Two a days

If you have never played football this may not mean much to you.  If you have you will feel the pain again.

High school football season starts a couple of weeks before school does in Alabama.  Which means August!  Possibly the hottest month of the year in Alabama!  (Dog days of summer, when it too hot for a dog to move.)  Since school hasn’t started yet, all the coaches like to get in two practices a day.  Normally the one in the morning starts about 6:00 or 6:30 and goes to about 9:00 then the next one starts about 4:00 and goes until dark or the coach is tired.  Since he stands around yelling a lot he doesn’t get tired easily.  He only stops practice when he can’t yell any more.  God help you if he has a megaphone. 

I still remember my first football practice.  I was entering the eight grade and was leaving Sycamore Elementary to start at Winterboro High School.  Mother made me a big breakfast with bacon, eggs, biscuits, orange juice and a couple of glasses of milk.  And off I went to be a football hero.  I was starting about a week later than the other boys. The main reason is I didn’t even know practice had started yet.  You have to remember this was the days before Facebook, email, etc. information was mostly obtained by listening in on an 8 party phone line.  I got there and was issued some very ill fitting uniform parts, including shoes.  The Senior and Junior boys got all the good stuff.  Of course it might have helped that they showed up on the right day.  I don’t think any thing matched, none of it was less than 5 years old and there were holes or patches all over.  My feet still have scars from those high top football shoes.  I dressed out (the dressing room was the coal fired boiler room under the gym) and went to the field.  I don’t remember knowing anyone on the field.  I didn’t have a clue of what to expect.  I didn’t know anyone who had ever played football.  I had no one to give me a warning of what was in store for me.  The first thing we started doing was running.  Now I had been lying around all summer like 13-year-old boys do, probably complaining about everything anyone wanted me to do, so I was pretty soft (At least that is what the coach told me that morning).  Not only did we run, but then we ran some more and some more and some more.  Well remember that big breakfast my mother made.  A word to the wise here!  Never eat bacon or drink orange juice and then go run!  There were pieces of bacon in an orange milk substance all over the playing field before the morning was over.  I thought surely I would die that morning.  Finally practice was over, I just collapsed under a big pine tree and figured God would come take me up any moment.  I wasn’t that lucky. 

Oh did I mention we didn’t practice on the football field because we would mess up the grass.  We practiced on the grammar school playground, which hadn’t had a blade of grass growing in fifty years or more.  The dirt had been packed hard with thousands of little footsteps over the years.  I discovered that morning where the term, a cloud of dust and three yards came from. 

Oh no, I have to go back that afternoon and it will be hotter and dustier.  The mornings were dedicated to conditioning.  The afternoons were dedicated to learning the offense.  Learning the offence means you walk thru the play, and then you run thru it at half speed.  Nobody hits anyone at full speed.  And the coach spends all his time cussing you because you did it wrong.  Ok the attention span of high school boys is pretty short.  I was placed on the sideline to stand, (stand is a keyword, don’t think of sitting if you don’t want to run laps for a couple of hours) watch, pay attention and learn.  At least I got some rest.

The next morning was just a piece of toast and water before practice.  No trails of bacon but oh did I hurt.  In case you have never done it, the third day is the worst when you are conditioning for any sport.  The third day your hair hurts.  You blink your eyes it hurts.  Don’t dare sneeze or cough if you want your body to stay together.  After the third day you start to recover a little and it gets a little easier each day. 

OK what is the point of all of this.  Two-a-days has to be the hardest thing you ever survive.  It creates a point of reference in your life.  From then on you can always say I survived two-a-days, I can get thru this too. 

Michael, Paul and I all played high school football, something come up in a conversation one day and we all discovered that two-a-days was a common point of reference for each of us. 

I have been thru several surgeries in my life.  They aren’t fun.  Ever notice how you walk in a hospital and they always take you out in a wheelchair!  Are you really getting better?  Some of the recoveries aren’t fun.  PT can be painful but you have to do it to get better.  I have told myself on several occasions OK Bob you got thru two-a-days and this only three-a-week, suck it up and do it!

What are your points of reference?