All The Field's A Stage

Randolph-Macon College yearbook 1980 A game-changing play shifts the trajectory and mood, but then the happy beneficiary has to figure out how to hang on against an increasingly desperate underdog. The team in the lead tries to slow down the pace and let the clock run out. The other team pulls out all stops to get back in the game. This push-me pull-you dynamic is tension heightening for players on both sides of the ball. My college football coach was particularly adept at holding onto a lead. On third down he sometimes inserted a running back who'd been a punter in high school to deliver a quick kick that assured poor field position for the other team. Then he'd put in the "prevent" defense with more backs than linemen who would keep the other team from making any long plays. He'd eat up the clock by only calling running plays in the center of the field, keeping an out-of-bounds play from stopping the clock. These stall tactics were frustrating for both teams and...

A game often proceeds with small victories and, for the other side, defeats until a single thrilling play shifts momentum. From the sidelines it might appear to be an amazing athletic feat by an outstanding player, and sometimes it is: A stolen pass and full court layup; An upper deck home run by a big hitter off an unstoppable pitcher; A field length sprint and goal while dribbling through half the other team; A leaping interception returned all the way for a touchdown. More often the decisive play has been painstakingly set up by a conniving coach. My college baseball manager at Louisville had us practice an unusual pick-off play in which the pitcher fakes a throw to the shortstop covering second base, only to then make the throw to the second baseman sneaking in behind a distracted runner. We simulated this fielding situation every day despite it being a rare one. Then, when a game against rival Kentucky was in the balance in the late innings, the coach gave the sign and we pulled o...

Randolph-Macon College Yearbook 1980 The only problem with using the ball as a mantra is that all players on both teams have that same focus. In team sports there are occasionally blowouts in which one side dominates completely from start to finish. I've been on both sides of such lopsided games, winning decisively from the first inning on in high school baseball and losing big after fumbling the ball on the first play of a college football game. The sheer joy of a romp is in equal and opposite measure to the absolute dejection of being stomped, and that feeling of letting down coaches and teammates lasts exactly until the chance for redemption in the next game. Most matches proceed with a mundane back and forth on the field or court. The crowd in the stands fills in the lulls by cheering or booing plays, making noise to muffle play calling, screaming at bad calls, or moaning about coaching choices. Players hear none of this and instead endure the uncertainty by creating small vict...

  Randolph-Macon College Yearbook 1980 After the coin toss decides who gets the ball first, the captains jog back to the sideline and the real tension begins.  Coaches whisper final instructions or shout commands like "get on your game face!" The starting players take positions on the field and try not to piss their pants. Score keepers ready their pencils as all eyes go to the referee or umpire holding the ball, and finally there's a focus for all that nervous energy.  As the player who caught the opening kickoff or hit the baseball first, I learned early on that latching onto that ball as it passed from referee to kicker or from umpire to pitcher displaced all distractions. The ball flying end-over-end down the field or spiraling out of a pitcher's hand became the mantra for overcoming performance anxiety and beginning the game.  The only problem is that all players on both teams have that same focus.

Bound Brook High School Echo 1976   Into the post-anthem stillness slink the pre-game rituals. Players slip on last-minute pads as much for luck as protection. They don't look at the cheerleaders, but are acutely aware when and by whom their name is called. A few stretch, dribble, or run a high-stepping sprint beside the bench. Ball handlers spray Stick-Um onto hands and forearms. For the best teams the personal rituals coalesce.  I was on a high school baseball team, the red and white Bound Brook Crusaders, that started out having a mediocre season at three wins and two losses. Before the next game an old man who had just retired showed up with a giant pack of Big Red. On his way to man the old wooden scoreboard along the right field foul line he slipped a spicy stick of the new chewing gum to each player along the home bench. Then he boomed "GO BIG RED" before our at-bats that produced more runs each inning than in any previous game. After that romp over a rival team, t...

Bound Brook High School Echo 1976 A coach pulls open the double doors and sounds take over:      First silence as movement catches attention;       Spikes clatter on concrete or sneakers slap the boards as players file out;      A murmur arises as more turn to watch uniformed young bodies clumping beside the field or court;  It builds to a roar as the team, at a signal from a captain or coach, jogs to the sideline, mostly silent except for a few screamers slapping backs.  A drum roll grabs all ears before lone trumpets launch into the Star Spangled Banner, teams and audience alike scrambling to pull off head gear and stand facing the flag. The song is interminable as everyone struggles to remain motionless, all the while stealing glances at the size of the other team. The band concludes to another round of cheers for them, for the song, for it being over, for the start of the game.   The playing of the national anthem...

(Bound Brook High School Echo 1976) That's what a player literally senses at the start of a game as the team bunches inside a locker room door.  Someone forgot their clean socks and is wearing a moldy pair. Another is superstitious and won't wash their lucky undershorts. At least one of the toilets down the hall doesn't flush. Add the menthol bite of liniment and the aerosolized sweetness of pre-tape spray to the isovaleric acidity of excitement and there you have it, locker room stench.  The smells are enough to knock somebody over, but not these bodies. Some bounce back-and-forth on sweaty feet. Others joke about the partying they'll be doing that night. At least one will go around grabbing a teammate from behind and popping their back. Still others will hide to the side, turning more pale as the minutes tick away until game time. The crowding together of heated players starts to feel oppressive, like the feeling in a sauna when you've had enough steam and despera...

(Randolph-Macon College yearbook 1979)        "And all the men and women meerely Players". Thus begins a monologue in Shakespeare's As You Like It, and so shall this exposé on what it feels like to be an athlete in front of a crowd.       I've tried and failed to convey this conflicting sense of fear and power, of agony and jubilation, of mud and magic in various fictional stories, interest usually lost at the moment of describing a game situation, something inscrutable or even insufferable to the uninitiated. The posts that follow will shift the narrative to the inner dialogue of someone who's played several sports at all but the professional level.       The stories will walk, no run the reader through the stages of a game from an athlete's perspective:   The sensual entry onto the playing field;  Pre-game rituals culminating in the start of play;  Creation of a mantra to narrow focus to the play at hand;...