About 2 years ago my wife said to me one morning “who is this guy who keeps texting me?” I looked at her phone and recognized the name immediately. He was the quarterback from my high school football team. More correctly it was the high school football team I was on when I was a sophomore in high school. I had the immediate association to his physical appearance and considerable athletic ability. To this day he probably was the most gifted high school athlete I had ever seen. He didn’t look like a high school player - more like a college player. He was also an excellent basketball player and sprinter on the track team. He was the fastest man over 100 yards in high school. Why was he suddenly texting my wife?
He was going to be inducted into the local athletic Hall of
Fame. He was trying to organize a reunion of our 1966 undefeated high school
football team. His plan was to get as many of us back there as possible -
details to follow. There were 2 or 3 subsequent postponements of the reunion
due to the pandemic. But yesterday on 6/26/2021 it finally happened. Twelve of
the 22 players reunited for about 3 hours at a local bar. As far as I know three of my
teammates are deceased and the remaining players could not be located or
decided not come. The head coach was also in attendance. The assistant coach is deceased. All of the attendees got
baseball caps with their name and numbers embroidered on the back. The front of
each cap simply said “Undefeated 1966 AHS Football”.
Unlike my high school reunion, I had the opportunity to say
something to all my teammates. I remembered who they all were and details from
our past. I know that many had significant problems in life including
life-threatening health problems. I learned about their relatives who had
similar problems. But most of all I learned about what that football season
meant to the people who made it back to the meeting. I know that memories from
over 50 years ago can get complicated and distorted. As we all sat around a
table there was a collection of newspaper articles and photographs from 1966 to
provide partial corroboration. There were some intense memories from the past
that haunted some of the players. There was also active feedback from the coach
about a few incidents where he realized that the plays he was calling were
being ignored. My intention in writing this post is not to identify people with
problems or criticize people, but to look at an event with obvious meaning as
well as the meaning that may have been missed at the time.
Our quarterback started out with some self-disclosure of
mistakes he had made during the championship season. Other players who were
involved with those mistakes corroborated them immediately. Our center for
example recalled a fumble on the opponents 1 yard line and the fact that it
occurred on a silent count. For 5 decades our quarterback was thinking the
fumble was his mistake, but our center let him know that he forgot the count.
There were several other incidents involving typical football mistakes that
people had been thinking about since 1966. Resilience came up as an outcome of the
coaches role in helping us overcome adversity.
A significant injury was discussed. From the description it
sounded like a traumatic brain injury, but back in those days any head injury
with partial or significant loss of consciousness was referred to as a
concussion. There was no grading system but persistent confusion or memory loss
might eliminate a player from the game although that was certainly not
guaranteed. More than one concussion led to a medical evaluation but again
there was limited medical expertise in traumatic brain injuries. It led me to
recall a lot of headaches from playing football. We would practice twice a day
in hot weather hitting a blocking sled and doing full contact drills. There
were days where the headaches just did not clear up. I was also reminded of the only significant
traumatic brain injury that I sustained when I ran into one of my teammates
playing in a touch football league. In fact, I approached him at this reunion
and joked that the last time he and I met - I was out of it for the next 24
hours. I had to explain that we were both defensive backs running full speed
and I ran into a shoulder after diving for the ball. He did not recall the
incident.
There was a strong underdog theme. At one point in the year,
we did not have enough players to scrimmage so the coaches had to play defensive
half backs. Many of the teams we played against had much larger players and
significant depth. That led me to recall
our coaches quote to the press: “We are not big - but we’re slow”. Our coach recalled that in some of the venues
we were ridiculed for looking raggedy and not having many players. We were accused of running up the score against some teams to improve our overall ranking. The coach found this humorous because there was no second team to put in. At one point
during the discussion, one of our receivers took over and talked about how he
and one of his friends in the offensive and defensive line got psyched up for
the game. He gave an inspiring and expletive filled speech about his love of
football, how he liked physical contact, how he liked playing offense and
defense. He presented it with such vigor that it seemed like he was ready to
play - right then.
For some reason, I had forgotten how tough these guys were.
We were almost all working class. Half
of us were from the East End and half from the West End of town. Some played with significant physical disabilities. It was the
height of the Vietnam War and many would go into the Marines and the Army after
graduation. Many would go on to play college football. I would just catch
glimpses of their lives from time to time.
Everyone had a unique trajectory from that winning football season to
where they were on June 26. At one point
a small group asked me what my trajectory was and I told them a variation of a
story I have been telling for the past 10 years:
The only reason I ended up going to college was to play
football, be a football coach, and teach physical education. I had a football scholarship to a small
college in the area, but within a few weeks, I developed a gangrenous appendix
and was hospitalized for a week. The
coach came in and told me that the scholarship was mine even though I could not
play anymore (I had a healing surgical scar in my side that was still healing
after a drain was removed). I probably was headed to be a version of a hippy
anyway. Another professor visited me and told me to forget about Phy Ed and
football and concentrate on something else. I had excellent chemistry and biology professors and knew that I wanted to be like them and know what they knew. From there it was a change to biology and chemistry, the Peace Corps, a plant tissue culture lab and
medical school.”
That’s the short version.
There are embellishments for comedic relief and more details if anybody
wanted to hear it. I leave out the heavy
parts about being depressed to the point my grandfather showed up one day to
encourage me to stay in college and not knowing what was wrong with me until I
developed severe abdominal pain. I leave out the part about not taking a student deferment during the lottery for the draft. A high lottery number rather than a conscious decision kept me from being drafted. All part of the lack of a coherent plan. Nobody wants to hear about all of that. I
never played college football. The point
is – I would never have stepped into that sequence of events culminating in
medical school and psychiatric residency without that football scholarship. I
never would have had that football scholarship without playing with this team
and being coached by this coach. Some people will tell me that sequence of
events would have happened anyway. That I would have made it happen through another
channel. Whenever I mention being lucky on this trajectory, I encounter aphorisms
like “Luck is just preparation meeting opportunity” and others. But I really was not prepared to do anything at that point.
