1. education
2. school

First And Life
My Year As A High School Football Player
Sample
Karl Wiebe
Copyright © 2013 Karl Wiebe
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are all products of the author's imagination. Especially if it looks like I
am making fun of you. I'm not. Honest. Don't sue me. The eBook is licensed
for your personal enjoyment only. James Bond is licensed to kill, but he does
not appear in this book. His lazy brother Sven is licensed to injure but that is all.
Visit my website at www.karlwiebe.com
Chapter 1
It was a new town, a new school, and a new year.
Needless to say, I was in a thoroughly bad mood.
What is it about the first day of school that makes it so difficult for
almost everyone? Some would say it’s the lack of friends, or the
hysterical mania. Here is a situation where new students race around a
new school, trying desperately to find their new classes with their new
teachers. There’s a certain pathetic irony to watching four hundred new
students walk aimlessly around the shiny marble halls, trying to beat the
clock and make it to a class that they completely and utterly do not want
to get to. Hurry up and be miserable!
I was one of those kids. It was early September (right after Labor
Day, the best, last and most depressing weekend for any school-aged
child) and I was entering the halls of hallowed Fort William Collegiate
Institute. “Collegiate Institute” made it sound pretty high-end, but it was
a public high school in Ontario, just like all the other public high schools
in Ontario. They are filled with the same kids that fill up every other
high school in the free world—young people who fear the bullies, bullies
who try to avoid the teachers, teachers who try to avoid the really happy
and outgoing teachers, and really outgoing teachers who wind up
volunteering students for football.
“Hi, young man!” I heard an authoritative voice from behind as I
stood aimlessly and confused in the hallway, studying my blurred
photocopy of my class list. I wheeled around.
“My name is Mr. Stevens,” he said in a deep voice, his hand
outstretched. I meekly shook it.
My first impression of Mr. Stevens was that of a military
commando. Or, more specifically, a military commando who had gone
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Karl Wiebe
AWOL from some coup attempt in Cuba and fled to Northern Ontario to
hang out with high school kids.
He was tall, muscular, and wearing a grey hoodie that said
“BLUEBEARS” in ridiculously huge bright blue letters, and in a weird
sort of way it matched his camouflage green and brown jogging pants. I
wasn’t sure about the camouflage pants—I mean, how many forests are
people jogging through? Then it made sense. If someone was shooting
at me in the forest, camo jogging pants would not only provide
camouflage but also comfort as I ran for my life.
Mr. Stevens was wearing glasses that tinted in the sun.
Unfortunately, I was no where near outside. I was standing in the middle
of the hallway, just outside the gymnasium, and I knew that my Social
Studies class was around here somewhere. Much like a manhunt, I had
narrowed down the possible locations where the class could be located,
using only my fuzzy print-out and my wits as a guide. With Mr. Stevens
wearing huge tinted shades, he looked like a drill-sergeant in the
hallway. He had recently been outside, since the lenses were almost
completely black. My first reaction was to grab a quarter and drop it in a
coffee cup, but I knew he wasn’t a hobo because usually they slump a bit
and have dirty hoodies, not clean ones. I was guessing he was a gym
teacher, or possibly an escaped senior-citizen bodybuilder who liked to
hang around high schools. Maybe he was doing a real manhunt? Was I
on some sort of “most wanted” list?
Mr. Stevens was probably in his forties, but it was hard to tell, since
every adult when you are in high school looks like they are in their
forties, or possibly their eighties. There’s really no in-between. Either
you are forty or you are eighty. Or, like me, you are in high school, and
probably look like you are twelve.
I weighed in at one hundred and eight pounds, but after a large meal
and before a bathroom break I could get it up to about one ten if I really
went for it. I’m talking about not eating bran and just really holding
everything in for a while. I stood about five and a half feet tall and had
no muscles whatsoever. You know that skeleton that hangs in biology
class on the pole? That was me, except that the skeleton had a better
complexion and more girls touched him.
I was obviously giving off some sort of “confused” vibe and Mr.
Stevens was coming to the rescue. I was like Lois Lane except a dude. I
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First And Life
hoped he wasn't going to carry me to my class.
“What can I help you with, young man?” Mr. Stevens wasn’t going
away. I must have looked especially lost, standing in the doorway to the
gymnasium, over by the huge rack of sports trophies. There were lots of
blurry, faded black-and-white photographs in the trophy case, along with
some dusty medals and a huge bucket trophy that had “1968 Bluebears”
stenciled on it in black letters.
“Um,” I stammered. Pretty much every conversation when you are
under twenty starts the same way, and this one was no different.
“Um, I was just, like, trying, um, to find my class.” I had a wrinkly
little photocopy in my hand that had been handed out at the door before
we were corralled into the big, shiny, musty gymnasium to learn about
how we were going to love Fort William Collegiate Institute better than
our own homes. We were going to love it! LOVE IT! Now get out!
And take your fuzzy print-out. That was pretty much the assembly, and
we filed out slowly, some slow because they did not know where they
were going, and others walking even slower because they did.
“Hey, check that out!” Mr. Stevens nodded with his head over to
the trophy case. I glanced over and saw the huge trophy. It was a faded
bronze color and was at least two feet tall. “Impressive, eh?” He asked
me.
I shrugged.
“That was when we won state in 1968. State!”
I nodded, trying to look impressed. I figured he hadn’t been part of
the 1968 team, either as a player (if he was in his forties) or a coach (if
he was in his eighties) because no one in Canada had ever called the
provincial championships “winning state”. But I did silently admit to
myself that “state championship” did sound pretty cool.
“Were you on that team, sir?”
