TRYOUTS!

As the end of school drew near, I could smell the scent of grass just waiting for the football team to come out and trample around in it.  The grass was just asking to get rolled around in.  Remembering back to the days of practice in junior high and high school, it was very apparent where the team practiced, as it looked like ancient buffalo wallows lined in crusted, old throw up chunks.  This is all foreign to these boys.  They don't know what a grass stain is, and personally, I think they are scared of grass stains.  These boys of the streets would never last in the county of Harper in the great state of Kansas.  It would be way to much for these guys.

As you are reading this, try and close your eyes and picture what is going on.  (ok if you can't I will forgive you, but generally speaking, close your eyes and let your imagination take over!)  A 6'8" white man walks into a school full of little black children, all very friendly and half-way respectable.  That is, all except for one little "snot-nose" as my grandma would call him.  A young boy just entering the 6th grade who guys by the name of Darryl is the boy that you are picturing right now.  Picture this tall, white man trying to be friendly, trying to get to know this boy who can't shake a hand of a stranger, even when he knows this stranger is his soon-to-be football coach.  Slowly, this "tough-guy" starts loosening up a bit, but not without lots of work, everyday!  All he can talk about is how he is a sixth grader and he is going to be the starting running back.  (which I don't think he realizes that in flag football, the running back may as well sit on the bench, because we pass the ball)  However, this boy finally warms up to the coach about 2 days before practice.  Jokes are passed back and forth, while the coach teases that the boy wont even make the team, even though he is a natural athlete.

Well, now it is tryouts.  "Darryl, what position you trying out for?"  "I'm gunna be your quarterback!"  (I am now going to exit the third-person story and continue in)  "Alright, get behind Alec and take some snaps," I tell him.  Now imagine Mr. Alec.  He is a boy who has never touched a field, court, or anything with sports.  This boy has not even read a book about sports.  To put it fairly, this guy is the kid in "The Sandlot" who doesn't even know how to throw a ball.  I know he is not going to make the team, and this being the last day of tryouts, he most likely would not be with us anymore, or get the experience.  I decide to make him the center, cause he is not going to be catching any passes.  I already observed this in previous drills.  So, I go over the fundamentals of easily snapping a football when the quarterback says "hike!"  I want to get him a little practice before we put him in LIVE where kids were flying everywhere.  With the whole team watching, Alec bent over to release his first snap of his life.

Darryl, after doing anything he could not to put his hands in Alec's rear and take a snap, finally mans up and places his hands properly.  I say, "Now remember Alec, when you hear 'HUT!' you snap the ball"  He says ok, and grips the ball.  "HUT!!" Alec screams as he launches the ball between him AND Darryl's legs.  Time stopped as everyone tried to figure out what just happened.  The center actually called HUT! and snapped the ball before the quarterback even knew what was going on. WOW! What work we have ahead of us!  So, I have Alec practice waiting until he actually hears the word, and then snapping it.  He does ten of them perfectly and tries it out again.

Darryl walks up behind him, looking the defense in the eyes as he is trying to read which wide receiver is going to be open.  He opens his mouth, and may I add here that Darryl is not fully developed yet.  He is still a young boy with a higher voice.  However, being quarterback, he wants to sound tough.  Envision this little guy trying to talk really low and sound as tough as possible.  He steps forward, and in a deep voice yells, "DOWN!" at that moment, Alec's hand flies back, thrusting the ball right into the tip of Darryl's middle finger, perfectly jamming the finger.  The deep, tough voice instantly turned into a high pitch, "OOOOOWWWW COOOAAACHHH!!!!" as he jumped around holding his fingers.  Needless to say Alec was done playing center, as he just couldn't quite understand what was going on.

This is the stuff I am working with each day.  The same craziness in the classroom for 8 hours, and then 2 hours of football with boys who are scared to get on the ground and roll around a bit.  Trying to get these boys to do monkey rolls, which contains rolling in the grass, was quickly deemed impossible.  They just could not get themselves to do it.  Therefore, we did "Up-Downs" until everyone learned how to get dirty.  

While I have enjoyed the job thus far, now comes the thing I never wanted to do, especially with these boys.  Tomorrow, I am forced to have to cut several boys and ruin their dreams of playing on the school football team.  While I do not think God really cares about football and who I cut, I just pray that this is taken well by the players, as I have grown close to all of them.

Sorry this has been so long, I just had to get a "detailed" description of how things went down at practice today!