The only thing I was
prepared to do in high school was play football. The teaching and guidance side
was totally lacking. I can not recall a single piece of good advice that I received
from a teacher or guidance counselor in those years. And the teaching was atrocious. You showed up, put in the
time, did not create any problems and graduated from high school. The blue-collar
ethos of education. You did not have a
plan until you got to the next stage. The modern-day stories of high pressure
on high school kids to get into an Ivy League schools and parents going to
extraordinary and in some cases illegal lengths to get them in - is lost on me. I am the poster child for getting into whatever college wants you and
establishing goals after getting there.
Football was the initial pathway. At the Reunion, the coach discussed some of
his initiatives including the first strength training program at the school along
with associated competitions. I remember summer training sessions including agility
drills. I excelled in agility drills and
back and forth sprinting drills. In my senior year, I could equal or beat the
fastest running back in the agility drill even though he would beat me by a
mile in 100 meters. These summer sessions were something we all looked forward
to and it was the only planned activity in my life for the 3 years of high school. The Coach gave
us a glimpse of what it took for him to implement these plans and all of the resistance
he met along the way. That resistance came
in the form of administrators claiming that he was running afoul of certain
regulations, personality conflicts, and suggesting that he should work the
pre-season for free even though he was already undercompensated for the amount
of work he was doing. Providing me with some structure to start to get my life
together came at a considerable cost to the only guy who was doing it.
Several of my teammates provided additional stories about
the immediate benefits of coaching. How to play against a much larger man with
limited lateral movement. How to make
adjustments during the game, based on observations by coaches who were at
ground level on the side lines, attending to the injured on the sidelines, and changing overall game logistics. High school coaching is a multi-tasking job and school
districts get their money's worth from coaches.
One of the most important aspects of my life trajectory has been identifying with teachers along the way. Most of that emphasis was in college at the conscious level. But did it occur in high school football? I was never encouraged to play any sports by my father. I learned after his death that he was quite accomplished in baseball and softball in his early twenties. By the time I knew him well, he had been working a thankless job for twenty years. The only sports advice he ever gave me was: "Look - if you want to play sports be clear that you are playing it for you and not for me." He did live to see this football team and attended the end of season banquet prior to his death in 1967. I never got the chance to completely understand his sports advice, but speculate that it was from having to fish every day during The Depression to supply food for his family of origin - whether he wanted to or not.
Both of
our coaches were young men, accomplished athletes, and had unique personas. I remember
the head coach bench pressing a significant amount of weight even though he was
a quarterback in college. For the rest of my family, sports were something you
did into your early 20s and then you settled into a fairly sedentary lifestyle.
Out of college and then again out of med school I embarked on a lifelong
schedule of rigorous training for no reason other than being able to do it. That continues to this day. Would I have
logged all of this activity if I had not played high school football with this
coach? Probably not. Was there a degree of unconscious identification with this coach? Probably.
The developmental aspects of high school football are
undeniable and the stage we were all at during the reunion was undeniably
different from high school. High school male athletes are competitive either by choice
or necessity. It was probably the most significant motivator. I can remember
thinking about the difference between competing with myself and competing with
others as I was running a long sprinting drill in the 90 degree heat that occasionally
happens in northern Wisconsin. In that drill 5-10 players spread out across the
field and run out to the 5 yard line and back and then the 10 yard line and
back until they have reached the 50-yard line and back. At some point during that drill you realize
that competition is irrelevant because it really comes down to survival and in
that sense you are competing against your own physical limitations. That familiar mind set was with me for the
next several decades of cycling and speed skating. With a single exception - I
preferred to do both activities alone – just me and the rhythmic breathing and sweating
of that familiar sprinting drill.
The competitive aspects of high school sports also play out
in other ways. Clique formation, hazing, bullying, sarcastic comments, and various
forms of acting out that are expected of teenagers who we now know don’t have
fully developed brains for another 10 years. That was moderated to some extent
by the shared suffering of football. At
the Reunion it was fairly clear that there were many accomplishments over the
course of these lifetimes but also much suffering. We were all grateful to have
survived so far and saddened by the loss of our teammates who did not.
55 years had passed and, in some ways, we were a better
team.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Postscript:
If I am correct in my analysis (or not) - I am grateful to have had this experience in high school. I am grateful for my teammates many of whom I consider to be friends but also the Coach and Assistant Coach who clearly did not get enough credit for what they did. I made the common mistake of also taking that coaching for granted until I realized that my entire career may have been based on it.
The commemorative cap:
I don't want to give anyone the impression that this is an endorsement for football or other contact sports. Football is a collision sport and there is an expected morbidity associated with collisions. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is one outcome that has received a lot of press. My speculation is that spinal problems also occur as the result of spinal compression and hyperextension movements that are harder to detect due to the high prevalence of spinal problems in the general population that does not play contact sports. One of my teammates sustained a cervical spine fracture from football but it did not result in paralysis. As a psychiatrist, I have seen a significant number of people with traumatic brain injuries and severe musculoskeletal injuries from collision sports. The number of women with those injuries has increased as their exposure to these sports (soccer, lacrosse, ice hockey) has increased. I have seen young men and woman in their early 20s with significant disabilities from these injuries. In some cases they have also had severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from either the injury or the subsequent course of treatment.
