CB: I had two year scholarships to Oregon State and Wisconsin – Madison and decided that punching a cop at a party was a really bright idea. Hello, US Army; goodbye, college football.
I played for a really good Catholic school in the Bay Area (I was recruited to play from grade school; you gotta love Catholic football) and went to varsity as a sophomore. I was 5’10” and 180 at the time and went to just under 6′ and 215 by my junior year. You’re right, there is no experience like HS football, but I would have enjoyed at least playing a year or two of college ball, especially for a program like Wisconsin. I doubt I would have started, but even playing second string against schools like Michigan, Illinois, OSU, etc, would have been a blast.
The one thing that stuck with me relative to coaching kids, was not to repeat some of the coaching I got as a kid. Most of my coaches were like my dad: Former WWII and/or Korean War vets and pretty hard bitten and Old School in their approach (lots of in-your-face yelling). I’m a yeller, but my players know its mostly for show and I have never humiliated or demeaned a kid in front of his teammates (or anywhere else for that matter).
That being said, I see a lot of coddling going on, too, and kids that can’t handle discipline or raised voices and that shit drives me just as crazy as those guys who yell too much and think PW is the NFL (think Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee PW). Have fun, but instruct them in the sport, as well as teaching them the good life lessons that football gives: Character through adversity, team work and team play, and the esteem that comes through hard work and discipline.
I played a double overtime playoff game in San Francisco during a driving rain storm and had bronchitis at the time. I was actually hallucinating periodically I was so sick. I know certain folks get horrified when you bring things like this up, but, for me, I learned more about myself and what I could do in that game than at any point before in my life. We won at the end of 2OT by a score of 10 – 7. I may have played one of my best games at linebacker ever, and I was sick as a friggin’ dog.
Sadly, I think the warrior ethos is dying in this country and a football field is one of the last places that exalts it.
