Running with the big boys

UNMISTAKABLY it lingers in the locker room, somewhere between the stale sweat and bloodied pants, the shampoo, bubble gum, foot powder, cologne and deep-muscle liniment. 

But if you parse the tools of the football trade: the bones, the legs, the hands, the sinew, the heart — it is surely there. Sweet and caustic, it engenders power. It’s the smell of testosterone, the same electric pong that wafted among the gladiators who prowled the dark labyrinth below the Roman coliseum awaiting their moment in the sun. 

The CFL Winnipeg Blue Bombers training camp is 10 days old and there is a new running back gathering his gear for his first practice. 

The trainer hands over a size XL jock strap. 

“You wouldn’t have a medium by any chance?” 

“Nope. Large is the smallest. They’re measured by waist size anyway. Here’s a large.” 

“Ah. Very good. Thank you.” 

There is a stall to hang the size L strap, helmet, shoulder pads, practice sweater, laundry bag, undershirt, pants and thigh pads, socks, tape, and cleats. 

Tucked beneath the chair is a binder and a standard CFL players’ contract. It says, in essence, that one is a chattel and will be paid $28,000 for the glory of playing 18 games plus playoffs and exhibition matches — if you make the roster. You also could be traded, sold for cash or cut from the squad. Realizing this dream will be costly: some skin will be peeled from elbows or knees, you’ll earn a nick or bruise. If things go really wrong there’ll be a broken bone or two, the cartilage in your knees will dissolve, you’ll be missing some teeth, you might get a concussion. 

The thick blue binder is a training camp status symbol. It’s the Winnipeg Football Club’s bible, the team playbook and code of conduct. It is carried everywhere: to meals, to meetings, to bed. If lost, it’s a $99 fine. It is to be memorized. It is to be kept in good condition. It is to be swaggered with until someone says, ominously: “The coach wants to see you. Bring your playbook.” 

There are some curious glances as the new tailback doffs his civvies. Former Indianapolis Colts tailback Ronald Humphrey has just been cut. A mysterious new name is on his old playbook. Who is this fribbler? The rookie has been issued jersey No. 14 — could be a quarterback, or a running back, receiver or defensive back. 

Let ’em guess. 

Someone breaks the ice. “Hey man, howyadoin? I’m Turhon,” says sophomore wide receiver Turhon O’Bannon, casting a glance at the name on the playbook. 

“Hi. I’m the new tailback.” 

“Oh yeah?” he smiles disbelievingly. Too skinny, he thinks. Too old. What the hell’s coach up to? “This is full pads man,” someone says, coming over for a looksee. “You gonna hit?” 

“Yeah, sure. Crack some heads. Full meal deal.” 

At the sound of these words there is much mirth. Too much. 

“Hah-hah,” the words echo. “Full meal deal.” 

The rookie pulls on his size L strap and pants, his T-shirt. He spits a little Gatorade from between his teeth. He is directed to the training table for a taping. Skin Tuffner is sprayed on the ankles, wrists, groin so the hair remains intact when they cut the tape off after practice. Or is it that they shall cut the remains of this body from the tape? 

The thought brings things into focus. 

If you refuse to give it a name, there is no fear. The taping makes one feel falsely secure. Once the pads, jersey, and cleats are secure, if you’re not getting a spats job (taping outside your cleats), there’s nothing left to do but to blow a big sigh of air, grab the helmet and step with alacrity down the long tunnel to the practice field, your head filled with innocent dreams of greatness. 

Football is a game that is wide and spacious. Even the most humble player knows the rhapsody of a well-placed block, a well-designed feint, a single impossible one-handed catch. 

The air of the locker room defines exquisitely the continuity that exists between modern man and our most ancient ancestors. Football legitimizes a host of untamed feelings. It’s a game of mental toughness and physical courage. Only on a superficial level does it appear to be in flagrant contradiction of our oh-so-enlightened age. 

Cleats rattle on concrete as another rookie walks a few steps down the tunnel ahead. He is offensive tackle West Vaughan who has come to Canada from his home in Monroe, La., to chase a dream: his first pro football job. (He was cut by the team Saturday.) There would be more light in the tunnel were it not for his 6-foot-10, 385-pound frame. His chest is 72 inches in circumference. He can bench press 630 pounds and he claims to have no enemies in his home town, firm evidence of the superior intelligence quotient of the townsfolk of Monroe. 

“It’s awkward,” the friendly 23-year-old says, “I’m going against people who have done this all their lives. I guess it hasn’t hit me yet what has happened; the reality of it all.” 

What is it about football that grabs the soul and makes you pay attention? For one thing there is the sheer beauty of the uniforms, the colour, the surge of energy that runs and crackles through a team, 55 men carrying electricity as though they are a single charged circuit. 

