Chapter 6: Raining Touchdowns

September, 2004

When we took the field for the first time after warm-ups, the cacophony of sounds - spectators cheering, encouragement from teammates and coaches, and the roar of low flying planes, almost threatened to overwhelm me.

Excluding the football teams, there were close to five hundred people in the stands, fairly impressive considering that this was a JV team, playing on a Thursday evening. The East Boston Jets had their own stadium at the nearby East Boston Memorial Park. This stadium was located next to the Boston Logan International Airport, explaining the roar from planes taking off.

The crowd had largely arrived while we were in the locker rooms. I think that this was perhaps the most people I have ever played before. Since Eton was a boarding school, the audience at the inter-house rugby games (which was the extent of my playing experience) were largely composed of your fellow housemates. I did not experience the overwhelming support of the school, since the school team was for fifteen and above.

When the JV team captains, Edward ‘Eddie’ Miller, and Jack Winthrop walked out for the coin-toss, what had begun as cold sweats during the pre-match warm-ups, seemed to have escalated to drying heaving in my football helmet. We were facing Madison Park High today. After they won the coin toss, Madison Park elected to kick the ball.

Eddie, who also played as a wide receiver, and kick-off returner, on the team had the responsibility of returning the kickoff. What a kick off it was! The ball sailed slightly further than the kicker probably had intended to kick it. Eddie caught the ball in the end zone and knelt down for a touchback.

Taking a deep breath, I jogged onto the field.

Leaning forward in the huddle, I relayed the play call Coach Yoast wanted, “Six-sixty-six, Eff-stop, on three, on three, ready, break!”

While I was walking to the set-up at the twenty yard line, I couldn’t help but snigger to myself. ‘Triple six’, I thought, ‘if this play was succeeded, clearly invoking the luck of the Devil was a good way to go about things!”

“Ready, set ... hut-hut-HUT!”

Grabbing the ball, I hop-stepped five paces back while looking around. This play called for ‘Post’ pattern throw. Coach Yoast wanted to serve warning to Madison Park about my strength and to psyche-out their defensive backs from coming up too close to the line of scrimmage. But more importantly, he felt that me getting a long throw in would get rid of the jitters.

I looked up and saw Eddie streaking down the field, already thirty yards deep. By the time I swung my arm forward and prepared to launch the ball, he had begun to angle in towards the post.

To my horror, somehow a defensive end had made his way in front of me and jumped to block my throw. The ball met his helmet and bounced right back into my arms. I quickly sidestepped to the left, and bolted through a gap in the line of scrimmage. Spotting an open linebacker rushing towards me, I looked across the field to my right and saw DeAndre, our running back alone on the right side of the field. I aired out the ball laterally to him, and before I could see whether he had caught it, all I saw through my facemask was the dark blue night sky of winter.

Judging from the cheers I heard, and the approaching flashes of blue and yellow jumping around, I had managed to get the ball to him alright.

As I laid there, the fun I had playing rugby, the anticipation of a tackle and the relishing of contact came flooding back to me. This was, I decided, not an entirely bad way to exercise.

Just then, I got picked up by my jersey by Jim Parsons, our offensive guard. “You did it man, touchdown on your first throw! WHOOOHOOO!”

‘Huh? Whowouldathought?’ Looking down the field, I saw the offensive backs jogging back from the end zone towards the sidelines, as the special teams led by Dillon came on to the field to kick for conversion.

As I came off the field, my teammates swarmed to pat me on my helmet, and congratulate me.

“Well done son.” Coach Yoast grunted.

7-0, East Boston.

Utilising my stature and my arm to great effect, Coach Yoast had called for roughly five passing plays to a running play in the offence mounted by our JV team. The offensive linemen were clearly feeling the strain as the other team had figured our strategy early on, and therefore were committed to breaking through our offensive line of scrimmage at each instance.

For me personally, after the first play, I was in the zone! Every time the ball was snapped, I felt like I had entered into a state of surreal calmness, and everything slowed down a fraction.

“Ready, set, hut-HUT!”

Coach called for a ‘Streak’ play this time round. Frankly, I thought that that was fair risky considering the narrow lead we had over Madison Park, but since I was only a rank amateur at this stuff – I elected to keep my mouth shut.

Ball in hand, I scanned the field quickly to look for an open man.

‘Nope, too slow. Nope, too wide. There!’ DeAndre was running flat out down the right side of the field, in pursuit valiantly, but ultimately uselessly was a defensive back who did not possess the athletic talent that DeAndre had in spades. As I aired out the ball to DeAndre, aiming for a point just above his outside shoulder, I was once again sat down heavily, this time on my ass instead of my back.”

‘What the fuck.’ I jumped up looking for somebody to cuss at. The morose faces of my offensive linemen put to bed any such intent to do so. “Sorry boss, there were too many of them.” Antwaan Brooks, the offensive tackle apologised to me.

“Yeah, no worries!”

Once again, DeAndre carried the ball in to the end zone. As I met him on the sidelines, I gave him a high-five. “Oh Chetwynd, you sexy beast! I knew you were something special when I laid eyes on your skinny ass.” He then proceeded kiss the top of my helmet, perhaps a little to violently, considering that he was only five feet ten inches, and had to yank my head down to do so.

Conversion successful.

14-0, with one minute to go. Not bad for ten minutes of football, I suppose.

The second quarter was a repeat of the first quarter, because Madison Park conceded a further thirteen points – two touchdowns and one successful conversion. Their coach must have lit a fuse under them because after the half, the Madison Park team really came out screaming blue murder. They scored a touchdown right off the bat.

In the subsequent first play, their linemen almost sacked me as the tired offensive line collapsed under the pressure of their defensive surge at the line of scrimmage. For the third time in the game, I was tackled from my blindside, or without warning. Getting slightly pissed at this situation, I resolved to improve on my position skills, or at least, be more mobile to avoid getting caught unwittingly.

