The Walk-On

A True Story

By

Alexi Mersentes

All Rights Reserved ©

I dedicate this to my mother ‘Cece’ Wilma Mersentes-Williams

The chair comes at my head impossibly fast. It’s one of those chromed, metal-frame ones, you know, typical cheap but sturdy seating you find in any hotel convention room. Chairs fly in every direction and smack off reinforced windows. Dozens of huge men bounce fists and feet off each others heads and bodies. The speed, power, and ferocity of the fight would render a bystander speechless and terrified, but I’m no bystander. These are my teammates. I’m a football player, and in 48 hours this brawling mass is going to play The Alabama Crimson Tide for the National Championship in the USF&G Sugar Bowl, January 1st, 1993.

And yes, as you guessed, there’s just a little bit of backstory about how I ended up in the middle of that scrum.

Steelers vs. Rams. Super Bowl XIV, January 20th, 1980.

I’m almost seven. It’s the first football game I watch. That night begins a life-long love affair with a sport that has come to define our nation. We are a tough nation. Football is, above all other things, a tough sport. The toughest kids play it, and the tougher you are, the better you will be at it.

Toughness.

One of my high school football coaches, the loved and venerable ‘Coach V’, told me before a game as he taped my ankles (one of which was still healing from a 3rd degree sprain two weeks earlier that only kept me out of one preseason scrimmage) that I was a tough kid. I took that as one of the best compliments a coach could give. I wasn’t the fastest, but I was tough quick and had a 6th sense when on the field, and I could be mean once the helmet was strapped on. Once you’ve got toughness down, you need something else. You need to love hitting. I mean you have to crave tackling. When your coaches announce that today you’re doing a live ‘pit drill’ (one-on-one or two-on-two with a running back all played between the boundaries of tackling dummies), you’ve got to be thinking about it until the very second you line up. And you will be first in the pit. You will be first, because it means you will get to go twice, if not three times. All you want to do is go full speed and hit someone. You crave controlled team violence.

The first time I put on a football helmet was in 3rd grade, which was the first year you were allowed to play full-contact in my community of Scarsdale, NY. Because we had so many kids in my town we didn’t have Pop Warner which drew from many areas. Instead, we had the five elementary schools play each other. 3rd and 4th grade were combined.

A week before the season started there was this big weigh-in at the Middle School gymnasium where all the kids (3rd to 8th grade) met early one Autumn Saturday morning. The purpose of this weigh-in was to discover which kids were over a certain weight. If a kid reached a weight threshold, they’d be given an ‘X’—literally a giant black electrical-tape X on the back of their gleaming white helmet. It meant you had to be a lineman, and couldn’t touch the ball in any way (well, unless you played center).

There I stood, ready to get on the scale, fathers all around me, in my tighty whities, hoping that somehow just being in my underwear would shed the extra few pounds I needed to be eligible.

Nothing could help me.

I was 8lbs over the limit.

Couldn’t even get the feared ‘XX’ which meant all you could do was play center, the worst position for a kid who just wanted to tackle people could play.

All hope was not lost. It appeared a committee of fathers was going to work out a compromise, but one of the fathers of the feared Edgewood team; the only team with emblems on their plain white helmets (blue eagle wings) and coaches who wore headsets (to talk with other coaches sitting up on the hill) made an unholy stink about how he didn’t want his son playing against the frightening likes of me. He went on and on how I was a danger to all the kids due to my size and aggressiveness (I already had a bit of a reputation).

This argument happened right in front of my face while I stood there still in my underwear. That father was a real loud mouth and my mother had to stick up for me since my own father lived in the city and his idea of a good time didn’t include dealing with the petty politics of pewee football.

I thought my mom might scratch his eyes out. My ancestors spent their time working coal mines since medieval times (Wales), Viking Blood from the Baltics coursing through their veins, and killing invaders before the guy in Jerusalem showed up (Sparta), and then the Nazis later on. We don’t try to be tough, we just are. Hardy, strong, we can be mean, and…we can hold a grudge for a looooooong time. Not hatred or spite, but a good healthy and reasonable grudge. I never forgot that man or his son. We never met on the football field because the kid stopped playing when we reached high school, but I did lay an elbow into his sternum in a full-speed collision on the lax field years later. Put him down and out for ten minutes. That still makes me smile even though he wasn’t a bad guy.

So I had to sit out the season. I was still on the team, but I couldn't practice or play in games. I was the ballboy. It sucked. It was one of my earliest experiences with disappointment, but it taught me a lesson in patience and how to deal with being disappointed. I wanted to just quit, not even show up for the games, but my mother thought that I should stick with it, so I attended practice and wore my jersey during games watching all the other kids have fun.

The next season when I entered 4th grade, the fathers came up with a plan: I would be playing a year ahead, meaning, I played with the 5th graders who had their own league instead of it being a combination of grades. I was still an X, but I could play and I was a wrecking ball. They told me to get the quarterback and kill the ball carrier. That was the extent of my coaching. I remember those cold rainy Saturday mornings like they were yesterday. I can smell the grass and taste the oranges we ate at halftime. Gatorade was just becoming a big deal and I chugged the green-tinted liquid from the dimpled glass bottle. The more mud and sludge and sloppiness, the more and more I fell in love with the game.

Between 4th and 5th grade, I attend Joe Namath Football Camp at Quinnipack College in Connecticut. Namath never even showed as far as I remember but there were some pros attending, though none were big names. There wasn’t a lot of hitting until the scrimmage on the last day. During the scrimmage, I accidentally grabbed the facemask of some kid playing offensive line who I had been beating all day. It was hardly a tug, but afterwards as the two teams were shaking hands, the kid hit me in the back of my shoulder pads with his helmet after I slapped hands with him in line.

I went…apeshit. I still had my helmet on (a must when involved in a football fight) and bodyslammed the kid then pummeled his face and started crying as I pounded away. I was so mad that this kid attacked me from behind, especially after we slapped hands like good sportsmen. It was an inexcusable crime in my mind. They had to pry me off the kid. He had a bloody nose and scratches on his face.

When 5th grade began, I was playing with the 6th graders. Van Hallen’s 1984 was always spinning on my ancient record player along with Motley Crue’s Shout At The Devil, Quiet Riot’s Metal Health, and the epic Def Leopard album Hysteria.

Everyone was getting bigger, including myself. The games were more intense and the hitting you could hear. Clanking pads and smashing helmets. That season was also the first time I hurt someone on the field. He was the QB of the feared Edgewood Eagles. On a pass play I just burst through the line and crushed the QB. When I think about it, how hard could’ve the hit really been, but there he was, down and whimpering. It turns out the QB was the brother of a friend of my sister, who was in the 9th grade. The next week I hurt a kid on my own team in practice who had a sibling my sister was also friends with. I became some kind of villain and I liked it.

Now this brings up the debate about pain, hurt, and injury. I enjoyed putting others in pain on the football field, even at a young age. I even enjoyed hurting them. If you hit someone hard enough (a foundation of the game of football) they will be in pain and possibly hurt (God knows I’ve been on the pain/hurt side of the equation a hundred times). Pain and hurt you get over. Injury is a different story. Injury lasts. You NEVER go out there trying to injure someone. That’s the darkside. I have only injured one player on the field (that I know of) and it turned out to be appropriate payback. Wasn’t on purpose, but if anyone ever deserved it, it was that kid. More on that later.