We emerge from the tunnel into stunning sunlight. We jog out to the field and join our teammates. There is a startling joy in this. 

Football can touch you deeply, and if you plum the depths of your psyche, you find it can go far deeper than you ever imagined. As the philosopher Michael Novak, a Notre Dame fan, once said: “It is a rich, truly profound, and stunningly satisfying game. It is as deep as a mouse to wade in or an elephant to drown in.” 

Now it’s 30 degrees Celsius and the sun is blistering. Speakers by the weight-lifting tent are blasting Stevie Ray Vaughn. A gaggle of boys, perhaps 10 or 12 years old, their own heads full of dreams, desire your autograph. You smile and sign. They don’t know who you are. They don’t care. You are a Blue Bomber. A hero. A modern-day gladiator. 

The warm-ups begin with a stretch, maybe 15 minutes of calisthenics. The team then breaks into groups: offensive backs and receivers, defensive backs, linebackers and linemen. We run through a few drills; pass patterns, quick outs, hot patterns. 

From the bleachers or the press box there is the intellectual delight of the strategy and the aesthetic pleasure of execution. 

On the field the game is more than a ballet for knights, for warriors, for athletes. But it is not a game for artists or dancers although the same mathematical and Pythagorean principles are embedded within it. 

The field itself is a sacred green, a battlefield, a patch of earth for which one feels a certain awe — earth that, as Novak says, is to be consecrated, bloodied — a focal point for the intervention of fate. 

At one end of the field, muddy cleats clutch freshly sprinkled grass. At the other end, dust mingles with sweat. Soon, the tempo picks up. 

I run a hot pattern, up field six or seven yards to catch a pass from sophomore quarterback Cody Ledbetter. It’s a nice little route and I turn smartly to face the ball. 

As my hands come up and my eyes turn . . . smack . . . a rocket from Ledbetter bounces right off the cage of my helmet. I am almost knocked off my feet. My finger is bruised, caught between the ball and the cage on the helmet. Although I was in the right spot, my hands were far too slow. The ball was on target. The timing was off. My hands should have been ready, in front of my face. 

“Hey rook,” says Ledbetter, smiling. “Rule No. 1: Always play catch with your helmet on.” 

After practice the squad swaggers with playbooks to supper. A massive smorg is laid on. Ten turkeys are roasted daily. Forty pounds of pasta and 200 pounds of chicken are gobbled. Halfway through, someone gets the notion that the rookies should sing. They do. Some of us are pathetic. 

That night there is a team meeting. We discuss blocking punts against our next opponents, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. “The kicker, Brent Matich, is left-footed,” notes head coach Jeff Reinbold, a specialist in the kicking game, so critical in Canadian football. “Here’s the block point,” he demonstrates on the chalk board, “it’s one yard off [punter Brent] Matich’s left hip. He’s a nervous kicker. He doesn’t like being rushed. He was injured once and he’s gun-shy. Shonte,” he says to linebacker Shonte Peoples, “you take the fullback and pop him. Shorten his neck. Earhole him!” 

The bigger teams or faster teams or even more talented teams don’t always win, says Reinbold. Because football is a game of nuances: wind, field conditions, the bounces of an erratic ball. These uncertainties are countered by superior diagnosis, sharper or harder-hitting execution, an insuperable will to win, psychological readiness to perform each play perfectly, concentration. Reinbold’s philosophy is simple: pro football is essentially socialist. It is built on solidarity and team play, on planning and analysis. 

The evening meeting over, playbooks are carried to the dormitory where the players relax before the 11 p.m. curfew. A red half-ton circles the training camp. It circles. And circles. A couple of girls looking for football players. But most of the men are in bed early, or they’re having a late-night beer, or playing cards. There’s no time for romance at training camp. 

Three Winnipeg boys are playing wist: safety Jayson Dzikowicz, linebacker Wade Miller and placekicker Troy Westwood. 

“I disagree that football is a violent sport,” says Miller. “Hockey is a violent sport. In hockey they hit each other with sticks. Football is a contact sport. Man, it’s a great game. When it’s working, when everyone’s in sync . . . it’s a great feeling.” 

The next morning, after a fitful sleep on a tough bed, another practice beckons. And in the afternoon, again, taping, icing, sweating, grunting under the hot Prairie sunshine. 

Suddenly, I am in the huddle. 

Eleven men look into the steely eyes of 26-year-old quarterback Chris Vargas. With authority he repeats the mysterious code words of the offence and calls the play. 

“Forty-four forty-five Woodie,” he says, indicating a tailback hand-off designed to look like a pass. “Forty-four forty-five Woodie. On two. Ready. Break.” 

