Riding my bike this morning, after a solid week of rain, I saw kids playing football–flag football, organized by adults and under adult supervision.
Ain’t the way we played football.
Yes, we followed the sports seasons; so about now, at this point in the year, the kids in my old neighborhood would be changing over from baseball to football.
Without uniforms, without a scoreboard, without coaches, helmets, parents in the stands, or sponsors. Without having to try to get our names in the sports section of our local paper. Just kids playing football, with only three, four, or five kids to a team. And five was a lot. Three was more likely, and sometimes we played with just two.
We played for as long as we pleased. The best yard for it was Mrs. Thomas’ yard, which had no trees, and she didn’t mind us playing there. The only hazard was her oil tank, up against the back of the house. I remember one time when my friend Ellen caught a pass for a touchdown, but couldn’t stop. Boom! Right into the tank. But kids were tough in those days, and after a few brief moments, she was able to continue.
Sometimes we played tackle, sometimes two-hand touch. We had no goalposts, so field goals were out. We had special rules. “No dumping the hiker,” otherwise hiking the ball to the quarterback would be a thankless job that no one wanted. If we were playing touch, we made a rule that you could lateral to yourself and the touch wouldn’t count if the ball was in the air. We would have loved to try a flying wedge, but there were never enough kids for that. Usually we ruled that the defenders, or defender, would have to count to three or four before charging across the line of scrimmage to grab the quarterback. And we had to be careful of the rose hedge that separated my yard from Mrs. Thomas’.
There was no adult to lay down rules, so we made up our own, kept the ones that worked, and forgot about the ones that didn’t. The games went on for hours and hours, and I don’t remember anyone ever getting hurt, beyond a scrape or a bruise or two.
Playing on our own taught us innovation, cooperation, negotiation and compromise–none of which are to be found in organized sports. I’m afraid it didn’t teach us to be docile citizens awaiting the decisions of authority. My parents only laughed when I mentioned joining the Pop Warner league. “You’d hate it!” said my mother. And I see now she was right.
We played as our parents played when they were kids, and it was golden.
I’ll bet they let you play like that in Heaven.
Without adults, how can children learn the true meaning of sportsmanship? No Lee, they need adults on the sidelines, cursing, fighting amongst themselves, threatening one another in order to learn the true meaning of sportsmanship. Where do you suppose Kaepernick learned his version of sportsmanship? 🙂
Y’know, you had me going there for a moment… until I opened the comment and saw the whole thing.
The boye playing football had no goal post but they used jackets and jumper as goal posts. The game ended when the boy who owned the foot ball went home.
That was my experience also – great memories, great friends. I did join Pop Warner (talked into it by an adult) and hated it so quit after a season of it (no fun). I didn’t go out for high school sports for the same reason – no fun having adults telling you what to do (and yelling at you). My daughter was never interested in school sports which was fine with me (although she is very physically active).
I was asked to go out for track and wrestling. Let’s see… stay after school every day, do lots and lots of crummy calisthenics, get yelled at a lot… No, it didn’t appear to me at all.
A great story, Lee. 🙂
Just now remembered a time when two of my friends and I were playing on the football field when the Pop Warner team (kids our own age) showed up and we were told to leave, get lost, Pop Warner gets the whole field. So the three of us took their football and wouldn’t let them have it back–and they couldn’t get it back from us, either, not with the whole Pop Warner squad vs. just the three of us.
The skills you get from playing whenever you want, for as long as you want, trump the skills you get from being on a team.
I meant the Pop Warner story.
Those kids couldn’t tackle worth a damn.
I wish I’d been there that day. We’d have chased them outta there so convincingly that they’d still be running. 🙂