tops and said,
“Go!”
It was his first high school play.
When the offense spied the gangly spider-boy
sprawled on the line in his gawky D stance
they chose to crush him right off
and called the play where the big back runs
behind the big guard
and together lay waste to resistance.
When the two broke their huddle
they wore tight, knowing smirks
But as it happened, the slim sophomore,
who’d sat on the bench through the season so far,
found a way to shoot himself past
those oak tree limbs
and explode clean into the back who was caught by surprise.
The boy felled him as if shot from a gun
with a THWACK some said they heard in the pressbox.
When the offense tried it again the very next play
to erase the fluke
and got the same result
they stopped running that way at all.
Full of Grace
The team progresses
a few yards at a time
against the clock
towards the title.
The huddle forms and breaks;
words become action,
with no room for mistakes;
the ball is pushed forward another short burst.
We hit fourth down four times
on this eighty yard drive,
making each one by inches.
Inches unrelated to any play-calling.
At Hail Mary Full of Grace, I turn.
Some of the bench are praying out loud.
Others join in until the whole sideline is praying
right through the score to the winning point after.
Did God hear that? Would He listen?
Why not, if there’s True Faith and it’s all on the line?
Field’s Edge
There is a something
at field’s edge
darkly standing
in patient wait.
Something sensed,
not seen nor discussed,
without a name;
unless it’s “Fate”.
Not the fate of the game
or any statistic,
not if a ball
was a catch or a drop.
Something different than that.
Fate more essential.
That player not moving.
Will he get up?
Wet Conditions
Night’s curtain backdrops
grave-cold rain blasting sideways,
shorted scoreboard blinks then blanks;
chased by bent-tree howl
teams clash ‘cross floating yard-lines.
Hands have turned to arctic claws
and bloodless feet refuse awareness,
sucking mud slows all pursuit,
both huddles chimney upwards steaming clouds,
--execution hurricaned.
As wailing wind fills helmet earholes,
all cadence is borne away;
unpredictability dictates play,
--raw contact now the only goal--
in game turned elemental.
Cry of the Zebra
Listen.
I wasn’t expecting this at all.
I thought I’d just go out and make my calls
like I always do at the Freshman games,
but here tonight nothing’s the same—
this varsity action is so surprisingly quick
that I can’t even seem to be able to pick
out individual numbers, I swear.
Was that holding? I think I think so
but my whistle’s all thumbs, my flag’s too slow.
Then when I do call offsides, before I know it,
I’ve got a coach in my face like a cop on a donut;
the crowd’s mad as hell, the sideline is yelling
--I’m ready to get back to my day-job selling
quality home furnishings,
believe me.
A Throw
His arm had its own life.
Although his body contorted with the shock of the hit
the arm still flashed the ball forward in a tight spiral.
It threaded the seam between two reacting defenders.
Z,
on a simple comeback
slid with the scramble.
His hands shaped a round frame in front of his numbers.
“Fourth down,” said the ref.
Afire
That September night
at the end of a parched summer
fire broke out a mile away
in the foothills behind the stadium.
Flames blazed up in a jagged red gash
like a crazy stock-market chart:
up here, down there, then up again
across rapidly blackening bush.
The game in progress never slowed
as fire truck sirens and referee whistles
all screamed the same pitch.
Soft drifting ashes flitted past goalposts.
The night wind billowed smoke up
like a strange sacrifice pillar.
One team, distracted, began to falter,
as the other fought fixedly on.
The Glimpse
To the freshman on the sidelines
the sight of his team’s offense,
the rightness of its timing,
players' hands extended to each other
at the end of every play,
the break of the huddle and the sprint to the line,
the—everything---of it
brought to his eyes confusing tears,
and he wiped at his face and lowered his head.
What’s the matter, you okay?
asked the coach spotting him there.
Yeah, it’s just...
but the boy’s words ran out.
He ended his try with a vague wave towards the game.
