The 0 and 16 Cleveland Browns and our own spotted career in the Sport

The 0 and 16 Cleveland Browns and our own spotted career in the Sport

fiction
edward w pritchard


Watching the wide receiving's sorrowful consolation sitting alone on the bench after dropping the important simple pass in yesterdays big local football loss helping to result in an 0 and 16 season for the local pro team the Cleveland Browns has triggered reminisces of my own spotted career in the sport of football.

Before we tried out and joined an official youth football team we played in the backyards often in the snow a sort of organized fun fighting. It was tough going as often some of our opponents would be six or eight years older than us. That was the half the fun part.

Then we were the local pee wee team. With half a dozen dedicated and strict coaches we practiced everyday after school from 6PM to dark and then walked about a mile home alone. Along with the physical and pain part of the contact sport a lot of brain work was involved because we used some of the most innovative plays in our strategies of the most successful College teams in the Country. Once on a cross field pass I cut right instead of left when I was wide open and the ball went sailing the other way. It was a critical play and I felt panicked. Next play however the quarterback who was a little older than me and the coaches son called a similar play but instead of a pass to me the speedy half back also a couple of years older than me sped around the end of the line and I cut the wrong way again as ordered and we scored the winning touchdown in a close critical game. Memorable to me as well, a few weeks later at school one of our offensive lineup was catching hell from our six grade teacher, a crabby woman, for his arms being dirty. Turns out they were bruises up and down his arms. Back then none of us used arm pads. It was tough going but we loved it.

We were the City champs in high school and after a lot of work becoming a starter I was to run head first over and over as middle lineman into one of the best running backs in the State. He went on to play a little pro football. I didn't even make it to College ball but with a strong set of legs, weak head and stout heart I did my job once I made the first team a third of the way through the season. Seems like from then on in my life I was constantly trying out. Once even my own beloved teammates turned on me. It's a bit complicated why my good buds would be so mad at me but in a nutshell I was editor of the school paper and one of our female reporters had called us football players sissies for needing new carpeting on the floor of our locker-room. The booster club had bought it for us and the teams for the next dozen years, the reporter was playing investigate newsman, and I took no notice of the article. My pals turned on me suddenly and viciously. But, thanks to our star player, a square shooting type guy from the neighborhood who went on to play pro football and be a famous coach, by the moniker of Gary Pinkel, sticking by me, things blew over for me without a lynching.

I played a lot of pick up basketball after high school and in college made the all State church league team which was a team  designed to bring one closer to God  when women and sin beckoned. Sadly no more organized football  for me. About a half dozen times a group of us men played tackle with no equipment for a couple hours after work until dark until I had to quit because I had to help watch the kids at Home. Once I played in a reunion game but didn't enjoy it much by then at age 28.

I am no longer a dedicated fan of pro football but yesterday I watched about an hour of the Cleveland Browns last game in an 0 and 16 to season. I remember back in 1959, 1962 or 63 when  old Paul Brown would coach the Browns to victory after victory. We would go to one of the older guys houses along the canal and play in the freezing cold in his backyard and he would run in and out of the house with an update on the scores of the Browns game. No online internet for scores back then.

In my own way I will always be a fan of my local team and will always have soft place in my heart for football. I loved the violence, the camaraderie  and the allure of the sport.