What It Was, Was Football

By Larrywomack.com

North Nashville High School was located on Clay Street. A one block walk from my home on Cephas Street.  Students attended the school from the seventh grade through the twelfth.  My first two years there were uneventful.

During the ninth grade or my freshman year, I joined the choir, performed in talent shows (imitating famous singers) and went out for the football team.

I didn’t want to play football, but my father intimidated me into it.

Only sissy don’t play football.

At fourteen, I was a few inches less than six feet and weighed over 200 pounds. So I had little excuse to go against my father’s wishes.  Though I hated football, I was good at it. A local sportswriter even predicted I would be an all city tackle my sophomore year.

Most freshmen played on the B-team, but I was a regular reserve on the varsity.  Our first game was with arch rival East Nashville High School.  Because of practice injuries, I was selected to start the game at right offensive and defensive tackles.

The only things I liked about football were the camaraderie and the smell of the locker room.  Perspiration was the dominant aroma.  It was, however, the mixed fragrance the muscle salve called atomic bomb, adhesive tape, shower disinfectant, and sweaty equipment that create that manly odor only found in athletic looker rooms.  Every man feels a hero in the locker room.

Though I was often picked on and ridiculed, I did feel part of something bigger than just me alone.  The only other place I felt that way was at church.  Church, however, was an adult place where children were just allowed to be there.  Football was about boy/men bonding.

That first game was on a Friday night.  Rushing on to the lighted field with the band playing and fans cheering, for a moment I forgot the mortal fear churning in my stomach.  Stepping forward when the coach call my name in the staring lineup fear rose into my throat so fast I could barely keep it from spilling out.

We received the kickoff and our runner chose the opposite side of the field from me, so there was no contact on the initial play.  We huddled.  I don’t remember the actual play call, but what it meant was fullback over Womack.

I assumed the three-point stance; raised my head; and noted the defensive tackle in front of me was smiling.  In a wink, his forearm crushed into the side of my helmet like a wrecking ball; sending me crashing to my backside!

The other twenty-one players on the field then piled on top of me like boulders in an avalanche.  I tasted blood.  I was certain it was mine.

After a while, I got into the flow of the game and performed both my offensive and defensive duties reasonably well.  In the locker room, we celebrated the win by flipping one another’s butts with wet towels and pouring cups of cold water over one another’s heads.

The older players went to a victory party and I walked home with my parents and younger brothers.  My dad recoached and replayed the game all the way home; explaining how we could have beat the other team more severely if we had done this or that.  He never told me that I had done a good job, but he did have much advice on how I could do a better job next time.

He didn’t know what I knew.  There wasn’t going to be a next time.

On Sunday, several of the kids and adults at church that had attended the game bragged about the great win over an old arch rival.  Though they were obviously discussing the game in my presence, as acknowledgement that I was on the team, none complimented me directly on my play.

Mr. Leroy Sadler, my Sunday school teacher, was the best.  He was the only Sunday school teacher who didn’t talk to us kids like we were idiots.  He had a real knack for connecting the Scripture reading with whatever was going on in the world or in my life.

He didn’t live in North Nashville.  He lived in a suburb of East Nashville called Inglewood.  He was kind of upper crust.  Mr. Sadler sold women’s dresses to department stores.  Several times a year he went to New York to select the dresses he would sell. I always like to hear about his trips.  Onetime he told us about seeing a Broadway Show with Andy Griffith called No Time for Sergeants.

We knew who Andy Griffith was because he had a hit comedy record called What It Was, Was Football.  He was a country bumpkin who, on seeing his first football game, had some very funny observations.  Mr. Sadler told us that Andy had, at first, refused to play the part because it required him using curse words.  The producer wanted him so badly, however, that they had the playwright remove all the profanity from the play, and it was still a success; even on Broadway! Mr. Sadler viewed it as a great victory for Christianity.

After Sunday school, I went upstairs to the choir room to robe for the service.  I could read music because I had taken a few years of piano lessons as a young boy and my mother was an accomplished piano player.

The choir was made up of elderly twin sisters who sang poorly, but loudly; Mr. Sadler, who sang a sort of tenor; Mr. Coomer, who sang bass; three or four ladies who rarely practiced but joined the choir on the Sunday’s they came; a boy a few years older than I, whose mother played the organ; and me.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!  Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! 

Heir of salvation, purchased of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in his Blood

This is my story, this is my song. Praising my savior, all the day long.

One thing I liked about singing in the choir was the viewing angle from the choir box of the three-dimensional picture of Jesus that hung on the wall behind the preacher.  The picture was lit from behind and had a switch to light the whole picture or just the bottom or the top parts.  The choir was up front just to the left of the pulpit and from the side the picture looked even more three-dimensional than from head on.

After the sermon, grape juice communion, and the alter call (which hardly anybody ever responded too), we filed back into the choir room and derobed. By the time I made it to the outside, much of the after church conversation was over and the people were headed home.

Lucky for me, my dad was on duty at the fire hall Sunday night.  So I didn’t have to face him.  As usual, mother and I listen to the Sunday night radio shows; I had my four peanut butter and crackers nighttime snack, and went to bed.

All the way to school I nervously practiced my speech to the coach. My second class after homeroom was gym.  It was then I would have to muster the courage to tell him that his star-to-be tackle was quitting the team.

When the time came, instead of going to the locker room to change into my gym clothes, I went directly to his office.

As I walked in he said, “Hey Larry, you sure did a great job Friday night.”

“I quit.” I said.

“What?” he said.

“I quit.”

“Why? “

“I don’t want to play football.”

“That’s the best reason for quitting,” he said.  “Why don’t you want to play?”

“I don’t like football and I’m afraid I’m going to get hurt.”

“Larry I appreciate your attitude,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand.  “Most boys your age would try to make up a better story than that to leave the team.  Good luck to you.”

“Thank you, coach.”

I turned and walked down to the locker room with renewed respect for my decision and for coach.  I don’t remember what happened for the rest of the day.  All I could think of was the grief I was going to get from my dad.  There was no way he could take my decision like a man . . . the way coach did.