A Little Football Anyone?

Call me a football convert. I never loved the game growing up. But today was quite a day. Both my boys won their games. It was fantastic. Yes fantastic.

I grew up on a farm, but I’m a girl’s girl. Football was mostly stinky and yucky and a great time to take a nap every Saturday or Sunday afternoon. But I’m starting to get addicted. Well, at least to midget football.

Lincoln is divided up into eight midget football teams; if you live in a certain part of Lincoln, you automatically go onto that team when you register (unless you register way late and get stuck where they need a few extra players.) There’s the Police, the Firefighters, Runza, the Elks, the Execs, Union Bank, Leon’s, and Assurity Life.

We are in the Assurity part of town, traditionally the pretty, rich boy part of town. (My 13-year-old daughter would happily agree.) In the years I’ve had boys in the program (including the first year with our foster son Jake, and yes I am including Rick as a boy) Assurity is not the biggest team in the program. Assurity boys are generally smaller in size and in weight to the other teams. Several years I have witnessed teams from Runza lining up to weigh in with boys over 6 feet with full beards or moustaches. No lie.

Our boys, however, tower over no one, not even my 13-year-old daughter. (Some Assurity boys match her 5 feet 8 inches, however. And she claims many have nice muscles too. I’ll take her word for that.) Most Assurity boys are skinny and tall, or short and husky. None of them have facial hair or likely pack switch blades. (None also wear boots and camo, thank the Lord.)

You really don’t know it until you get into the program, but midget football in Lincoln is a big deal. It started 60 years ago and has grown and grown. Boys starting fourth grade up to boys starting eighth grade can play. To try to make the teams fair between all these areas of town, the boys in each area are separated into alphabetical levels. You start on the Rookie team, even if you start when you are past fourth grade. Assurity has two of these Rookie teams. Joe could have played Rookie, but he was more than the 110 pound limit when he started fourth grade. Weighing in at a nice round 112 pounds, Joe was resolutely marched up to the Assurity D team.

After Rookie, or if you are one of the big boys like Joe, you might play on the D team. Assurity also has two of these D teams. My husband started assistant coaching when Joe first played D, because they lacked coaches. After that Rick was hooked, and now he is a regular D head coach with his bud Brian.

These two guys kill me. Picture your typical football coach. Is he bald, muscular, and looks like he just ripped somebody’s arms off? Mix in a lot of salty language, a few years playing football at UNL and boxing, and that would be Brian. Rick’s the one with the clipboard and whistle. The two coaches together, they firmly believe in punishments and rewards. Mouth off, cheat on your pushups, or jump off sides and the whole team takes another lap. Or even worse, the whole team has to do another dozen diamond pushups. And the rewards? Remember this is football. The only reward these guys get is an extra water break. Some reward.

Beyond the D team, Assurity has a C team, a B team, and an A team. You are placed on these teams according to your weight, skill level, and ability. Coaches maneuver the players around the first few weeks of practice to give all the levels the most competitive team available to them. A team usually keeps most of the eight graders, as well as the bigger seventh graders. B team is made up of a handful of eight graders who may be less experienced, as well as most seventh graders. Plus B might steal any bigger sixth graders, like my baby Joe.

Because players come in all weights and sizes, the midget football program tries to limit some teams around town from having too much of a size advantage with a dot system. If your baby weighs in at a specific weight at his level, he may have a green dot on his helmet. For example, if he weighs more than 120 pounds on the D team, he will play with a dot. That means he can only play on the line. If he weighs in at a little bit higher weight limit for that level, (such as 135 pounds on the D team) he may have two dots on his helmet. That means he can only play on the line, one way (offense or defense). If he weighs more than those limits, he may be a movin’ on up.

My baby has played a few years with a dot on his helmet, but thankfully not a double dot. He is a sturdy boy. Today he sailed through the weigh in without a dot on his helmet. The guy at the scale waved him through, thinking he looked OK because he was shorter than most of his team. Ummmm, actually I think the boy should have gotten a dot. We even shined up the spot on his helmet for the dot. Dot or no dot, I don’t think Joe will be going out for any passes. Running is not his thing. Not by a long shot. Not by a really, really long shot. He is happy on the line. So it is all good.