By the time 6th grade rolls around, I’ve been shipped off to an all-boys boarding school in the middle of nowhere Connecticut. There are no X’s or any restrictions. My dream of being a ball carrier comes true. They put me at fullback. I fumble a lot and never score a touchdown (although I tell all my friends back home that I’m a prolific TD machine). What I remember most about that season is how I play most of the year with only one shoulder pad strap and learn that my quickness is one of my greatest strengths. We also practice every day as opposed to the one day of practice back in Scarsdale.

For 7th grade, I decide the boarding school life isn’t for me and I’m back home and now playing with the 8th graders, but at 200lbs, I’m now…a XX.

Even though all my football playing up until then I played both offensive and defensive line, if I had to pick one, there was never any doubt I’d pick defense. Defense is just my state of mind. Being forced to only play offensive line, and worse, center, becomes another lesson in dealing with life when it doesn’t go your way. You suck it up, don’t complain too much, and look to the horizon when things will be different, and most importantly, how you want them to be. So I snapped the ball and plowed into whoever was in front of me.

The moment that stands out most about that season is a sorry field goal attempt in the last game. Make the kick, win the game, take first place and go undefeated. We only kicked two extra points all season and we hardly practiced them. Going for ‘2’ was the norm, and we’d NEVER even tried a field goal, let alone practiced it.

Our coach called a timeout and had me practice the snap on the sidelines. One out of three snaps got to the holder and that was on a roll. I remember the frustration as my bulky blue facemask and shoulder pads wouldn’t allow me to look between my legs. It was essentially a blind snap.

When the play goes live I overcompensate, snap the ball too high, and it lands 10-yards away. The other team recovers. Game over. I sulk to the sidelines and throw my helmet. The pads inside dislodge and go flying. The coach yells at me. It is the one and only time I ever throw my helmet.

8th grade year rolls around it’s like a ‘60s/70s revival happens to my entire grade. We’re all suddenly little Dead Heads. Tie-dies are the coolest thing. Led Zeppelin comes into my life in a big way. The Doors, The Who, anything Classic Rock. I also faced another year of sitting on the sidelines. I couldn’t even be a XX. To this day, I am not certain how it all got worked out, but a special waiver is made for me: I will play on Scarsdale High School’s Freshman football team as an 8th grader (SHS).

To my knowledge such a waiver had never been done before or since. It made sense. Those 9th graders were my teammates. I had never played a down of football with my own age group. I was big and strong enough to play with the older kids. And now there were no restrictions.              

2

Going to SHS for that first practice was a little overwhelming, but as has been the case with most of my life, I just went with the flow and fought against the urge to run away. That year at boarding school helped. It taught me a lot about independence and believing in myself, plus, I’d already gotten used to showering as a team, sharing bathrooms, and just general locker room behaviors. I knew of guys who wanted to play high school ball, but couldn’t deal with the locker room aspect, which is as much a part of football as tackling. You’ve got to be a ‘locker room guy’. You’ve got to like hanging around. The best players don’t just check in and check out, they immerse themselves in the program.

Being the youngest on the freshman team meant some of the guys picked on me, mostly the ones from Edgewood, but it was the kind of ribbing you’d get from an older brother. Sitting in that old gymnasium on that warm September day getting our equipment from the dank and dingy supply room is a very vivid scene. A new and fascinating world had opened up to me. Finding a big enough helmet was an issue since I had the biggest head and barely fit into a 7-7/8th Ridell, which was the largest helmet the school had.

For the first week we just ware helmets and learn the system. Our coaches are a father and son duo named the Ianellos; aka coach ‘Big I’ and ‘Little I’. Coach Big I could be one of the funniest people in the world; short, squat, very old-school and full of sayings like ‘stop lollygagging’ and ‘you’re loafing it, you’re loafing it!’. He could also be very mean when you screwed up over and over.

In that first week I showed the coaches that I was not only big, but quick and strong. I was also easily coached. I didn’t just listen to the coaching, I absorbed it, cloned it, replicating the techniques with precision by believing in what they taught.

Now a word about quickness. In football a lot of emphasis is put on speed, but there are men in the Hall Of Fame who got there because they were quick, not necessarily fast. If Point A and Point B are separated by five-yards, I could get between the two points fast anyone. If separated by ten-yards, that’s a different story because that’s when speed comes into play. In college I got clocked at a 4.89 40-yard dash after working hard and having a little breeze at my back, and at UM that is pretty darn slow, but in an actual game, when the lines on the field are fresh and the scoreboard ticks, I had another set of gears that could only be called up under the pressure of gametime.

After that first week of just wearing helmets and then shoulder pads (called ‘uppers’) I find myself at starting left defensive tackle and starting left offensive tackle.

When we finally put the pads on and lined up for our first live practice with the starting defense out there on the field, I saw the game in a way I had never seen it before. The best I can describe it, is…that I saw space. Space between me and the person across the line; space between the offensive linemen. With my quickness, I could almost instantly be in the backfield, or go crashing down the line to make a tackle. I would do whatever it took to get whoever had the ball.

But that’s not how good football is played, especially when you are in a VERY conservative program like the SHS Raiders. Varsity Head Coach Dick Paladino deployed a 5-2-4 defense that would’ve made Knute Rockne proud. You played a gap and that was that. No blitzing. No stunts. Discipline, technique, pursuit, and execution was our mantra. Do your job. No freelancing. That didn’t mean you couldn’t do great things, it meant if you were supposed to be in B gap, you were there no matter what, even if you knew the play was going into C gap. Understanding this is key to football. It’s chess, essentially, real-time battle chess. The other side is going to adapt and know you’re a freelancer. They will know you won’t be in B gap because you’re gonna jump into C gap because you’re 100% sure the play is going there. Soon enough, freelancing just doesn’t work any more and you lack the foundation of technique and discipline to fall back on and end up getting benched.

It’s called being a team player, and since football is the ultimate team sport, if you're not a team player, your career, no matter how good you are, will be short.

For my first high school game, I padded every part of my body. I even wore rib guards and my arms were padded to my triceps. I wore shinguards. Of course everyone made fun of me and rightfully so. By the second game I had ditched everything, even the arm guards.

That freshman season one moment really stands out. We only played seven games and they were on Friday afternoon (the worst time in my mind to play a football game, and I’m not talking Friday Night Lights, I’m talking 3:30pm. Later you will hear how a Friday afternoon game became the most frustrating day in my playing history).

So it was a home game, third of the season. Fall was in full swing. There are few fields more majestic and beautiful than SHS’s football surface named Dean Field. On that field, built against a hill creating a natural amphitheater on the ‘home’ side, surrounded by woods of sycamore, oak, and elm blazing the glorious colors of Fall, grass long, green, and always a little slick, I made my first big play.

The other team ran a sweep towards our sideline (away from me). Almost instantaneously I appeared and grabbed the ball carrier by the shoulders, and with all my speed and force, tossed him into my coaches six-yards behind the line of scrimmage. I don’t know how I got there. It was beyond thought. More like a reflex. Coach Big I rushed out onto the field, patted me hard on the head and said over and over How the hell did you make that play?

Most football players will tell you that once they strap on the pads and helmet, they are a different person able to do things they would never be able to do without that almost magical equipment. I’d throw my body around that field without care for my wellbeing. In a game, that reckless abandon and ability was 10x more potent.

