Part II: For the Love of the Game
I hate football practice. Always have, always will. It’s not hard work I mind; in fact, I relish it. I’ve been hitting the gym a few times a week going on 25 years now. No, it’s something else. I’ve always understood that football is a sport that insists that a player ratchets up his heart and spirit as much as his body. It is a sport that demands as complete a deployment of emotional intensity and concentrated will as much as it does one’s skill and ability. It’s why I love the sport. Still, to amp yourself up to play at your absolute best, to perform at your highest level every weekend for months at a time is difficult enough. But to have to do it 3-4 times a week, not counting film and walk-through days, is simply exhausting. Unless one is a complete psychopath—of course, the mental health of anyone who would want to play this game is always in question—it is a huge undertaking to work up that acute fervor or intensity that often, and for that long. Moreover, it’s disconcerting to want to uncork and unleash on a teammate and friend. Call it what you will, football is a game where you try to hurt your opponent. Not injure him. Hurt him. Beat him. Hit him with everything you’ve got. And no one wants to do that to a friend. Still, no player worth his salt wants to waltz through practice on autopilot, content enough to just get through it. No player worth the name wants to get beaten, ever, even in practice. If a guy has even a shred of pride, he knows that, even in practice, his reputation and standing in the eyes of his coaches and teammates are always on the line. Mostly though, he knows that his opinion of himself is constantly tested in and through football’s trials, challenges both dramatic and mundane. A season of football is a wearying process, as depleting emotionally as it is physically.
I was reminded of all of this in the summer of 2009, when I turned 40. Out of boredom, ego, last gasps of youth, last desperate clutches at glory, and probably too many viewings of Rocky Balboa, I began playing football for a local team outside of Stuttgart. The area has a handful of teams competing in divisions similar to college, with the more powerful, better funded teams competing in higher divisions. The German system of relegation has, on a yearly basis, the best teams in a conference moving up to higher leagues, and the weaker teams moving down into lower ones. The top teams from the top division then have playoffs, leading to the German Bowl, which might attract 20,000 or so fans. You might be thinking that the German version of football is a wackier, watered-down version of the real thing, but I assure you, these guys love and follow the college and pro game as fervently as anyone in the States, and have the knowledge and talent to play a pretty good brand of football. Of course, football in Germany is a niche sport; soccer is king over here. As one guy described it to me, football players here are regarded as ‘X-Games’ type personalities, fringe guys who like living on the edge. And I see it all the time. Sleeve tattoos and unusual piercings are pretty normal around here, and at least a dozen guys light up cigarettes after practice or games. But it’s more than just idle, pumped-up, adrenaline-addled throb for these guys. The higher a team ascends, the more serious things get. Top teams regularly recruit American players, guys just out of college, set them up with jobs, and pay them a decent stipend. And though there are restrictions on the numbers of Americans that can play (6 can dress, but only 2 can be on the field at any one time), with the number of military bases around Germany, there are always Americans looking to link up with the glory of their high school or college days. And I was one of them.
So at 40, I joined ranks with the Holzgerlingen Twister. And I learned something in the process. A few things, actually. 1) 40 year old, mostly sedentary legs have a strong tendency to balk at things like sprinting, sudden changes of direction, and concussive impact. 2) Weight room shape is NOT football shape, 3) football is a terrible, glorious, punishingly wretched and indescribably satisfying way of life. It is a dark night that intrepid souls must pass though. It is also an experience that, unless you’ve emerged on the other side, is impossible to share with those who haven’t walked that path. But football, like many things, is one of those consuming activities that force you, on occasion, to become reacquainted with why you began doing it in the first place. Why did I take this job or choose this profession? Why did I marry this person? Why in the hell do I play a sport that will surely leave me aching, burned out and complaining for months on end? These are the sorts of questions that keep us up at night. And unless we have answers to those questions, the drudgery of those commitments sometimes becomes nearly impossible to bear.
After two practices with my new team, I played my first game in 19 years, starting on the O-Line and handling long-snapping duties. And in the second quarter, I promptly broke a rib. Not a crack, a break. It was either adrenaline or stupidity, but I refused to take myself out of the game. More accurately, I didn’t want to disgrace my American countrymen by being unable to make it though one single game, the American game. It would have been a sorry moment to have to face my Navy SEAL teammate after quitting over something as small-change as a busted rib. Still, I’ve never wanted a game to end as badly as that one, and afterwards, took two hours to get my pads off. (Sitting next to a fridge stocked with German beer/anesthesia didn’t help) And I began to realize that the Regan-era helmet I borrowed from the local military high school afforded as much protection as wearing a lightly padded coconut. And over the next few games, I suffered more cuts, bruises, strained muscles, pinched nerves and general physical unpleasantness than I ever did at Cornell. And though I tried to play around the broken rib—avoiding cut blocks or ending up at the bottom of a pile—I couldn’t lift or do much cardio. A combination of stubbornness and Percocet got me though the remainder of the season, though, in hindsight, taking mellowing opiates was no way to generate a good, clean strain of ill-will.
