Monday, May 14, 2012

Tennessee Sports

     Every male Tennessean whose father wants him in UT is born with a tiny football in his hand.
     The idea is much like the farm boy who carried a calf around the house every day so that he’d finally be strong enough to pick up a full-sized cow: to get the boy to grip a football really early in his career, so that it becomes natural to him when he grows up. 
     Every six months or so, Daddy gives his growing boy a slightly bigger ball. By the time the kid is two years old, he’s throwing five-yard spirals. At about thirteen, he can sail one forty yards.  The young UT prospect goes through an athletic training regimen that makes Russian gymnasts look like jet set street people.
     By the time the kid is ready for junior pro competition he’s big, smart, cool, and can throw a squareout right on the button. He can peg one through a swinging tire without even looking.  Now he’s ready for some real coaching. A chunky, jowly gym teacher, an ex-second string lineman for Tennessee Tech or MTSU named Buck or Harold, takes over and really whips the kid into shape. He coaches the kid to stay in the pocket even when he hears footsteps and knows he can be blind-sided by a massive one hundred pounder who’s been left back four times and is still struggling through the sixth grade.
     “Save that fancy stuff, the dodging around, for your high school games, son. First thing you learn from me is how to hang tough. If you can’t hang tough, hang up your fuckin’ cleats.  Ain’t no point in playing football,” says Buck. Or Harold. 
     Harold (or Buck) cusses, spits, and blows his nose in his hand…and his boys love it.  The boys’ daddies love it. The moms hate it in public, but secretly love it, too. Except for the blowing his nose in his hand part. They think that’s disgusting. But, anyway, with cussing and spitting comes manhood, virility, and true UT style.
     With all this coaching and playing, the kid develops into a real player, a first-rate junior pro quarterback who leads his grade school team to three championships in their league.  Film clips of the kid in action have been on TV news all season.  He’s been scouted by plenty of high schools and they all want him, even the private schools.
     The kid can’t miss.  He’s got what it takes to make it.  He’s got the arm, the know-how, the size, and the speed.
     Except when he gets to high school, there are twenty-five guys exactly like him.
     He can’t make the high school team as quarterback, but they try him as a halfback and he breaks his leg in the first scrimmage.
     Next year he breaks the other leg trying out as a tight end, and the third year, his collarbone goes.
     By his senior year, he’s washed up. His blooming career and hopes and dreams of becoming a star at UT are shot.  And so are his Daddy’s dreams for him.
     Sure, he’s bitter and disappointed and screwed up in the head. But there’s still hope for the kid. So he does what thousands of young UT football hopefuls with similar problems do—he becomes a faggot and goes to Vanderbilt.

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