In a game, I had different speed and strength than I did in practice. In those official confines when the score mattered, with the refs and ticking clock and freshly-lined grass, orange pylons and fans, once that first whistle blew alerting everyone the game had started, I could do anything, as some un-measurable quantum-slice in reality tore open, bending time and space so that seconds felt like years, and at the same time three hours could be over in the blink of an eye. That’s what playing in a game felt like to me—some kind of mystical, temporal abnormality—a unique altered state of awareness not to be replicated anywhere else but on that field.

Our last game was at home and by that time of year it was pitch dark by 5pm. The game got a delayed start due to the visiting team being late. It got so dark, that a few minutes into the 4th Quarter the game was called. We won and went undefeated. Not a great accomplishment for a freshman football team, but it showed that we had good players who would make an impact at the varsity level in a few years.

After that last game I wasn’t going home, no, it was Halloween night and there was trouble to get into to.

Earlier that week a portion of the 8th grade took a field trip to SHS for an orientation that included a speech by two local police detectives. I asked a question: Is it illegal to set off fireworks on Halloween? Everyone laughed as one of the detectives said: ‘It’s illegal everyday.’

I had all my gear for the night in a duffel bag I left in my football locker. I would be meeting friends at a park not too far from the high school.

Westchester County IS the epicenter of Halloween. I mean, after all, it is home to Icabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. The Autumn energy and darkness is very strong that time of year. Truly a majestic and spooky experience. I remember getting ready in the woods right off Dean Field—streaking my face with camo paint and buttoning up my woodland camo jacket which I wore with black cargo pants. (Oh, did I fail to mention that I was one of those kids who lived for everything military and whose favorite place to shop was an surplus ArmyNavy store?)

I stuffed my chest pockets with a few packs of firecrackers and the coveted ‘jumpingjacks’, readied my black bike messenger bag which held my meager supply of bottle rockets, four cans of shaving cream, sweatpants and t-shirt, and with 30 minutes to kill, found a rock and sat there in the woods, happily alone on the cool, blustery mysterious night.

I met my friends (which in the age of no cell phones was no small accomplishment) and we set out to…to do what? I’m still not sure. We just walked around, set off a few firecrackers and tried sipping Bourbon from one-ounce bottles of liquor you get from an airplane. There were 7-8 of us. We wrote our names with shaving cream in the street and walked, and walked…and walked some more. We finally looped back around to an area called Greenacres because that’s where Zak lived where a bunch of us would be sleeping. We came across a group of older kids. They fired bottle rockets at us. We all scattered as an unmarked police car rolled up.

‘Commandoing’ as we called it, meant hurling ourselves over fences and hiding in the bushes from the cops. The mindset was that under no circumstances were you to be caught by a 5-0. I loved the rush. This cat and mouse with the police happened four more times. Each time they backed off and we were bugging out less and less.

The 5th time they came out of nowhere. I was bringing up the rear of our group. Everyone scattered into the darkness. I was convinced the police wouldn’t stop me, so I kept strolling down the street.

When they flashed their lights and put the moonbeam on me, for a split second I considered running. I could already hear them getting out of their car. My back was turned to them. I could’ve made a break for it. They’d need a helicopter with a 5-million-candle spotlight to find me.

But I didn’t run and it turned out the men behind me were the detectives who I’d asked the fireworks question to. When they realized it was me, they shook their heads in shame.

They patted me down and pulled half-used packs of firecrackers out from my pockets; every time saying: ‘Oh, look what we have here?’ and ‘Didn’t we tell you it was illegal?’. One of them, rightfully so, called me a dumbass. When they pulled out a little liquor bottle they laughed. I told them it wasn’t for drinking but to set little fires. Somehow in my 13-year-old mind that was much better than if I were drinking it.

Then they drove me home. I begged them to let me off down the street or just in front of my house, anything other than bringing me to the front door.

Not a chance, they said.

Being in the back of that unmarked police car, dreading disappointing my mother, feeling stupid for being caught—it was a feeling and situation I NEVER wanted to be in again. I decided to never again get caught doing dumb things. (The idea to not do dumb things didn’t occur to me.)

Upon opening the front door, my mother’s face was one of total fear and anger. I must’ve looked like a real mess. First thing she yells, “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

No, mom, I didn’t burn down a house or kill anyone.

The police calmed her, said it wasn’t a big deal. They left and that was that. What hurt most was injuring my mother’s trust. She let me do pretty much whatever I wanted, only voicing a strong opinion about something when it needed adult input. I mostly raised myself. She trusted that I knew how to do the right thing. And 98% the time she was right. I wasn’t doing anything bad that night, nor would I. Just having some fun. But whatever I did do was against the law, and it was a big synchronicity being busted by the very same officers I asked the question to.

This was a big life lesson (don’t get arrested again) and a cosmic lesson—you know, that little wink the universe gives you that mainstream reality calls coincidence. I think that through the actions of life, the universe is communicating with us. Sometimes it’s a subtle nudge. Sometimes it’s a shout in the face. I’ve found that the more aware of the synchronous event we are, the more likely synchronicity is to happen again. It’s like a test. Fail the test too many times, and that cosmic connectedness we humans have many names for might amp down the lesson-plan due to our lack of awareness, our lack of playing along. Back then I wasn’t thinking that deeply about it, but I did take notice and thought it was funny and weird about the detectives.

My mother never grounded me. Maybe she should’ve, but I was on my own. I was an independent kid who could pretty much do whatever I wanted. This episode wouldn’t ruin her trust in me. I tried really hard not to test it again.

Two weeks later was the big Varsity bowl game. They were 9-1 and ready to play in the main Section-1 Bowl Game against an undefeated team.

(Back then, NY State didn’t have a state championship in football. Instead, it was based on the college bowl system. The two best teams from ‘Section-1’, which was the combination of Westchester and Rockland Counties, were picked to play each other. The number three team would play number four, number five vs. six, but there would be no brackets or playoff. One game and it was over. There were three ‘leagues’ of seven teams in Section-1, which had the biggest schools based on enrollment. Section-2 and Section-3 contained the smaller schools from Westchester and Rockland and each had their own bowl games. And yes, there was a lot of politics involved.)

For the game, the Scarsdale Raiders would be facing the much-feared North Rockland Red Raiders.

It was a cold November night at the antiquated 1930s stadium in Mt. Vernon called Memorial Field. All the bowl games were played there with the marquee matchup under the lights. Around the mostly dirt field was a track filled with fine grey gravel. There were 5000+ people there. We even had to buy tickets. It felt so Big Time to me.

The game was a back and forth battle. Our best player, the legendary Larry Holloway rushed for 150-yards while North Rockland’s best player Derrick Lassic ran for an equal amount. Our QB was Chris Cochran who went on to start at Cornell and be a backup in the NFL. During the game, gangs of fans would rush around the track and curse out the other fans. Big brawls ensued that if happening in this day and age would get millions of YouTube views and lots of media coverage. But back then, it all just faded away. I got mixed up in one brawl but neither got hit nor hit anyone. One vivid memory is seeing a tough-guy senior named Kurt stagger around with a golf-ball-sized welt under his eye. I had never seen anything like it.

North Rockland won a double overtime game using the legs of Derrick Lassic. As destiny and Loki would have it, it wouldn’t be the last time this great running back beat me. (Full game https://youtu.be/CBCjwZmg1U4?si=QD85IJJO38Cs_zx8)

3

Freshman year of high school. A big moment for every American kid. You’re on your way to becoming an adult. You’re a full-fledged teenager. SHS is a unique school. It’s run by its own School Board and therefore does not have to comply with county or state rules when it comes to education. This also means the district receives no state money, so the town’s taxes must be extra high to compensate for the lack of funding.    