In the huddle, I spoke to the offensive team. “Alright boys, hang in there. We have close to another twenty-one minutes to go. Look, all I ask is that you give me your best shot everytime, aight? Ain’t nothin’ easy that’s worth sumthin’!”

Looking into the eyes, especially those of the beleaguered linemen, I tried to conveyed resolute determination to them through my pupil and irises. Sufficiently inspired (‘I don’t know if they were, but I definitely was lifted by my own pep talk’), I broke the huddle and approached the line of scrimmage.

“Ready, ready, set, HUT!”

Taking the ball, I drifted to my left and pumped faked. Twisting away from the on-rushing tackle of the offensive tackle, I ran right and pumped faked once more. Evading the forward lunge of the offensive guard, I ducked my head as I slipped under his outstretch arms. Surfacing again, I looked left before throwing a short pass to Eddie who was twenty yards away.

Jogging to the next line of scrimmage, I once again exhorted my teammates, specifically the linemen for greater effort.

“First and Ten!”

“Set, HUT!”

“Second and Ten!”

“Set, hut-hut-HUT!”

“Third and Five!”

By now, it was obvious that my linemen were giving all they could, but successive encounters against the physically larger defensive linemen and linebackers were taking its toll on them. Our running game also proved futile against their unyielding defensive line.

Looking to the sideline for the play, I quickly got the offense into a huddle. “Alright boys, the last one was on me! I should have thrown the ball to Eddie! This time round, I want you guys to just grab hold of your man and hang on to him for your dear life. Aight? Eddie, DeAndre, Joey, just head down field. I’ll be throwing the ball, go long.”

Before either of them could protest, I broke the huddle.

“East twenty-five, set, hut-HUT!”

Hopping back, I kept my eyes firmly fixed before me, as I dance away from onrushing defenders, and swatting hands. As I weaved and dodged, I never ever felt so alive. Spotting a slightly open space to my eight o’clock, I lunged in that direction. As I planted my right foot, I arched my back and rotated my hips powered my left foot firm onto the ground. Whipping my arm across my shoulder, I let loose a pass so hard my fingertips felt the burn from blood rushing to the ends of my hand.

With me so intent on being mobile, the Madison Park players never really got close to my person. As such, I stood there watching the ball streak down field from the fifty yard line. Running into the end zone were all three of the JV’s fastest receivers. Following closely behind were the defensive backs of Madison Park. Just as I thought that I had overthrown the ball, Eddie leaped forward and grasped it by the tips of his fingers as he landed in the end zone!

“Touchdown, East Boston! And with that, Sophomore James Vuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu brings the total score to 33-7!

I never felt so exhilarated at any of my athletic performance thus far. Screaming with happiness, I ran to meet Eddie along the sidelines. “You did it, man! What a glorious catch!” I shouted in his face!

From then on, the match was quite frankly, a blur to me. I remember celebrating with the team, jumping around and generally having a ball with them, after the final whistle had blown. I remember being both congratulated and chewed out by Coach Yoast, who didn’t like the fact that I had ignored his calls on the last play. We celebrated like the game was a play-off match rather than what it was in actuality.

Madison Park was a great team. They had clawed their way back into the game only to be defeated by the clock. Final score, 41-35!

From what I learnt, Madison Park was a tough team, one of the best in the conference, with players who were usually physically larger than others at most positions. The previous year, they had dumped us out of the playoffs easily. It was no wonder the sophomore players celebrated as hard as they did. For the rest of the freshmen, and I, joining in the euphoria wasn’t that difficult.

Like what I always tell Mom, “I was born to Par-taye!”

The next day in school, there was a definite buzz going around after news had spread about the JV’s team win over Madison Park. On one hand, this created greater student body support for the Varsity team, on the other, all the increased expectations also heaped greater stress and pressure for victory upon the Varsity team members who were ill-equipped to deal with the suddenness of said expectations.

During lunch break, both Kevin and Charlie sought me out at my table where I was seated with some of my other classmates. When they sat down, one of my friends from homeroom looked at them and googled.

“Hey, you’re that DE on the Varsity team!” Tom stated.

“Yes, I am!” Charlie replied.

Sniggering at the slightly baffled expression Tom had on his face, I tuned him out as I continued conversing with my other friend, Carlos. Unlike Tom, who was a die-hard football fan, Carlos was more interested in baseball. One of our favourite topics to argue about was regarding the superiority of baseball over cricket, and vice versa.

“But ... but, why are you sitting here? I mean, do you know anyone here?” Tom’s slightly shrill tone seemed on the verge of hysteria. From hero-worship or nervousness, I didn’t know.

Tom was such a fanatic, that he insisted everyone address him as ‘Tom’. His real name was Juan Tomas Bradford. According to him, he was named after his Mom’s father and grandfather to honour her Hispanic heritage. Growing up in Boston, he was a die-hard New England Patriots fan.

After the 2001 season when Tom Brady led the Patriots to the Super Bowl, he found himself a fervent fan in Tomas who decided to both ditch the Hispanic pronunciation, and shorten his name in favour of just ‘Tom’. It probably didn’t hurt that Bradford was close enough to Brady. Whatever the case, Tom made it a point to know almost everything about football from the NFL, down to Massachusetts High School level.

To have Charlie and Kevin sit down at the table was rather surreal for him, considering that they were both perceived to be the ‘Big Man on Campus’, literally I suppose as well. Well, not so much Kevin since he had only had two games with the Varsity team this year, and since he was in sophomore year with us, he was not such that unknown a quality as Charlie was in comparison. Also, since Charlie was a veritable Casanova, who always sat with a bevy of pretty girls, him sitting over here was quite a surprise.