NOTE: I am also posting this Part 5 on the LRH Thumbnail Sketch thread.
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” Abraham Lincoln
“It isn’t necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it.” Coach Knute Rockne, Notre Dame University
I told the Butcher and the Grocer that I wasn’t going to play basketball and baseball that year and would be more available for hours. They asked why and I told them about my deal with Coach. Before long, every customer was in on it and rooting me on. The Butcher said I needed to be eating lots of beef and insisted that I should have as much of any cut I wanted at carcass cost.
The owner of the sporting goods store said that I should have the best football shoes money could buy and insisted that I pick them out from his catalogue, special order them and pay only his cost…and, while I was at, I should have also have the best set of weights and a bench at cost, as well. Someone, I think it was the Grocer, started up a nickname for me and within days everyone was calling me—I kid you not—“Rock” which soon turned into “Rocky”.
My parents divorce concluded a few weeks before the end of the school year. She owned the house, furniture and all the land, livestock and equipment, free and clear. There was no alimony but she did get child support until my older sister, who was entering college, and I reached 21 years old.
When my father split he had worked out a deal for the rancher next door to run my parents stock with his and he bought most of the stock and some equipment and the rest was sold. My mother leased the “business” part of the property back to him. Overnight, my mother was awash in cash and she set about spending it. She was a piano teacher and church organist and purchased a concert grand and a full pedal board, church quality electric organ. She remodeled, enlarged the kitchen and redecorated the house and added on one fairly large room and one huge, gigantic room that, together, were nearly twice the size of the original house. One smaller room was her piano room and the other the “meeting room” for her Holy Roller friends…in effect, a small church. She also purchased a new car and a nine passenger station wagon for her “church”. Our home was now the “Meeting House” for the soon to be coming “Rapture”, or so they believed.
All this largess was quite a surprise to me. We had lived such an austere life. Honestly, I admire what my parents did in so many ways. They had squeezed every nickel and dime they could for years and added land and stock without borrowing. In my mother's eyes her “ship had come in”. This was her “payoff” for all the years she had “suffered”. As I was still being “shunned” the net effect of the Final Decree of Divorce had no financial impact on me but the impact it did have was worth more than any goodies…my chore load was cut by at least 80%. I had more time to work, train, hang out once in awhile with my buddies and mess around with my girlfriend. My sister had already “come to Jesus” years ago but the only “goodies” she got were some new cloths for college and a loan from my mother to buy a used car…she was on her own to find the money to go to college.
Near the end of the school year my girlfriend started talking about going to the Community College for a year and then, once I had my Scholarship, we could go to that college together. She had already been accepted at a very good State University several hundred miles away. Her parents were all for the plan, she would say, and really thought we were perfect for each other. I would fend her off and say we’d talk about it this summer after her Graduation. I didn’t want to be married and I knew, in my gut, that although I thought the world of her and her family, I didn’t want to marry her, had never asked her or agreed to marry her…they were not Whacko but they were very devout Christians. I broke up with her two weeks after Graduation. It was tough, real tough but I was certain it was the best thing for both of us and, bravely, she agreed.
That summer my mother, for want of a better term, was on a manic. She was gloriously directing all the work being done at the house, holding what I had come to term as her “Séances” and staying up all hours of the night playing her new piano and organ. Early in the summer my father contacted me and, with trepidation, I started spending a weekend a month with him…and my new stepmother. My reticence was well founded, which I will cover in Part 6.
All summer long I worked and worked out, worked and worked out. The God’s of Football smiled down upon me. I finally grew into the size 101/2 D shoes I had been wearing since 8th grade. I had begun my Junior year at 5’9” and 170 lbs. At the preseason weigh in, strength and agility testing for my Senior year I was a hair under 6’ and 188 lbs and could straight military press 220 lbs for 3 reps. I wasn’t much faster but I was quicker, stronger, explosive.
When the school year started my life felt like I was dreaming. I was elected Chairman of the Student Council and Student Body Vice-President. Coach was so proud of me and I was named as one of the tri-Captains. A week before our first preseason game Coach had a team meeting to fire us up for the season. He told us that this team had what it took to be the League Champions but it was up to us to go and take it. Our biggest challenge was going to be the first League game in 3 weeks…we were playing last years Champs. All of us knew what he meant. They were returning their All League, Honorable Mention Quarterback and All League, 1st Team Fullback. The Full back was big, fast, tuff and a huge 215 lbs. That Fullback had run all over us the previous year. He was what made the passing game go for that Quarterback. Their entire offense was based off of trap blocks for the Fullback, draw trap plays for the Fullback, sweeps and rollouts with the Fullback lead-blocking.
Then Coach dropped the bomb. “We’re gonna sucker punch ‘em, men. Face is gonna be Strong Safety for our first two games but over the next three weeks of practice were gonna work him in and teach him to be a Middle Line Backer and when we play those jawboney’s (his favorite expletive) he’s gonna have one job and one job only…wherever that Fullback goes, Face is gonna be there and he’s gonna hit ‘im, and hit ‘im, and hit ‘im 'till his jock strap falls off.”
I was psyched out of my mind the day of the big game. I couldn’t eat hardly a thing…just honey and milk, gobs of honey and milk. As I was lacing up my pro quality shoes I thought about all the people that had believed in me, helped me, had given me this chance. I was determined not to let them down. Just before we headed out of the locker room, Coach came up and said, “Son, there’s scouts out there from Division II, IAA and IA. They’re mainly here to see #34 (the Fullback). Now son, you go out there and show ‘em whatta pussy that jawboney is and what a real football player looks like.”
As I ran onto the field all turned surreal—I was in the zone.
For 31/2 quarters it was a war. #34 made some plays but nothing big. I was taking him out of the game and he knew it and he was getting frustrated…we were pounding each other to a pulp, it was a close game and they were losing.
We won that game. #34 missed the end of the game. He was at the hospital getting his dislocated shoulder set and a cast on his broken collarbone. Halfway through the 3rd quarter they had run their signature 41 trap draw up the middle. I read it and flew into the hole and hit him with the “reckless abandon” Coach had drilled and drilled into me.
I was at the hospital with #34…due to a hairline skull fracture and a severe concussion. My season and, possibly, my career was over.
Face
As I went flying up that freeway entrance ramp, I remembered catching a momentary view of the station mechanic in my rear view mirror. He was standing there staring at the rapidly accelerating Betsy. His mouth was wide open and his face was frozen into an expression of utter disbelief.