The coach looked for a moment.
Yes it is, he said.
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven
help us in this game
to do our best
to not take a rest
as a sub or as one of the starting eleven.
Give us each play a cool clear head
and forgive us our penalties
as we forgive those cheapshot artists against us.
And lead us not into intimidation
but deliver us from all ego,
Amen.
On the Night of a Win
Fathers with friends mingled happily in
greeting their players, their sons,
calling great game way to go you did it!
punctured by laughter of youth sensing power.
The coach circulated with a smile,
enjoying the scene
and the brief respite from pressure,
saying the good word to all who had played.
That was everybody, right?
After all, it was a four TD blowout.
In the corner of his eye one boy sat,
a senior reserve,
jersey still on, away from the others,
head down on folded arms,
his silent, suffering father with an arm there
across the boy’s shoulders.
The coach inside deep felt a cold ragged twist.
Coach at Rest
After the game he’d go home alone
and sit in the recliner that squeaked when it moved
and try to watch TV but instead replay the action
of his team on the field in his head win or lose.
The losses were hard and sometimes on those nights
he’d quiet himself with a red wine or two;
on the nights of the wins he’d not sleep at all
but drive out at dawn to where trucks loaded th
e news.
Reflection on a Ten and One Year
Defeat isn’t ever easy to take
especially for young men who think of it as failure.
But failure would be not trying
and trying totally was what this season was about.
Trying totally is what everything is always about.
It’s hard to do, a test of human will.
But in sharing the attempt with others
a bond is made that outlasts the effort.
When players pay a common price,
and do it from the heart;
when they live ideals,
when “pride”, “intensity”,” team”
become part of everyday together
a brotherhood forms that can’t easily break.
It stretches as people each go their separate way
but in stretching also binds more firmly.
This is failure’s opposite,
and the score of any game counts little.
The score was never the only object.
The other object, the larger one,
was to turn from self to others,
discovering that in sharing
lies the strength to exceed self-limits.
Life is full of mysteries that we’ll never know.
Grasp what can be known.
like the power of every honest moment,
and the greatness of strivers
who learn to be “One.”
Explication
Tell me again that what matters mostly
is how much a player can bench
when anybody can see that the kid who made the tackle
isn’t big enough or strong enough by far,
but he dragged his man down anyway when he had to.
Or that it’s all in the x’s and o’s,
when eleven beat-up defenders band together
for four plays at the three and stop cold in its track
the unstoppable drive of an unbeaten team
---with one foot to spare.
Tell me it only boils to down to drills and technique,
when the ball flaps from the scrambling QB’s hand
like a live chicken thrown from a moving car,
and the tight end lunges behind
to make the impossible catch
then reverses momentum to fall ahead for first down.
Show me it’s all in those weekend coaches’ meetings
where tendencies are combed out of scouting reports
and smart new sets and plays are conjured up for the week,
and then it all gets junked by the start of third quarter
because only the dive play is working.
But it works for six yards a crack
on the strength of team play and the flat refusal to lose.
Don’t tell me again
that high school football is only a game,
or that you or me or any of us
will ever truly know it.
Off-Season
The freeway
ran close to the high school,
its rivers of cars a perpetual roar
past the coach off-ramping to work.
Sometimes home pushing the mower
he’d wonder why he’d kept coaching so long
while the ones he’d begun with
had by now gone collegiate or become real-estate men.
Was it commitment or stagnation,
his true calling or just ego?
There was never an answer
when his thoughts ran this way.
The question would hang
at the back of his mind
until forgotten again
at the start of each fall.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Carlo coached successfully at the high school level for over forty seasons before retiring in 2013. His coaching career covered all high school levels, including varsity head coach at two different schools. He has sense stayed active in he sport, coaching in Europe for a season and volunteering his time with local youth teams. He is a contributing author of Youth Sport and Spirituality, University of Notre Dame Press, 2015.
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