Sports Briefs: Sign of the Times

I didn't care about the National Anthem, I didn't care about the coin toss, I didn't even care about the game all that much. But if I missed the football players running through the sign, I might as well have been told that Saddam Hussein was my new bunkmate.

Before every high school football game, the players gathered at the edge of the field behind a giant paper sign (which usually read "GO, WIN, KILL!"), held up by the cheerleaders and lined with students, waiting for the band to start playing the fight song.

The band's reminder to begin was whenever the stealth bomber flew overhead, as was the custom before all our high school games. It really pumped up the overflowing crowd of roughly 300 people in attendance each game, some of whom gawked and clapped. As soon as the band commenced, the football players, emulating deer romping through the meadow, gracefully strode through the delicate, painted tissue, waved to the crowd, and generally embodied the merriment that is Friday night high school football.

Of course, this is what I think happened, as, more often than not, me and my family were still walking from the parking lot to the stadium as the players were running through the sign. Or, if you prefer English, I and my family.

We ate dinner at the school cafeteria before games, as the booster club usually served hamburgers, barbecue, or a combination of the two, also known as "hot dogs."

After eating, we headed back home to dress for the game, which normally involved Dad and I putting our hats on while my mom and sister stood in their rooms for hours, deliberating the more effective way to delay going to the game.

Around 7:29, I would calmly suggest that it was time to go, seeing as how the game started at 7:30. This, though, constituted "rushing" ...and when I say "rushing," I am not referring to something you do with a ball, but rather, when you are being such a persistent nag that both your mom and sister conjure up thoughts in their heads about a tongue-less son and brother.

After everyone was ready to go, we piled into our van and headed for the stadium. A 20-foot-tall, green-skinned alien wearing a wife-beater could have been outside watering someone's yard, but the only question I would've asked my parents was, "Wonder if we'll get to see the players run throughthe sign?!" This was usually answered once we parked and opened the van door. I could either hear the band playing, which meant, once again, we had missed the most exciting part of the game.

Or, we arrived in time to see the football players walking from the locker room to the field. Knowing they would be reaching the sign within a few minutes and my moment of opportunity was slipping away, I took off running, closely followed by my dad, mom and sister chasing after me, intent on proving that a belt had more purposes than simply holding up one's pants.

Determined to witness the destruction of art at some point in my life, my best chance came when I reached seventh grade, knowing that instead of merely watching football from the stands, I would soon have the privilege of watching from a bench on the sidelines, dressed in full uniform, no less!

As the time drew nearer to my first seventh grade football game, I experienced unbridled anticipation of running through that which the cheerleaders had spent hours upon hours painting (and I'm not referring to their fingernails).

Finally, time for the first game! We had no band, though I expect the stealth bomber flew by at some point (prove that it didn't; ha, you can't!). In place of the band, we had a cassette tape of the fight song, which was to be our signal to burst through the sign. Everything was on cue. Our team was fired up, we huddled, screamed and started running for the sign.

The first layer of players ran smack into the paper and bounced backward for a nanosecond, before the rest of the players charged through, knocking the first layer of players face-first onto the ground. We had a fairly large team, so it was awhile before the fallen players got up, getting trampled on in the process, somewhat resembling a set of dishes in a stampede of buffalo. Torn parts of the sign were strewn all over the field, causing more players to trip and fall. There were some thoughtful players on our team, though, who simply ran around the fallen players instead of stepping on them with their spikes.

These type of players were known as the "third-string."

Once again, my parents proved to be right. All those years in which I was salivating at the prospects of seeing men run through paper, my parents had really been protecting me from witnessing a chain reaction of falling "athletes" ...if that's what you can call them.