MY FOOTBALL IMMORTALITY

By Mark Reed

In the fall of 1959, I played football for our 8^th Grade Smyrna Elementary team. For the life of me, I can’t remember what we were called. I’m sure that once I publish this story to my Blog, someone will remember and let me know. As an eighth grader, I was pretty big for my age, five foot eight and 120 pounds – I know, pretty lame. But I was big enough to be a guard. I played both offense and defense. I was not a great football player, but I was pretty fast and I thought it would help me with the girls. Yeah, right.

We played the teams from some of the surrounding Smyrna area Elementary schools. I remember that Belmont Hills Elementary had what was considered the best team in our local league. Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School also had a team.

Everyone that ever played a sport probably has at least one outstanding memory where they accomplished something through their outstanding athletic skills that brought them a fleeting moment of immortality, at least in their own minds.

My moment came one evening when we were playing Belmont Hills at the Campbell High School stadium, a field where some of the participants in our Elementary teams would one day achieve gridiron excellence. Our coach was Bill Bennett, the Assistant Principal at Campbell High School. The thing I remember most about Coach Bennett was his almost daily barking at me to get my hands off my hips, no matter how tired you were. He said it showed weakness to the other team. I did it to keep my balance and not fall down from complete exhaustion.

Back to the game with Belmont. As I said, they were good and were undefeated. They had some players who would go on to play High School football and even on the College gridiron. I like that word – Gridiron! A field of battle. A place where you exert your will on others by sheer force of strength of body and mind. Well, that was the idea, I was told. The undisputed star of the Belmont team was a tall lanky boy named George Ward. He was their halfback. They ran a number of different plays, but their most effective plays, the ones they ran most of the time were Ward Left and Ward Right. He was so fast that he could get the handoff from the quarterback and be off and turn the corner before anyone could stop him. He had not been stopped all season.

Coach Bennett told us as a team before the game that we were going to stop that Ward boy tonight. He had analyzed their play calling and said he pretty much knew when they would run the play. I remember thinking to myself that I could do the same. Every darn play – duh. Anyway, Coach Bennett said that I was his fastest lineman. I couldn’t block worth a darn, and was not great rusher of the quarterback. The only time I made it into the backfield of the opposition, was after the play to help pick up one of my fellow teammates. My strapping one hundred and twenty pounds was not going to break through any line.

But back to Coach Bennett saying I was his fastest lineman. He had drawn up a play to counter Ward. Coach said the giveaway to whether it was Ward Right or Ward Left was the quarterback looking to his left or right as the ball was snapped. Hey, what did I know. Coach said that I was to keep my eyes on the quarterback and depending on which way he looked, immediately upon the snap of the ball I was to drop back and break for the sideline he looked toward. I remember thinking to myself that if it worked, I would be the guy who stopped Ward.

First play of the game. Belmont had the ball. I was so excited because my moment was on the way. I remember it like it was yesterday. I can see it in slow motion in my mind. Sure enough, the quarterback looked to his right just before the snap, and at the snap I took off as fast as I could run toward my left sideline. Like I said, I was pretty fast. I saw in my peripheral vision the quarterback handing the ball to Ward. I was giddy with anticipation. Ward was headed to the corner and reached the line of scrimmage, and turned up field, loping along like an antelope, but I had the angle on him. He was mine. I was going to take him down. It would be a glorious tackle that would be talked about for years in the annals of Smyrna Elementary football.

I had Ward in my sights. I was bearing down on him with my favorable angle. I was almost there. The moment of football immortality. And as I reached the point of tackle…Ward was already ten yards past me turning on his after burners on his way to a touchdown. I stood there for a minute trying to figure out what went wrong, how could I have missed? I’ll tell you how. George Ward was a champion sprinter and would go on to football glory at dear old CHS. I, on the other hand, decided after that game that football was not for me. I would never catch George Ward.

The thing is, George and I became good friends in our later years. I usually mention this game to him, and he will comfort me with some comment like, “You weren’t fast, but you had bad hands.” Or something equally supportive as only friends can do. I joke. Like many of us who have remained friends all these years after High School and college, we love stories like this, even this one at my expense. I think George, who I affectionately call “Georgie Boy” was one of the best all-round natural athletes I ever knew.

I have a photo from 1962 or 1963 of George doing his Ward Left, which I believe was in our Campbell High School Panthera Yearbook. But if only I had been able to stop him. Nah.