to be hitters,
and the locker room prayer in a group on one knee.
Out to the lights and the home crowd’s ovation
Calisthenics and warmups, the stadium still filling
the clock ticking down, officials arriving—
He stands at the anthem
adrenalin running as from a tap left untightened
and at the end of the field the flag fluttering up
---as it does at ten thousand same places
on American Friday nights in the fall.
Pregame
In the stillness of the school hallway
with stadium light creasing past darkened school buildings
into and through opaque wire-meshed glass,
the player sits
late now to the team room below,
head down, eyes clenched, alone in all ways,
elbows on knees, fingers loosely laced,
his mind far from nearby pending game;
instead replaying afternoon sounds from home
where once more bitter anger
banged through open floor vents into his upstairs room;
hissed murmurs rising to merciless exchange
and doors slammed with such gunshot finality
that his fearful prayer stops short
--a floating half whisper above shadowed lockers—
as distant, amplified voice bids good evening.
Away Game Arrival
The yellow school bus clatters and whines;
the driver downshifts from clank to grind;
everything rattles from windows to spines;
the shocks give zero on bumps.
My head is wedged against the next seat,
eyes shut tight in a dreary half-sleep,
as right-leg sciatica throbs molten heat;
outside the dusk is gathering.
Behind, the team’s voice is steady and low;
too-loud headsets add tin hum to the drone
while beyond silhouettes grows the gradual glow;
it's the stadium lights in the distance.
Two hours from home, rubbery from travel
—will we gather ourselves or decide to unravel?
as bus tires crunch on parking lot gravel;
the answer only now awaking.
Anthem
He held his glossy gold helmet under his arm,
breathed in deep the sweet green of fresh-mowed grass,
smelled charcoal smoke from concession-stand barbecue,
saw a bright ocean of color washed up into bleachers,
heard the band battering its intro tattoo--
as he stood with his brothers, facing Old Glory,
heart and mind pounding in twilight’s first gleaming.
Trap
When the guard pulled to the trap he stayed tight to center
as the center himself lit up the nose.
The guard cleared that standoff, eyes on his own target,
a slow-moving d end one step too deep.
The guard struck at full force
extended through with his hips and legs
arced his back while locking his arms out
never stopping his feet.
The tackle, twenty pounds heavier,
gave way with a grunt.
A back skittered through.
The crowd rose to its feet.
“That guy’s damn good,” said a fan.
“That’s why he’s a back,” said another.
The Flanker
I’m a fleet-footed flanker
with nothing to fear,
except the sound of fast footsteps
too close to my ear
when I leave the ground aiming
to come down with the ball
but knowing down deep
that it’ll end in a fall
and those eye-gouging db’s
glommed onto my bod,
as my facemask gets buried
in two inches of sod.
I sound like I’m whining
but it still seems to me
when you got hands like I do
they should just let you be.
A Run
When the handoff came he covered it smoothly
took three steps to the left then planting
just as the swarm overran to that side
just as his blocker rode the backer out wider
right then
the back sees the flash of green in the seam
and before it can close,
before the reacting defenders
can fill that open v of space
he makes the cut, accelerates completely
heart blasting full throttle
high-stepping now through and then clear,
feeling the safety clutch at his arm but fall off,
outrunning his own downfield teammates
jagging to the outside a slim yard from the sideline
the crowd roaring as finally most spot him
racing a corner the last thirty-five yards
(past the struggling fat ref fast fading behind)
r /> --past his own erupting bench
--past his team shouting his name
--his coaches now jumping, windmilling him on
--past the last stripe and into the endzone.
He turns, ball overhead, looking for flags.
One Mother
From in the stands where the mother sat,
her hands clenched on the program on her lap
her face looking calm but chaos within,
matching the chaos and mayhem near him,
none of it made much sense she thought,
she never really saw the passes he caught,
but only the dangers , felt only the pain,
and the fact that he was a key part of a gain
meant little.
Upon Trailing at Halftime
It’s fine to go out there full of confidence,
full of aggression and the resolution to win,
but all that is pregame and every team feels it
and I tell you what, with lesser teams
it usually burns off by the end of six plays.
Is that what we are—a lesser team?
Is that what you are—lesser men?
Because, you know what?
We’ve HAD our six plays
--hell, I doubt it was even six—
and since then we’ve played soft
and full of personal doubt.
There’s only two ways to react
when somebody’s up in your face like these guys.
You can decide to be intimidated
and back the hell off.
But make no mistake, as you take every step back
your opponent will always
—always—take a step forward
until you’ve backed up so much you’ve surrendered the field.
Or you can answer with a cold controlled anger
that comes from the place inside of yourself
that will not be bullied, will not admit defeat,
that does not allow your self-respect to be publicly trashed.
Make your decision and make it damn quick
because that’s exactly the kind of game we’re in tonight.
I’ve told you before, adversity is a given.
You will in competition be sometimes outplayed.
But whether you stay outplayed,
Or whether you accept being outplayed,
is strictly and entirely and totally up to you.
Grab each other’s hand right now--Do it!.
Make the promise, as men and as a team,
that you will not back down from this fight,
that you will dig deep, out of personal pride
and because your teammates here around you
are counting on you, trusting you,
to not hold any part of yourself back tonight.
Can they trust you? Are we together? Will we do this?
First Stand
The coach turned to the too-skinny sophomore
with size thirteen feet and sprung white socks
that drooped to his shoe