SHS is a very liberal learning environment and it’s not unheard of for half the graduating to class to move on to Ivy League schools and other top colleges and universities around the country. Back in the day, SHS also had an open campus, meaning you could leave whenever you liked without telling a soul. You could also smoke outside anywhere you wanted. It wasn’t uncommon to see 14-year-olds lighting up after lunch and chain-smoking till next period.

As for me, the decision was made that as a freshman I would be playing Junior Varsity. That meant I would now take part in my first preseason two-a-days football experience.

All across the nation, high school football begins sometime in mid or early August depending on where you are. For the SHS Raiders it meant two weeks when players reported at 9am and spent the next eight hours immersed in football. At Scarsdale, the JV and the Varsity teams practiced together. While most kids either drove themselves or carpooled, I got dropped off by my mother and was picked up by her at 6pm. Thankfully, she worked locally and could accommodate my schedule. Sometimes I carpooled.

So you practice in the morning, eat lunch, and rest for two hours during the heat of the day, then practice again starting at 3pm for 2.5 hours. The first few days you wear just your helmet and work on basic football fundamentals like keeping your head up when tackling, three-point-stance, and other tedious, but vital things. Then you put shoulder pads on. The first day of full pads is on Saturday and that’s just a single practice. The whole experience is about team bonding and of course getting in ‘football shape’.

Unintentionally I become team joker. At the time I had two pet ferrets. When roaming around, one thing they loved to do was steal the cheek pads out of my helmet. Try using that as an excuse in front of the entire team as to why you need to run back inside and visit the equipment room.

If we were supposed to wear ‘uppers’, I’d come out in full pads. Full pads…I’d come out in only uppers. The coaches let a lot slide because they liked me and I was the youngest of everyone.

During preseason was when I got the nickname that is still with me to this day. In August, a friend and I jumped on a Metro North train to NYC and picked up a pair of fake IDs on 42nd Street. To be sure, these weren’t fake drivers licenses, no, these were Employee Identification cards (whatever those are). There was a birthdate on it claiming I was 21 (because 9th-graders need their Zima and wine coolers, dammit!).

That was it. I handed over $25, and, was now in my mind…legal. The name I chose, on a whim, was…Wes Mercer. That day in the gym, I showed it off to someone and instantly was no longer Alexi, but Wes or Wesley.

My first preseason was also when I got introduced to my most hated part of the football experience: conditioning.

The last 20 minutes of every practice was dedicated to running. Sometimes we’d sprint for a 120 yards, jog the 52-yards across the back of the endzones, then sprint another 120. We did this six times. Other times we’d sprint 100, then 80, 60, 40, 20-yards six times, then 10-yards 10-times. I fucking dreaded it and there was hardly a practice that went by where I wasn’t thinking ahead to the conditioning. It’s one of the few things I would do differently. I spent too much energy wondering what run we would do, how I could get out of it, how I would survive.

Once we put the full pads on, I found myself lining up against 18-year-old seniors. I held my own and made plays. When a live hitting drill was announced, I’d jump right in there; an eager pup. That got the coach’s attention, though it wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to tackle someone and go full speed. In one of those drills was when I experienced my first real pain on the football field.

It was a pit drill. Two defensive linemen against two offensive. Behind the O-linemen was a running back. The coaches would tell him where to go and someone would yell ‘Hike!’. I threw my man to the side, launched myself into the hole, and came head to head with the junior who was starting fullback. His name was Lou Henry and he was a strong stout kid. He went down hard when I tackled him, but his helmet caught me under the shoulder pad, right side. They call it a ‘stinger’. I call it the worst pain in the world. The only thing that makes it okay is that it goes away in a few minutes because it’s a nerve kinda pain, but when it’s burning, the agony is all consuming, like someone hit your brachical plexus nerve with a ballpeen hammer.

Early the second week of two-a-days, some shocking news hits: Larry Holloway, the best Varsity player and one of the few players in school history with a legitimate shot at going to a major Div-1 school on full scholarship and starting (like Notre Dame, Miami, Ohio State) is suddenly not at the team stretching before practice. Rumors fly. Finally it filters down to me that he has been shipped off to rehab. His football career at SHS is over.

I never did get the full story of what happened to him. He became a ghost, a legend. Larry was one of the few black players on the team, and few black kids in the whole school. SHS was decidedly white, upper middle class (now-a-days it is fully super .01%, unlike in the ‘70s and ‘80s when you could still buy a house in the town for under a $50,000). Everyone loved Larry. He was good-looking, funny, cool. We idolized him. It was a shock and a big lessons in just how ‘real’ life could be in high school.

To make up for the big Holloway loss, the best player on our JV team, Andrew Brennan, was moved up to Varsity. It was a huge honor and big deal for a sophomore to play Varsity. And very rare. That was my trajectory too, but Coach ‘I’ was sure to let me know that was not a forgone conclusion, especially if I didn’t do some growing up. (Coach I and his son were now the JV coaches as two new coaches were brought in to coach the freshman team).

The season is a blur with frames and scenes of clarity. Something new we’re all introduced to is the tradition of going out to dinner on Friday night before the team meeting later on in the evening, as well as the pre-game breakfast and after-game team dinner. It is also when I get introduced to a curfew. A coach may or may not call on Friday night at 10pm to make sure you are home. If you weren’t, you'd be sitting out tomorrow’s game.

Being that most 10th graders couldn’t drive, most of the kids went home for dinner and then were driven by a parent or carpool back to the gym for the night meeting. But there were two guys on the team who could drive. Our QB Kevin Walsh, and a junior named Michael Gerardi who, because it was his first year playing, was forced to play a year of JV first. It had nothing to do with his skill. He was good enough to play Varsity, but that was SHS Raiders head coach Dick Paladino’s policy.

Eleven of us would somehow pile into the two cars (I was always riding shotgun with Gerardi in his Honda Prelude), go to some fast-food place, then chase each other around, breaking speed limits and every driving rule I can think of. It was pure madness. We were free and invincible. We would spit at each others cars, throw cans of coke, and play tag through the windows. I loved every second of it. Somehow we didn’t die in a tragic fiery wreck.

Beyond the reckless car tag, three events really stand out that season.

It was after the first game. Practice. We had two quarterbacks: Kevin Walsh and Jared. As much as I liked and respected Kevin (and he would go on to start and win many games as Varsity QB), Jared had epic potential. 6’3, lanky, fast, tough, and as a pitcher in baseball, he had a canon for an arm…but, his football attitude was terrible. He also would’ve made a great WR. Kevin throwing to Jared could’ve become something.

The Scarsdale Raider philosophy wasn’t always about putting the best player on the field. You had to have a lot more going on. You had to be a good team player. Kevin was a leader and a student of the game. Jared smoked cigarettes before practice and seemed like he didn’t give a shit. So at practice, suddenly, next thing I know, Jared is telling Coach I to go fuck himself at the top of his lungs. He throws his helmet, tears off his jersey and pads, and walks off the field, giving everyone the finger and he was off the team.

Next vivid memory is of a soggy Saturday afternoon game against Fox Lane High School, at their field. It was my first game at the position I would play almost exclusively over the next four years: NoseGuard.

