Is football the most important right of passage for an American boy?
1969 was a big year for me. It brought the change young boys anticipate most.
No, you little pervs…football pads! Sandlot ragamuffins no more, this was our big chance to try out for Ridgeview Junior High and wear a Jays’ blue and white jersey.
I was a late bloomer. At thirteen, I was neither strong nor fast. I barely survived the practice drills and quickly made my way to the end of the bench. All I wanted to do my first year was make the team and wear a number.
Back then a player’s number was his identity. There were no names on the jerseys. You knew who was playing what position by their number. The rules still apply today. Backs wear low numbers like 16 and ends wear high numbers like 80. Linebackers and tackles have numbers like 44 and 99. Show-offs wear the number 1.
We got our numbers a few days before the first game. The excitement was boiling as we filed into the gym. We went spastic after seeing the two big cardboard boxes of jerseys on the floor.
This was the most stressful line I would ever stand in. I couldn’t watch.
The best players got to go first. All the starters went up one by one and looked through the neatly folded stacks for their dream numbers.
Then the second string took there turn all at once. After the smoke cleared the boxes were empty and the remaining shirts were scattered across the gymnasium floor.
Us “Scrubs” picked last. It was a dog pile. I came up out of the heap with 45, a darn back’s number! One kid trying out for Full Back got 77 so we swapped. We both smiled with the feeling of inclusion. At least we had a number in the right sequence.
They let us wear our jerseys to class the next day. In my first hour a girl actually spoke to me. She said, “I like your uniform.”
I smiled and thought to myself, “I really do love football!”
