Mark's Pages
January 8, 2009:
We have a very fast runner. This means we can win by outsmarting the others.
I draw the play on the grass. Everyone goes right. Guy on the far right does a short little square out to the right sideline. Guy on the near right slants a medium distance to the right sideline. Center hikes, waits a beat, goes straight right along the line of scrimmage to the right sideline. Guy on the near left lets the pass rusher go by him then slants long to the right sideline. Our fast runner is QB. He takes the snap, pump fakes right, waiting for the pass rusher to jump to block the pass. They always jump to block the pass. While the pass rusher's uselessly in the air, our fast runner hauls ass around the left, straight for the left corner of the end zone. He's so fast, no-one can get from the right side of the field in time to catch him. It's the first play of the game and we score from nearly our own end zone with a running play which covers the entire field.
We're in the park. Near the northeastern corner, close to the high schoolyard fence. Our playing field is demarked with chalk lines. It's about half as long and half as wide as a proper football field, but the girls have the sand fields in the schoolyard so the boys' squads share the grass.
It's my park, around the corner from my childhood apartment. The South Clairemont Recreation Center, between Clairemont Drive and Waco, with Whittier Elementary on the south side and our school, George W. Marston Jr. High, on the north. I know every blade of grass. But that's not the secret of my team's success. We're smarter than the others because we have me. That's really the truth.
The "coach" has divided his class hierarchically: the jock clique is one team, average kids most of the others, runts and misfits are the final. I'm a misfit so I'm with them. I put "coach" in quotes because like the rest of them he's incapable of leadership, or instruction, or anything much aside from eating donuts, watching kids run, and playing favorites. He's organized a tournament between the teams, intended to mimic a proper football "season". We play many games over several weeks, where, to the comically amazed dismay of the "coach" and the jocks my little group of misfits steadily advances.
It's easy. On offense we use our blazing fast runner and my ability to throw pinpoint spirals precisely at moving targets over quite long distances. Thanks for the genes, dad! Those jock chromosomes put to use. On defense we simply read the plays. The others are going to pass every time, and their clumsy plays unfold in predictable ways. I'm tall and relatively fast but the main thing is I know where the ball's going. So I bat it down or intercept it, and we take it, and we win.
Of course, the "coach" can't have that. It's not how the world is supposed to work. If you're paying any attention at all you should be able to predict his point of view. His jock squad has to win. They've been chosen. They're anointed, to go on to high school to wear varsity letters. It's their destiny, to which they're entitled. So that, beat by dorks... Well it won't do. Instead they cheat, with the permission of the "coach", who watches impassively. I get an elbow in the nose, punches in the ribs, and tackled while on pass defense, leaving the receiver open. My teammate gets kicked in the head, another is punched in the stomach. They win by beating us up, laughing, while the "coach" and the eliminated teams all look on.
That's fine. I think I actually prefer it that way. Can't make the truth more clear.