I know this might sound like my ego is taking over in a big way, but if the toughest, funnest, smartest, coolest, most important guys on the field in my humble opinion are the D-linemen, then most important of that group in a 5-2 scheme is the NoseGuard, or if it’s a 4-3 scheme, the D-tackles are the most important.

One tried and true foundation of football for many decades has been that if you can run up the middle, you will win. It means that if you can just hand the ball off to the running back and have him smash up in there between the guards, gaining 3-5 yards a play, you now have a very stable platform to execute your gameplan. From the NFL to high school, this is the rule of law. A good NoseGuard can disrupt that plan, and if that man can get to the quarterback (since he has the shortest distance to go) your defense has already won two major battles before the ball is even snapped. I became the plug in the middle of the field. Plus, I could rush the passer thanks to my almost ‘6th Sense’ ability to know if it was a pass or run in the millisecond after the ball was snapped.

Before the game, Coach Little I pointed out Fox Lane’s center and asked me if I was scared. The center was huge, and like me, a freshman playing on his JV team. I remember him looking like the 1980s wrestler Bam Bam Biggalo, huge and round; face smooshed into his helmet; giant red cheeks and squinty eyes looking back at me.

The NoseGuard is the tip of the defensive spear. He is just inches from the ball, and every play he is going against two, sometimes even three people. The noseman must have a quick first and second move, like a good ‘swim technique’ (when you punch the opposing player’s right shoulder pad with your left hand, and simultaneously move right foot past his left foot while swinging right arm in a freestyle-swimming motion over his pads, elbow him in the back, and make the play. I became a master of this move).

In that game against Fox Lane, I had eight sacks (six solo) and numerous tackles behind the line of scrimmage. On every play I would smack the center in the head with the heel of my left hand. And I mean hard. He was stunned and slow. All I had to do was make one move and I was in the backfield. It got so bad I stopped slapping him, but I still made plays. (Today, smacking someone in the head will draw a 15-yard penalty. A second penalty for doing it and the player is ejected from the game).

Fox Lane brought in a backup center, then another. It was a rout. The entire defensive game was played in their backfield. I was surrounded by many good players and everyone was in on the beat down. Someone returned a fumble for a touchdown after one of my sacks. Coach Big I told me on the bus later that my effort was the single best football game he had ever seen anyone play on any level.

But there was one problem.

Not one play did I follow our gameplan, no matter how rudimentary it was, and I think my coach was so pumped up after the victory that he didn’t care. I pass-rushed every play, meaning I didn’t even bother filling my gap or doing my job to stop the run, which is a NoseGuard’s primary mission. I was Lawrence Taylor. I was unstoppable. What difference did it make if I was in ‘A gap’ when I would make the play anyway going through ‘B gap’?

Fox Lane didn’t have video on me. And they didn’t adapt to my in-game play, but at a higher level, they would know my tendencies and adapt if needed. It was the kind of day that a future All-American would have, and even though Varsity head coach Paladino sort of congratulated me the next week, my performance felt cheap. It was an unsustainable way to play and I decided to never use that head slap again. It felt dirty. I could be mean, and of course I loved hitting, but I wanted to be a clean player and a good sportsman.

My philosophy was be tough, mean, angry, tackle people so hard they’ll remember you for the rest of their lives, but never try to intentionally injure a player. I know for a 14-year-old all this might sound deep, but it’s how I saw things. After that game I decided freelancing was not how I would play the rest of my career. It wasn’t how I wanted to be. Also, intuitively, I knew that kind of play wouldn’t translate on the Varsity level, and even if it would, I was a team player. I loved the personal accolades, but I loved the team more. That is the honest truth. I’d rather be a team player even if it meant my stats wouldn’t be as great as they could be.

The next memorable event from that season came second to last game against rival White Plains. Another cold rainy Saturday morning. The field was a mud bowl. By this time I was no longer also starting tackle on offense. Now at the Varsity level there was a strict policy that linemen could not go ‘both ways’, meaning playing both offensive & defensive line in a game. Had something to do with one of the best seinors on that years team blowing out a knee in football camp. Brutal. The coaches thought it was because he went both ways.

I was great at blocking, but there wasn’t one play when I didn’t forget the play-count (when the ball would be hiked). Was it on two? Or one? Or three? Quick snap? I would always have to ask the guy next to me as we trotted up to the line of scrimmage. Also, I would forget where the play was going and who to block. Mostly I would just go after the guy in front of me. Anyone who knows football knows offensive linemen are very smart guys. You have to be. I loved blowing people off the ball, burying them 7-yards down field, landing on them with all my weight. And pass blocking was lots of fun. I truly believe I would’ve eventually made an excellent interior O-lineman and been able to play at any level after high school, but that was not my destiny, and anyway, I’m all about defense.

So, late in the White Plains game the sole of my left cleat gets sucked into the mud and comes off (thanks, Adidas). I was out there for a few plays basically running around barefoot and sliding all over the place. We made the other team punt, and as I trotted off the field, a ref threw me the sole he found in the mud. I was sitting on the bench trying to tape the sole back onto the hightop shoe, when Coach Big I comes up and asks: “You want to go in on offense?”

Even now I wonder why he asked me instead of telling me. I guess perhaps it was a test. I said, “No, coach.”

Before I could even describe the sorry state of my cleat, he let me have it. I mean Coach I went berserk. It was the most a coach had ever or would ever yell at me. On and on he went about commitment and toughness. Degrading me, screaming that I lacked the will to win. I didn’t get it. We were winning. The game was in the bag and I could hardly do anything with the failing cleat.

Coaches always liked me. I was the goofy, affable good kid who wouldn’t let you down. And I could play football. I was really good at it. But that moment changed the way I thought about Coach Big I. The disappointment he felt in me wasn’t, in my mind then and now, warranted. I grew up a lot that season as he asked. I was committed to the team and to getting better every day.

I got the sole attached the best I could with white sports tape, jumped off the bench, ran to Coach I, asked if I could go in. He wouldn’t talk to me. Coach Little I told me to go sit on the bench.

Coaches have short fuses. You never know what is going to set them off. It’s just how it is.       

4

After my JV season I started lifting weights. I liked the weight room. It was dank, bright, small, and hadn’t seen a new piece of equipment in 15 years. There was one window and a big fan. On the wall was a chart of everyones’ max in bench and squats. In the corner was a stereo from 1971 with a cassette deck and one speaker. We mostly played AC/DC and the Blues Brothers soundtrack.

I became a little obsessed and overly transfixed with the chart. I thought in order to one day make it to the big leagues, I had to max 315 bench and 550 squat, minimum. Nothing less than that would do. A few kids on varsity benched 315, which was my first goal.

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I am one of the strongest people they’ve ever met. Seriously. I have this extra gear in my muscles. I’ll crush walnuts with my thumb, but that strength never really translated to big numbers in the weight room. Another ability I possess is fast-twitch muscle fibers. Later on at Miami I would find out much more about this important gift.

Fast-twitch means you can react to something faster than someone who doesn’t possess those special fibers. My reflexes were cat-like and people would always be amazed how I moved in agility drills. My hands and feet were super quick, too. Those fast-twitch fibers also made me a dangerous person to play-fight with. I could make one quick move and be digging my fingers into your sternum like some Mayan priest before you could mutter ‘STOP!’. But fast-twitch wouldn’t help you bench 315.

