This column originally appeared in May 2009.
I know a sports enthusiast who loves Indianapolis Colts football. I mentioned to him once that I had gone to high school with two players who had achieved NFL stardom: Larry Brown, and Francis Peay.
“Franny” as he was called, was a first round draft pick of the New York Giants in 1966. After nine years in the NFL and a stint as the head coach at Northwestern University, he came to the Colts in 1992, as an assistant coach. That excited my friend, but I have a memory of Franny that makes me shudder.
As a freshman in high school, I aced the President’s Physical Fitness Test. I ran faster, threw a softball farther and did a longer broad jump than anyone else in my class. (The “broad jump” is now called the “long jump.” I don’t know why.) Those accomplishments caused my science teacher to badger me.
Mr. Fisher also coached the football team. My exploits, convinced him that I would be a good candidate for the gridiron. He kept me at his desk, in front of the class, urging me to “go out” for football.
“Coach: I’m a swimmer.”
Coach grumbled about that, but I was embarrassed to have to stand in front of the class every science period. A deal was struck: I would try it for two weeks, and if I didn’t like it, I could quit. Hey — I was a guy: what real guy would not love football?
On our football team, underclassmen were “scrubs.” A “scrub” was an indentured servant, wholly subordinate to the lettermen. This bit of info was not included in Fisher’s pitch.
My first step into the conditioning room brought a thrown chair. Scrubs entered the room by crawling under a red line painted 12 inches from the floor. Scrubs were not told this in advance: discovery was by broken chair, or wet towel-snap. Things got better. The “running through tires” drill included a pounding with the blocking pads, wielded like baseball bats. Other conditioning brought about the inability to walk, a sign of the man being born in me. (Think “Alien” clawing from your belly.)
Coach Fisher put a 6’ 1,” 125 pound splinter in a room with the giants. I lacked even the most rudimentary knowledge of football, which was proven quickly in one exercise, where I was driven through a wooden door. How much fun was this? So I dogged it, and the big boys didn’t care. I was too little.
I was leaning against the wall one day, near the door, watching the big dogs eat, when the sun went out. I glanced to my right, and a chest was coming through the door.
Francis Peay’s playing stats were: 6’ 5”, 250 pounds, a whopping 4” and 125 pounds greater than me. On this day, chest was followed by arm and then, the whole man. He looked down at me.
“What are you doing?
Guys — when the little lady asks you if those pants make her butt look big, you know how any answer will kill you? I was at that moment. The truth- “Nothing,” meant death. An obvious lie would result in: death.
I whirled and dove onto a pile of sweating bodies, inventing the mosh pit as I surfed across the grunting monsters.
Franny went on to glory at the University of Missouri; I went on to an undistinguished career in the water. Coach Fisher understood: he’d heard the reports. But I don’t think he knew that “fear of Franny” was going to keep me forever on the football sidelines.
cjon3acd@att.net