Standing in the tailback spot, six yards from the line of scrimmage, I survey the battleground. This is the almost-holy moment before the snap of the ball. For a microsecond, all time stands still. Everyone on both sides of the ball is alert to the flux of will and strength, watching for weakness, signs of fear, lapses in concentration. What are the unexpected possibilities? 

On defence, linebacker Shonte Peoples stares through me, the number 56 shining on his white jersey. He shuffles back and forth with quick choppy steps, his hands poised. Something approaching both rage and pleasure is in his eyes. He’s not had enough turkey, he’s looking to feast on the full meal deal. A fricassee. Beside him there is tension in the row of bodies waiting for the snap. They are coils of human sinew wound overtight. 

“Hut, hut,” barks Vargas as the lines crack together. There is the heaving, grunting, jarring and wheezing of blockers. 

It’s so fast, awesomely fast. There are humps and bumps and the visceral sounds of exertion. I spring from my stance and slice left readying for the handoff: C’mon, jam the rock in the breadbasket baby — here I go . . . 

I feel myself a running back, I am a real running back, about to carry the football for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. This is a small piece of history. This is it. I can sense the goalposts on the horizon. I imagine a stadium of delirious football fans, the din of the crowd in the background helping to focus my concentration. I am dead certain that I am end-zone bound. 

When you feel these juices, victory is within your grasp; the enemy is incapable of halting you; a feeling of invincibility oozes up, quiet, strong, and peaceful. It’s here that miracles take place: fantastic catches, uncanny throws, impossible and never-practiced moves. Sometimes in these magical moments the ball seems guided by mystic beams; and mere human beings defy gravity. The world seems to obey pure will. 

Gimme the rock, I am thinking. The rock is mine, to be carried to glory. 

Vargas drops back two paces and wheels. I aim for a spot behind Vargas but he is still backing up. We smack into each other, hard. The ball pops loose. I’m almost knocked over from the jolt of hitting my QB. 

“Oh dear,” I say. “Sorry.” 

“Whoa, whoa whoa,” shouts the coach. “It’s an underneath handoff. You’re between the QB and the O-line. Again.” 

Now the D knows what’s coming. 

Bang, we do it again. But this time we do it right. Daylight opens up behind the fullback who has cut through the left side of the line past the giant guard — West Vaughan. I see daylight. I have the ball locked up. I scoot. The cleats dig in around the corner, I keep low — head up. The grunts are behind me now. But suddenly there’s 56 angling for me like a naval frigate. He’s closing on dinner. He’s going to flatten me. Where’s the magic? Where’s the leaven in my concrete legs? Mercifully there is a whistle. 

I coulda beat him if the coach hadn’t whistled it down. I coulda because football also is a game of angles, spaces, flows; feints, envelopments and strategic designs. I tell myself that intelligence counts more in football than brawn. The contest is not one of simple brute strength as much as cunning, speed and tactics. 

This is aptly illustrated by the fact that by now there’s a new tailback in camp, giving me big-time heat. 

He is 22-year-old Dione Tyler, obtained from the Calgary Stampeders as part of a deal for Bomber slotback Gerald Wilcox. (The departure of CFL All-Star Wilcox from the Bombers is symbolic. “It means no one is guaranteed a job on this team,” says one veteran player. “Everyone is going to earn a spot on this roster.”) 

Tyler is 5 feet 6 inches, 185 pounds. Speed and elusiveness are his game. He has young legs. He knows that even a strong man cannot bring him down unless he hits him in a proper vector of angle. Players such as Tyler need to use their wits. For a small man, football is dangerous, but the danger heightens achievement. 

He takes a few repetitions then cracks through the chaos on a simple dive-play up the middle, wriggling and slashing, keeping low. He’s fast. Very fast. Clearly this is the new third-string tailback (he also was cut Saturday) and I am to be retired before I have even begun to work. 

“Coach wants to see you after practice,” says a voice. “Bring your book.” 

I trot off the practice field and walk down the long tunnel to the locker room. Jersey No. 14 is hung, the tape is cut off. I shower. My fingers are bruised. On one bicep is an unexplained welt. But there is joy in having tried. I shake hands with my fleeting mates, return the playbook with thanks. 

“No doubt, in heaven, football will seem a little lacking in peace, harmony, gentleness, and love,” Michael Novak wrote, describing the theology of the game. 

“It is not likely to be the sport most favoured by the Almighty. But in this vale of tears, this world of struggle and strife, football is an almost revelatory liturgy. It externalizes the warfare in our hearts and offers us a means of knowing ourselves and wresting some grace from our own true natures.” 

It is all of this. And more. Bring on the season.