Sometime in the Spring I was told I would be playing Varsity. I remember getting some flack from the soon-to-be seniors. A few of them flat out told me they would be making my life hell. Without backing down or being too aggressive, I told them we’d settle it on the field. Plus, I had the backup of the soon-to-be juniors who were all moving up to Varsity and were my brothers. By this time I was just over six foot and 263lbs. I wasn’t afraid of anyone.

Early July, the entire SHS Raider football program from Freshman to Varsity went to football camp at Hofstra university in Hempstead, Long Island. At least two dozen other high schools also attended the camp. There were hundreds of us. Hot days and muggy nights. Sore muscles and farting competitions. Suddenly football became very real. The hitting was harder. Everyone was faster. The plays were more complex. And now I was under the watchful eye of Paladino (‘Coach Pal’) and Coach Ventura (‘V’). After two days of practice I was moved to starting defensive right tackle.

At the end of the seven days of camp, each team had a scrimmage. We played the legendary West Hampton team. They were legendary because they had the biggest offensive line in the state, if not country. They were also Long Island champs (LI had its own championship). That scrimmage was the first time I felt the butterflies. Sometimes they made me want to throw up. That morning was 90˙+ and we were playing on astro turf. Our scrimmage occupied one half of the field while two other teams played on the other half. I was nervous, so amped up and ready to play and hit on the varsity level that I kept going on and on about gang tackling and ‘stacking people up’. So much so, that Andrew Brennan, in the huddle, had to finally tell me to shut the fuck up.

The guy I lined up against was Hampton’s biggest player. 6’4 and some said over 300lbs. He looked mean and told me he was going to kill me. The ball snapped and I just tossed him to the side and stuck my head into the pile and helped make the tackle. I was surprised how easy it was. Second and third play we fought to a standstill. He told me again he was going to kill me.

West Hampton couldn’t do anything against us. We were too fast and well-coached. I made a big play behind the line of scrimmage that got the entire team cheering. Hampton’s coaches screamed at the big guy I kept beating.

By the 4th series we were on defense I had gotten the hand of Varsity football. The guys were bigger and faster, but so was I. I made another play. We were having fun. Then the bottom fell out.

Next play, the big dolt held me because I had him beat. He dragged me to the ground and pounced on top. The rage I felt can only come out when something deep, dark, and dangerous in me feels like my wellbeing is in jeopardy. Something comes up from the inner abyss and takes over and I want to kill. I don’t see red, I see black. Blackness. The Darkside. I had that big kid off of me in two seconds and then I was on top of him, facemask to facemask, digging my right thumb into his neck as hard as I could, teeth grinding, crazed look in my eyes. He squealed and spazzed out but couldn’t get me off him. If that darkness in me hadn’t taken over, I could probably tell you how terrified he looked, but when the switch is flicked, I am not fully aware. I honestly think it’s some kind of primal predator animal energy.

Next thing I know my coaches are pulling me off the kid, I’m kicking and growling and cursing. Slowly I come back and realize Coach Little I is holding me and telling me to calm down. I was beyond angry. I can still feel it. My heart was pounding. That was it. I was done for the day, but I made my statement. I was ready to play.

Two-a-days began in mid August with the usual pattern, but this time the kids in my own grade, now going to be sophomores and on the JV team, were going through their first preseason. I felt like a big shot because I had already been through a preseason and of course I was the only sophomore on the Varsity team.

Every morning my mother made me a stacked sandwich, and along with the coveted dimpled glass bottles of green Gatorade, put it all in a small cooler with other snacks. Most guys had a paper bag lunch. My mom was my biggest fan. It was also early in preseason that new players on Varsity got their numbers. By the time they got around to asking what number I wanted, I had about nine options (a lineman had to have a number above 50). I chose 74. It was also around this time we put our orders in for the coveted Varsity football jacket; maroon wool with white leather arms, our names in script on the right breast, big white ‘S’ on left breast, number on right arm, position on left with a big SCARSDALE RAIDERS FOOTBALL patch on the back. I would wear that jacket from September till April.

One of the big highlights of my first Varsity preseason was a sideline tackling drill. A one-on-one drill where one guy just gets to just unload on a ball carrier who is running down the sideline. After two big collisions, I came up against Andrew Brennan. Ready to start at RB and DE, Brennan was one of the teams toughest and best players. Lanky, strong, tall, and looking like Brad Pitt, he was very good at running people over and making you pay for tackling him, but I took him out clean and hard to the ground. Coach Pal was watching the drill and he rushed up to me after the hit and said aloud: “Looks like Alexi isn’t afraid!”

I was happy about the attention and the compliment, but what was I supposed to be afraid of? The concept of ‘being afraid’ on the football field, was honestly, just never part of my experience on any level. Nervous, concerned, unsure—yeah those were there at times, but not fear.

One of the lowlights of the preseason was a terrible case of jock-itch. Every two days we were supposed to take our pants, girdle, jock, and pads and helmet home to clean and air them out. I missed one of those days. I paid the price. On my inner right thigh appeared a welt the length of my middle finger and as thick as my thumb. Seething, hot to the touch, and raised, it was more wound than rash and was probably a staph infection. I ended up ripping my pants just to get it some air. When I ran, the pain was jarring. I never sought any help for it out of embarrassment, but it was obvious something was very wrong with me. I waddled like a baby with full diapers. The coaches laughed and just shook their heads. After three days I realized Vaseline helped reduce friction. I was rescued. In what was a miracle for me, the welt went away almost as soon as it had appeared.

The final Saturday of preseason always concluded with a family picnic and an inter-team scrimmage called The Maroon And White Game. We split up the Varsity and JV teams. One wore white, the other maroon. It was a big festive atmosphere with smoking BBQs and beer flowing for the parents. It was also the scene of my one and only on-field injury that took me out of the game.

Midway through the scrimmage on an ordinary play I was in pursuit of the ball, and next thing I know I am on the ground in terrible pain. It was my right ankle. I thought it was broken for sure. Sitting here writing about it makes my ankle ache. I can feel the tendons tearing and bones crunching and cartilage popping. The mood of the whole game dropped. The absolute worst thing that can happen in a fun, family, inter-team scrimmage is for someone to get hurt. And for it to be the kid everyone was really excited about, just put a big damper on the day.

Later, limping out of the locker room, being held up by two seniors, and passing the coaches on the way to the hospital, grimacing with every step as my ankle was now a purple swollen mass, Coach Pal, standing on the steep stairs outside his office with the other coaches and some players (stairs I somehow walked up, and should’ve never been walking down in the first place), said: “Oh, Alexi, stop overreacting.”

Coach Pal was trying to set my head straight so that I wouldn’t allow the injury to be something worse. In his own way helping me perform an act of mind over matter. The coaches never babied me, and in someways I think they went out of their way to never treat me differently, but the injury was real and I never forgot the comment.

Laying in the hospital in my football pants, I get some semi-good news. It’s a bad third-degree sprain. With rest and physical therapy I will be okay in 3-5 weeks. A break would’ve kept me out for the season.

I was determined not to miss a game. Six days straight I went to therapy instead of practice. At therapy I would submerge my foot in a tub of hot water filled with epson salt and jets directed at my ankle. Then cold water, then movement, then ice. I hated missing the time but there was no option. I missed the first scrimmage against another team. I was worried about losing my starting job. Thankfully that didn’t happen. For the second scrimmage I would suit up and see how it felt. We taped the hell out of the ankle and I wore a cumbersome splint. I was limping a little but the healing was fast and I managed to play enough to let the coaches know I was ready for the season opener.

