IN PRAISE OF SANDLOT FOOTBALL

Author/novelist/nature writer Tim Ohr explains why football, for some kids, is a big First Down. -wt


ON A RECENT SATURDAY MORNING WALK, I came upon an athletic field where I was greeted by an unnerving cheer.

“We go nuts,
“We go nuts,
“We go nuts.”

The cheer was not coming from inmates at an insane asylum; it came from young boys on the sidelines, members of a football team. They proudly announced that they were capable of doing what I had tried to avoid all my life.

I paused to survey the athletic field. Eight different teams of very young males were in various states of preparation for combat. One team ran scrimmage practice. Another team possessed its very own pre-pubescent cheerleaders and mothers dressed in team clothes. All the young athletes wore numbered uniforms. Blocking practice was encouraged on part of the field by drill-sergeant-quality hollering.

“Hit ‘em harder. You hitting him like a girl,” one coach screamed.

It is fair to describe myself as both appalled and transfixed. I watched for an approximate half hour the junior titans.

In two cases, teams of males, perhaps 10 or so years of age, knelt and were led in prayer before mortal combat. This was not the only use of the Lord’s name. It appeared to me that Our Savior and The Heavenly Father were mentioned in a less respectful way much more frequently than in the elongated prayer for victory and the safety of the soldiers at war.

This scene was on my mind when my friend, Michael Sanders of Clearwater, mentioned professional football to me recently. I had just joined Mike and friends to watch the Indianapolis Colts destroy the Tampa Bay Bucs for the 2007 season.

At the risk of seeming unpatriotic, I told Mike that I had returned our season tickets to the Tampa Bay Bucs when Doug Williams was allowed to depart the team when seeking fair compensation. The quarterblack, a term he used in his biography, was my hero.

To me, I said to Mike, pro football had become too money-oriented and was no longer fun.

Now, and very sadly, I was forced to conclude that the football contest I watched wasn’t much fun for today's kids, either. What had happened to the sport?

Mike and I (and a half dozen or so regulars in Bellaire, Florida), had played hours of sandlot football, not exactly touch, but something close to it. Most of these contests were played on the expansive Eagles Nest, the yard of Winston Williams, my friend and publisher.

We began playing those games when we were about the same age as the kids that I witnessed yelling “We go nuts.” That was when Mike was 10, and so was I, in 1956.

Thank goodness we didn’t have coaches like the kids nowadays. They make me recall basic training, otherwise known as boot camp. We arrived by bus at our barracks at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to be sent to barracks where our drill instructor greeted us something like this.

“MOVE!MOVE!MOVE!GRABYOURSHEETSANDBLANKETANDMAKE YOURBUNKPOLICEYOURAREATAKEASHOWERLIGHTSOUTINFIFTEEN MINUTESNOSMOKINGGETTOSLEEPYOUWILLBEAWAKEAT0400BREAKFAST FROM0500BEINFORMATIONFORTHEDAILYDOZENAT0600DOYOU UNDERSTANDMEFRESHMEAT.”

It was all so rapid and unknown a language that I held up my hand and asked if the drill sergeant if he could repeat this a bit slower.

“WHAT?AREYOUA (slang term implying you have a female sex organ)? GETDOWNANDGIVEMETENYOU (derogatory term for homosexual).”

“What did he say?” I asked a friend.

“He wants you to do twenty pushups,” my buddy said.

I ended up doing about 80 pushups because the first 79 were not satisfactory.

I have always had trouble with authoritarian personalities. Yet out on the gridiron were at last 160 children who were willing obeying their drill sergeants, or coaches, if you prefer. Plus the other group was still chanting, “We go nuts.”

In our sandlot days, we did not need uniforms like these kids. For one thing, we knew each other by first name. For another, we wanted to change positions and be the quarterback, or the fullback, or an end. We played offense and defense.

We wanted to win but didn’t care much if we did. The fun was in the playing. A game that lasted from after school until it got dark was a good game. We would have still played it if the score was 70-7 and we were on the losing end.

We had no desire to hurt one another. We did not go nuts. We liked each other, for starters. More important, if someone got hurt, the game stopped. Worse, a parent got called.

Speaking of parents, we didn’t want them watching us. How could we swear or have a good time with our parents there?

Pray before a football game? Please. We went to church on Sunday, everyone except Winston, lucky fellow. Church was where we kept our religion. If someone had got down on his knees to pray before we played football, we would have been embarrassed for him.

Listening to the parents at the game I watched that Saturday morning, I was extra glad our parents hadn’t come to our games. I recently read in our local papers about lawsuits to reverse game results and to change coaches within the Pee Wee leagues. A lawsuit? Over a kid's football game? Not in our day.

I recall Easter a decade or so ago when a young mother in our neighborhood screamed at her son and daughter, “You ruined Easter!” I don’t know what the children did to ruin Easter, and I suspect nothing was ruined except the children’s future Easters. Their mother had crucified them on her sharp tongue so that today I imagine the brother and sister looking at each other and saying “Remember when we ruined Easter?”

It looks to me like the adults are ruining football. Every child has prematurely become a young Spartan. Football for 10 year olds is step one on a path to a high-school career, extending to the Super Bowl, a dream about one in 10,000 kids might enjoy.

Based on what I saw, I think kids need to return to our sandlot days and play by sandlot rules. No refs needed. No parents. Just a game with friends.

I have hit upon the solution to make me want to watch professional football again. Each team should be appraised as to its value. If they were located in a South American country, they would be seized and appropriated and used to pay for basic health care for all citizens. Since they are in North America, however, stock should be sold at $1 a share to all the members of the community, so that the pro teams are owned by the community, not one rich, egocentric individual or family. Coaches and players should be answerable to the community instead of wealth. Coaches should not be judged on win-and-loss records but how much fun the players and fans have.

And at least one sandlot game per season, which does not count in the in the official team record, should be played by each NFL team. At that point, I will begin watching sports again. Meanwhile, we should stop treating our youngsters as if they live in a Sparta where the ultimate combat is about to take place when they are just playing football.

-TIM OHR