So I limped to the end of the year, had a couple of good games, and my team ended the season by earning a place in one of the top divisions of German football. With concerned relief, my wife pressed me to finally give up this ridiculous Peter Pan foolishness. But I couldn’t end it right then, while everything was so fresh. Good decisions just shouldn’t be made from positions of weakness or fatigue, whether mental of physical. And as time went by, I kept thinking about a scene from Apocalypse Now, where Willard admits “when I was (home), all I could think of was getting back into the jungle.” The Hurt Locker was also a good example of a job or activity that might have been an irrational, self-destructive hell, but one whose mysterious call still beckons you back. And with that, I allowed myself to get slowly dragged back in for another season with the Twister. And nobody could understand why. Why, after all the aches, strains and trips to the doctor’s office, would I even consider doing this again? Oh, it was nice to be wanted, to be one of the guys who had experience playing against tougher competition. It was nice to be asked to be the O-Line coach, even though the only thing I’ve been able to teach my O-Line is how to ‘hold but not-hold’. And it sure was nice to be a part of that post-game party atmosphere again. In Germany, it doesn’t matter if you’ve won or lost, gotten stomped or did the stomping. The party was going to be there, on the bus, at the clubs, wherever. My team is sponsored by a local brewery, and post-game hydration is never lacking.
But it wasn’t any of those things. Why do I continue to play? A misguided proof of toughness? No, I’m pretty comfortable knowing that though I’m more resilient than many, I’m a marshmallow compared to others, especially here on a military base. Was it something lacking in my football career so far? No, I left Cornell with two championship rings and some of the fondest memories of my life. And lately, I’ve been thinking about one time in practice, 20 years ago, when we were stretching in the cold, muddy grass of Alumni Fields. It was the first time I’d ever thought “I’m too old for this”. And now, grudgingly, I admit that I really am. At 41, I still can put up some decent numbers in the weight room, but now have football’s equivalent of a glass jaw. Rarely does a game go by without some age-related injury make walking down the stairs the next morning something of a chore. But it always comes back to this: I’m playing this year because I love this game. I love this game. What it demands, what it gives, but most especially, what it means. Years of accumulated life-lessons, seasons of schooling, an importunate wife, and basic common sense should have consigned me to some well-mannered cheering from the sidelines. But I play football with guys who live and love the game. They don’t play because there’s a paycheck involved, a scholarship at stake, or some sense of obligation owed to a school into which they might not have been granted admission without their athletic prowess. There’s something pure and admirable about that. Do you remember as a kid—and now, maybe watching your own kids—being completely immersed in an activity, when there was nothing else but the task at hand? How all consuming it was, how completely focused you were, regardless of how little value that activity had? It was timeless bliss, when all days were endless sunny afternoons, and the low point in the day was when Mom called you in for the night. To be around that enthusiasm, that devotion to an activity devoid of external benefits is infectious. It might be ridiculous to play football at any age, but for those who’ve ever gotten a taste of that alluring drug, those whose sweat has born the fruit of floating on an exalted plane of existence, if even for a minute…you know. You know why. It’s frustrating and pointless to try to describe it to people who don’t, who have never been there. But for those who have played football, the reason you play is, I’m guessing, because football affords the most direct access to those perfect moments, those triumphantly perfect moments, that people spend their entire lives chasing. While some of my fellow Ivy grads spend a lifetime chasing cars, real estate, power, prestige, and whatever else their opportunities allow, I’ve spent my life chasing those perfect moments. And in Germany, I’ve been given a gift, the gift of a second youth. When I was 20, I was always going to be young. Sadly, it didn’t work out that way. Now I realize that to be given a second chance at the opportunities of the young, at second chances for perfect moments, is something that money cannot buy. Second chances at the perfect moments of youth are more valuable than anything than swollen bank accounts can afford.
I think Vince Lombardi had it right when he said, “I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.” But I don’t think he went far enough. He should have mentioned that to do so surrounded by those with whom you’ve worked, fought and struggled is even greater. That shared sense of purpose and accomplishment, whether in victory or defeat, is why I continue to play. I play for those hours after a game when I can share the triumphs and defeats of the day, both large and small, with my teammates. I play for those hours after the game when problems and headaches, strife and toil fade into the backdrop, for when all is joy. For those fleeting moments of elevation, when life is as magical as it was when we were kids. And practice, the dreaded chore of practice, continues to be a small price to pay.