One thing you have to be if you’re a competing athlete at any level, is a quick healer. There has to be something inside of you which mends the injury beyond whatever medical science does. It’s better to not get injured in the first place, but sometimes nothing can stop that from happening.

A week before our first game, one of our team captains, starring left offensive tackle Mike Fee, a guy I and everyone respected and liked, caught Mononucleosis. Mono was a football players worst nightmare, and if there was anything I was actually afraid of, it was catching mono during the football season. With his spleen the size of a grapefruit, Fee could not play for a month. It was a big blow to the team.

Everyone went out for Friday dinner. I would go out with one of my best friends Nick Bogety who was the team manager, his brother who was a senior, and few other guys. Blasting on the radio of his Jeep Cherokee was always Guns N’ Roses debut album Appetite For Destruction. We always went to McDonalds. Back then I could put back a 20-piece McNuggets, McDLT, large fries, Coke, shake and two apple pies. Sometimes I’d order two cheeseburgers to go.

The night before the first game of my Varsity career, I had my first football dream. From then on football dreams, especially right before games, would become a common occurrence (even now I still have them). Mostly the dreams were about frustration (and still are). Usually they are about me forgetting equipment and being unable to play in a game (my worst nightmare). That first dream was about being unable to do anything on the field, I was stuck in molasses. Slow, weak; I hated those dreams.

Before every game there was a huge breakfast hosted at someone’s house. The other team captain, Jason Kessler, lived around the corner, so at 930am he picked me up and we loaded up on carbs, scrambled eggs, and breakfast meats.

That first game was at home against a team called Mahopac. To us they were country bumpkins. The guy I would be going up against was a senior with a man-scaped beard and mustache. Before the game I went out to the field to soak in the pre game energy. I squatted in the middle of the field, picked up the wet grass, threw it into the air like I was Joe Montana, then went back to get my ankles taped. This began a three year ritual where Coach V, who was the number two coach and defensive line coach, would tape my ankles until they were basically a cast. We would joke around and go over plays. I loved Coach V. The team would then congregate in the old gym and wait for the game to start. It was a pretty serious vibe in that gym, but I found a kindred spirit in Troy Gordon.

Troy was a year older and had gone to the same elementary school as I. Sitting there against a wall on gym mats, he would tell the stupidest sex jokes in this hushed tone like he was about to break into hysterical laughter at any second (which would’ve been a very bad thing).

I was very loose before games.

Things would change and the butterflies would begin in the last 20 minutes before kickoff.

We hit the field running in front of a big crowd. The other team brought their band. There was a ‘big game’ feel in the air. (1st half https://youtu.be/oOroVpjSdbA?si=0mWvhZEF6Q_xsjhO 2nd half https://youtu.be/tLvRqafs5OQ?si=UmZcfJBy0V4GsOFI) Two fumbles, two interceptions later (one returned for a TD), and we were losers 17-6. I didn’t have a bad game or a good game. I was shuffled in and out to add an extra DB. I look lost at times and only made a few big plays.

It felt like they mostly ran to the other side of the field. The tackle and defensive end on that side were having a rough game, and the NoseGuard was getting pushed around from the first snap. Still, if it weren’t for all the turnovers and the great field position those turnovers gave Mahopac, we would’ve won. It was very disappointing to lose my fist Varsity game. We had been preparing hard for three weeks. Our team was touted to win Section-1. To see it all just deflate under a heap of mistakes was hard. But it was just one game and the next thing I know I’m at the after game dinner where trays of baked ziti are the norm. No one was sulking. We would just get ready for next week.

Later that night, Pete Bogaty drove Nick and I to get a case of beer. He then dropped us off in the woods were a bunch of friends would be waiting. The ‘I will not consume alcohol or drugs’ form I signed before the season meant nothing to me then. I’m sure we got good and wasted and looked for a party, walking miles if need be. Often we would get to our target location—a house or another wooded area—and no one would be there. We would then wonder around hoping to run into someone who could help us get to a party. Sometimes this would happen. When it didn’t, we would somehow get to Zak’s house, play Tetris, eat all his food, and somehow get back home. This was how we spent our Saturday nights. And when it snowed it didn’t matter we did the same thing…but with drinking gloves.

The next day, a warm, mid September Sunday, I woke up in pain. The kind of pain that tells you you played a football game the day before. Bruises appear where you don’t remember getting hit. Red and purple marks where fingers dug into your skin are all over your arms. My ankle was swollen. My thumbs were sore from being sprained during the game. Cuts and welts were everywhere.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t like the painful aftermath of a game. Most football players do. That Sunday began a great tradition: my mother would go to the Heathcote Deli and get me the best bagel with cream cheese, red onions, Lox, and I’d sit up in my room watching the Jets or Giants until I went to a friend’s to watch.

On Monday I was introduced to film day. After a light practice we all congregated in a study hall to watch film of the game. This was the time when you got little white football stickers to put on your helmet for tackles, TDs, good plays. The film we watched was taken from the southern end zone up high on the 4th floor of a school building. 8mm. The same kind of film watched since the 1940s, and I swear the camera and projector were at least from that era.

In the film you could clearly see how the left side of the D-line was getting collapsed on nearly every running play. I got three or four little white footballs for my effort. After the film, Coach V pulled me aside.

“We’re moving you to Nose.”

We travel to Spring Valley. Win a hard-fought game against a talented team. They throw a lot and I’m in the backfield the entire game.

Sometime after then as the season went on, Coach V started calling me ‘Biff’. That was the name all the coaches called me. Walking by their tiny windowless office, all of them chomping on cigars, they’d yell out ‘How ya doin’…Biff?’

It was a term of endearment.

My sprained thumbs became an issue. They ache now as I type this. Not because it’s some lingering injury, but because I’m thinking about them. Almost every practice I’d strain one of them until I had to wear gloves and tape up the thumbs permanently. Hitting the eight-man sled at the end of practice for 15 minutes didn’t help either. If a lineman has any kind of hand injury, the sled will make it 10-times worse.

Next game was at Suffern. We get our co-captain Mike Fee back from mono. A dark soggy game but they had a nice grass field. I have 2.5 sacks at least as the game tape shows. Andrew Brennan at Tail Back has a 135 yards. https://youtu.be/NAsn_qJdQgg?si=vrvlmDVdqYHgX371

Next is a forfeit by Lincoln High School.

Then a home game vs Mt Vernon. Kevin has his best game so far throwing two long perfect TD strikes to our crafty possession WR Pete Bogaty, and another to Eric Bloomquist. (https://youtu.be/PPpSbwyh114?si=pr9_J1CP3SLFgBKC)

I was in my groove again at Nose. I became very quick at detecting a pass play and could be in the backfield raising havoc in two steps. I started racking up the sacks. They weren’t big hit sacks, no, I didn’t have room for that. The sacks were always me either jumping on the QB’s shoulders, catching him from behind, or pulling him down with one hand as I reached around whoever was blocking me (I have long arms). This was when I started hearing my mother in the crowd. She would yell things like “HOLD THAT LINE!” and other 1950s cheers. Everyone loved it. She never missed a game.

From that season there are fond memories of dark and rainy, cool, slick Autumn Friday nights being driven home by Co-Captain Jason Kessler in his souped up Jeep CJ-7.