But this year on the line, Joe has his work cut out for him. Yikes. The boys on the other teams are tall and beefy. Joe plays left guard and weighs in at 151. His good friend Maclain, the right guard, is about 144. We joke with the boys that that is about 300 pounds of beef coming across the offensive line. We like to yell “Bring in the beef” at the boys during the game. Plus when you add in our center at 160 pounds (with a double green dot), that’s about 450 pounds of beef making holes up the middle. And that’s the B team. Imagine the A team. And these guys aren’t even in high school yet.

But the B team we played today (Leon’s) did not blink an eye at our offensive line. Their middle three defensive linemen all had dots. One had a double dot. Guess which one lined up across from Joe? The guy across from Joe was around 5 foot 8 or 10 inches and extra beefy, probably around 180 pounds. Joe says it actually is no big deal. You just push those double dots down to the side and cut their legs out from under them. (Joe says you are supposed to say “ha ha sucker” when you do that.) Or you push your shoulder pads up into their throats. Short husky guys like Joe have that low center of gravity working for them I guess.

We kind of figured Rick’s D team would have a good game today. Rick and Brian are super good about showing the boys how to wrap up, lock shoulder pads, and develop those choppy feet. Rick has some awesome running backs and receivers, and an awesome defense. They won 32 to 0. They have a few repeat players from last year who are returning with confidence. Pinky is back, the 70 pound nose tackle. He was army crawling his way through the line to make trouble in the backfield. One of the kids on Rick’s team, Appleget, is a huge track star. When he rounds the corner, he is just gone. It is a beautiful thing. His coaches have a man crush on him.

Rick’s team played a team with three guys from his Jr. Saltdogs baseball team. One of the mom’s said to me, “We saw Rick standing across the way with his clipboard, and we said, oh no, not Coach K’s team. Not the first game of the season.” Parents and players love him. They have a man crush on Coach Krush. Um, yeah.

Joe’s B team, well that’s another story. Most of the guys on Joe’s B team played for the Assurity C team last year. The C team last year did not win a game. They scored a total of one touchdown the entire season. Plus, the coaches last year moved up to coach the B team, along with the boys. This did not look promising. They had a few studs courtesy of last year’s D teams. But with their main play being “run it up the middle,” we were not optimistic. Plus, one of the studs from Rick’s baseball team was the quarterback for the opposition, and he has an awesome arm. Things were looking even more dismal, if that was possible.

The game remained scoreless the first half. Our offense kept to their keen plan of running it up the middle, using our little beef pack to make holes in the green dot brigade. Then the other team broke off and scored a touchdown, but failed to make the extra point. It’s 6 to 0. We flail and flail. Then our defense causes a fumble and we recover and make a touchdown. Then we run it in a second time for two more points. It’s 6 to 8. After that, the other team just walked all over us. They only scored one more touchdown, failing again to make the extra point with about three minutes to go. The father next to me, whose kid plays for the other team, said to his wife that this team doesn’t have much of an offense; Leon’s should be able to pull this off. Yes, I always get to sit next to these people. They are fantastic. Maclain’s mom and I unfortunately agree. We watched the clock tick down. And then out of the blue, one of our tight ends breaks free and makes it to the three yard line. We remain pessimistic. Then our awesome little beef pack opens up a hole and the quarterback breaks through to the end zone -- and with a mere 1 minute 25 seconds left. I know, games are won and lost with less time than that. We wait for the huge play by the other team. But somehow we intercept the ball. We wear down the time clock. We count down the last seconds. And the underdogs win. We are jumping up and down. Somehow that dad is long gone.

Well today was one of those awesome days you don’t get too much of when you play sports. All the Assurity teams won their games today – A, B, C, both Ds and at least one if not both the Rookie teams. Mark one up for the little pretty boys. I guess if your coach teaches you how to handle the bigger boys and you just want it a little more, you can close the gap, open up the holes, and dive into the end zone. Your mom may go hoarse at the end of the day, but she’s got a whole week to recover until next Sunday afternoon.

When we got home today, Rick and I talked about the day while we sat on the deck with a couple of beers. Today was one of those rare days that you play your hardest and it all pays off. Most games the team won’t be able to win in the last minute and a half. Most games you walk away the loser. But today was one of the rare days that keep you coming back for more. Both teams likely won’t win on the same day again. Some days they may not win at all. But for now we are cherishing the win. We are thanking God for a good day, for no injuries (at least for our teams), and for giving the underdogs one heck of a victory.

Now the only big job to tackle is the laundry. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is not enough Febreeze in the world to kill the smell of football pads in the morning. OK, so it still is stinky. I can live with that.

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