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Published Sunday, October 26, 2008

Remembering the fun times of youth football

When I was growing up in Newnan there was no such thing as a city recreation program.

Little League and Babe Ruth League baseball were spearheaded by citizens who took it upon themselves to operate those programs and what youth football there was, was conducted by the school system.

When I was in the eighth grade the junior high school had its representative football team that played other junior high schools in the area, but there were also four other teams made up of those of us who were not skilled enough to play on the "varsity."

Those teams played each other in a three-game season and then met in a big championship and consolation game playoff after the regular season was concluded.

I played on the Red Devils, so named after the red jerseys we wore, against the Blue, Yellow and Green, you guessed it, Devils.

We learned the same offensive plays and defensive alignments Newnan High School was using at the time, no doubt based on the philosophy that if any of us ever got to that level we would already know the plays and where to line up.

The fact that the high school coaching staff might change a couple of times over that course of that time didn't seem to affect the policy at all.

The thing that stands out in my mind, however, now 50-plus years later, doesn't have anything to do with the plays we ran or where we stood when the other team had the ball, but how much fun it was.

We had real uniforms and pads and helmets with face masks.

I mean, how much better can life get?

And we got to play on that most sacred turf in all of Christendom - Pickett Field.

In order to fathom the importance of that fact alone you must understand that to my way of thinking up to that point in my life, only gods got to do that.

But there I was traipsing over the same grass on which giants had trod. Unbelievable.

Football was serious business in Newnan, even in those days, but my coach, Jerry Singleton, still believed games should be fun.

We worked on the fundamentals in practice, we ran our plays over and over again, but there was none of this fate-of-the-world-hanging-on-every-play surrounding our workouts.

We were kids playing a game. It was supposed to be fun. And it was.

I started out as an 85-pound interior lineman at right guard except when we punted and I became the long snapper.

Coach Singleton, no doubt fearing for my life in amongst all the behemoths, soon moved me out to right end where I finished my career with no receptions and probably more missed blocks and tackles than successful attempts at either.

But I had fun.

One of the purposes of those teams was to supply players to the junior high varsity if vacancies occurred because of injury or defection and indeed several of the boys were called up to "the Show."

I knew I'd never be among the chosen, however.

First off because I simply wasn't good enough and secondly because the junior high varsity head coach, who was also my science teacher, was not particularly fond of me, in part, I believe, because I had not yet acknowledged the fact that he was the greatest thing that had ever happened to Newnan Junior High School.

But it didn't matter that he didn't want me on the varsity.

I was happy where I was.

I played every snap of every game, feared for neither life nor limb and had a ball.

I don't see how anyone could ask for much more than that.

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