The next week we played a tough Mamaroneck team. There were many fights in the stands and in the parking lot. They almost called the game due to security issues. The field is an absolute mudpit. We win 7-0. (game https://youtu.be/GTHG2av5hD4?si=pFk-FBWPaNIVwkxE)

Afterwards, news comes from the JV team, who also played Mamaroneck, that Chris Capobianco had been intentionally poked in the eye by the other teams best player—a kid named Jack who some of the girls in our school had a major crush on. One thing about SHS vs. Mamaroneck in those days was that we always beat the stuffing out of them in every sport, and they hated us for it. They’d make a lot of anti-Semitic remarks during the game and were just general assholes as they got their faces smashed by us. Anyway, Chris, a friend of mine since 1st grade, almost went blind. The hell he went through from that injury (hours and hours of vomiting and ghastly pain) really shook everyone up.

Later that week, my mom drove me to my favorite sporting supply store and we buy an eyeshield which were just coming into style. The only kind they had was rose-colored.

Pink.

Pretty sure I’m the only football player in Section-1 history to wear a pink eyeshield (it was pink to wear at night and reduce glare). The shield was a terrific pain in the ass to install, and Coach Pal hated it, but I told him my mother insisted and that was that. Truth was, I just wanted to wear it because I thought it looked cool. I thought about looking good on the football field a lot. Most football players do. If they say they don’t, they’re lying.

Next up is the always difficult Roosevelt Indians. One of two high schools from the city of Yonkers. (Lincoln was the other.) They use the ancient Wing-T offensive scheme, and for the nose guard it's a fucking nightmare to play against. It’s a beautiful dry fall day at Dean Field. Pure football magic. Kevin scores on a gritty option QB keeper as our only touchdown. I tip a pass late in the game resulting in an interception sealing the 7-0 victory. (full game https://youtu.be/1b9j5xGFN6I?si=soiXrRZYFPN2LGXm)

Next…. the #1 rival of SHS in EVERY sport……The White Plains Tigers.

In a very hard-hitting grudge-match muddy moshpit at their home field. (Filmed by legendary Cable Channel 3 with commentary from the dynamic duo of Ray Korwowski and Eric Lubitz https://youtu.be/f6FKg2wNs6U?si=5_qWxiDJSmCpoqyD) It’s a classic North East late October driving rainstorm. By the second quarter, the ref who set the ball every play, had to wipe the mud off my pink visor. Other times I had to lift my facemask up to see out the area not caked with mud. I plugged up the middle as I always did but I could hardly see a thing. Most the time it was a pileup of 6 bodies that the ball carrier just would disappear into. I have a roughing the kicker penalty on a punt. Absolutely crush the guy but miss the ball entirely. Kevin takes a serious beating this game. Andrew Brennan has 135 yards rushing. In what is a brilliant call by Coach Pal, Jason Kessler scores a walk-in TD with 2min left to put us up 7-0. The very end is marred by this crazy situation on a negative yardage punt by White Plains. It takes the refs 8 minutes to decide what to do as we all stand there in the massive rainstorm. In the end they call for a redo of the play. Objectively it’s the right call. We win. We’re all a terrific battered limping mess after the game and I loved that.

Final game is against #1 ranked New Rochelle. They have an RB/LB named Sam Bobbin. He’s a tank at 6’4” 240. All week long we hear about this guy and how he is going to run us over if we don’t get our shit together.

I faced New Rochelle (New Ro) three times in my career. The first time was a home game for us. They were undefeated and we had one loss. The stands were full on that perfect Saturday afternoon. When we lined up for the first play, I looked into Sam Bobbin’s eyes and he looked ready for action. I had never faced the prospect of tackling such a big running back.

As New RO broke the huddle, their linemen lined up with very wide splits (the distance between each man) and unbalanced to one side (four linemen on one side, two on the other). Our defense was suddenly in chaos. We hadn’t practiced for this. With everyone yelling, I just lined up on the inside of the left guard (as I had been trained to do).

HIKE! A running play right up the middle. Right at me.

But they forget to block me.

I shoot into the backfield, and half in shock that I‘m untouched, stumble a little and hit Bobbin four-yards behind the line of scrimmage. One-on-one. He knees me in the head and it’s the hardest hit I had ever taken up to then, but he goes down and that play sets the tone. My sideline and the home crowd goes wild.

This is my best game of season. I’m credited with 12 tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery. Brennan has 3 TDs one of them over 30yrds. It’s our best overall game against a very tough apponent with a spot in the Section 1 championship on the line (Winner meets North Rockland).

New Ro kept trying to punch the ball up the middle all game but I help create these pileups of 4-6 bodies and there’s just nowhere to go. We win 20-6 and are 8-1. (Looks like it’s filmed through a broken potato camera but it was 1988….. https://youtu.be/WjRD7MIjR_c?si=LPhpwhs5eDFJ3n5S)

On Monday we get bad news. We’ve been passed over for the Section 1 championship game. A hushed rumor spreads around the locker room that Coach Pal is majorly pissed. Furious that we won’t get another shot at his nemesis North Rockland. Some high school football politics are in play. They pick a one loss Mahopac who we lost to first game over us to meet North Rockland. We’ll be meeting Roosevelt, a team we’d already beaten earlier in the season.

Our bowl game is held on same Memorial Field in Mt Vernon I’d seen the Varsity team already lose two games at. It’s a night game which will be my first and last one. The bus ride to away games is always a time of quiet introspection. It being night really added to the mood.

A back and forth battle. Our offense is moving the ball but can’t score. Walsh has some great runs when he keeps the ball on option plays but he gets injured mid 3rd quarter and should not have come back in but he does and is hobbled. I have a sack and some tackles but with Roosevelt running the Wing-T offense, my job is to pretty much just make sure the FB isn’t running up the middle. And a defensive lineman can’t attack a Wing-T, it’s more of a wait and see every play, feel where the pressure is coming from and what way the play is flowing. (full game https://youtu.be/2iXkb7MQSJ0?si=FHIf616g3gNmsO5I)

(For the record, a Coach Pal defense was never ‘attacking’ no matter who we played. We had no blitzes, no stunts, we were all about covering ‘gaps’. You had an assigned gap and thats where you went first no matter what. Nose Guard often had 2 gaps to fill when lined up head up on the center. Most of the time I would be shaded to the left/right shoulder pad of center, or inside shoulder pad of one of the guards. This meant that a quick hitting play to side I wasn’t shaded could result in at least a 3 yard gain. 90% of the time I was able to fight the pressure and plug up those kind of plays and then one of the MLBs would come in as well because that was their gap. This is what got me most of the accolades and only coaches and people on the field would understand it. 10% of the time I was unable to make the play…)

With a few minutes left in a 0-0 game, Kevin gets sacked on our 45 and fumbles. Next play, Rosevelt gets a big run (to the gap I’m not shaded) to our goalline. Our defense has finally broken after just bending all season. Then they easily punch it in. Our offense can’t do anything and we lose 6-0. Afterwards, sitting on the bus behind the visiting team bleacher, Coach Pal calls out my name and asks me to get off the bus. I had no idea what was going on.

“They’re giving you an award,” he huffs and leads me to the little ceremony.

With my shaved head and dirt and mud caked all over my face, I accept the trophy for best linemen of the game. The local sports broadcaster butcheres my name in the interview and the Roosevelt player who wins for best skill position smacks his trophy against his helmet, breaking it. No one congratulates me when I get back on the bus, which of course is fine, we did lose after all, but good thing it was so dark in there, because I grinn ear-to-ear the entire ride home.

Part II>>>>>