“What?” Mr. Steven laughed. “That’s a little before my time, son.
What’s your name?”
“Karl.”
“Well, Karl, in 1965 I was in Vietnam having my own little battle.”
Yikes. I had seen the movie Platoon. I wanted this conversation to
end. Just let me find my room! On occasion, I had considered stabbing
myself in the leg in order to get out of school, but I had never really
thought it a possibility.
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Karl Wiebe
It was awkward just standing there with this teacher-slash-coach.
There had to be an easier way to find my class, I told myself silently.
How many rooms were there in this school, like fifty max? Even at a
room a minute, the chances were good that I could find the proper room
within—
“Karl, I want you to try out for the football team.”
What? I looked again at the dark glasses. Was this guy really
blind?
I looked around for another kid also named Karl. I didn’t know
what to say. I stood there in the hallway holding my wimpy photocopy
and wondering if he was able to park in the closest spot at the school.
Could he even drive a car? Where was his German Shepherd? Don’t get
me wrong, I was totally cool with it. We had a blind teacher. That was
cool; I didn’t judge people any differently with disabilities—
“Tryouts are today at 4 pm.”
“Um, oh,” I replied, my mind racing for an immediate out. A little
light bulb went off. “Sorry, I didn’t bring anything to change into.”
Mr. Stevens didn’t miss a beat. He glanced quickly at my KISS Tshirt and jeans. I was wearing basketball high-top sneakers, but they
were so old they provided absolutely zero ankle support. If anything,
they were probably damaging my feet.
“That’s OK. We have changes of clothes right here. Follow me.”
The hallway was starting to thin out as more and more students
were actually finding their classes, or a least deciding that being in a
random room was better than standing in the hallway with a potentially
blind Phys-Ed teacher and a lost kid with old shoes.
Wow, I thought for a moment, as I followed Mr. Stevens to a nearby
office. I was impressed. I thought they must have a pretty good football
program at Fort William if they offered track suits and such to
“prospective athletes”. Maybe I looked a little more athletic than I
thought. I also considered myself, well “thin”, didn’t really describe it.
“Athletically” gaunt? “Concentration camp” skinny? Maybe I was
starting to fill out. I wondered what other amenities this program had for
athletes—
It was when he opened the door that I realized that was actually not
an office but rather a supply room. And the scope of the football
program was brought into clearer focus when I saw Mr. Stevens reach
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First And Life
into a brown cardboard COMPAQ computer box with “Lost & Found”
written on the side in red magic marker.
“This will do!” he exclaimed, pulling out two athletic socks, kind of
the same color of white, especially if the lighting was poor enough. He
reached into the mass of clothing and suddenly he brought out a pair of
bright blue shorts and a blue T-shirt that was exactly the same color as
the shorts.
“Is there, um, a larger shirt in the box?” I stammered. I was
desperately hoping for a larger shirt. And possibly a different color shirt.
And possibly an escape route, if I was going to start up a wish list.
“Sure!” He rummaged around and found a white, oversized shirt
that had some sort of brown stain on it. I sincerely hoped it was dirt.
There had originally been an iron-on that said “JESUS LOVES ME” on
the front. Except the J had fallen off. “No worries, son!”
I thanked Mr. Stevens and took the ESUS LOVES ME shirt and the
shorts and put it in my bag. I promised him that I would show up at the
trailer by Collegiate Field at 4 pm, which was down the street from the
school a couple of blocks.
I would have to leave school after my first day wearing bright blue
shorts. And they were short shorts too, not the cool NBA shorts that are
really “longs”. These were the 1970s shorts.
Mr. Stevens walked me to class as the buzzer had already gone. We
were now in that point of the day, just after the buzzer rings, when it was
understood that you needed a damn good reason to be wandering around
the halls. There were always one or two teachers who never seemed to
teach—they just patrolled the hallways like sentries, “helping” students
find their way to class and then later in the first week scolding the
students for being truant. Mr. Stevens was the ultimate hall pass—when
I showed up to my class he opened the door and I was able to take my
seat without any incident. I mumbled a quick thanks and squished the
two almost-clean socks into my school bag.
As I sat there in social studies class, learning about how great and
exciting the upcoming year was going to be, I thought about the short
shorts and running football drills in basketball high tops. I was pretty
certain at that point that either Esus did not love me or maybe he had
slept in late this morning.
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Karl Wiebe
Chapter 2
The first day of school is probably the only day in the entire year
when teachers don’t give out homework. Maybe they actually feel sorry
for the students, or maybe the teachers are still easing back into their own
lives at school.
Maybe their heart just isn’t in it yet. The year before, I was back
in the big city of Calgary, instead of sitting in northern Ontario in a tiny
town called Thunder Bay. In Calgary, I know that my teachers would
get a gleam in their eye when they assigned chapters and review
questions for the students. I swear I saw my biology teacher’s breath
shorten as he proudly proclaimed a pop quiz on the final Friday of last
semester. He was like the grim reaper, inhaling and smiling when the
collective groan escaped the class. I don’t want to sound melodramatic,
but he feasted on our misery. However, all of those teachers had been at
my old school, about four million miles away across the country.
This new school, in southern Thunder Bay, which was known as
Fort William, was similar to my old high school in Calgary. It had
lockers and pretty girls and dorky guys and weirdoes. But, it was also
new and novel enough to be strange, and I was glad when the first day
was over. Do you remember in the movies, where the shy kid meets a
cool computer guy and they become best friends? Or the new guy drops
his binder and the good-looking cheerleader picks it up and their eyes
lock? Yes!
None of that actually happened to me at my new school. Did it ever
happen to anyone? Who is writing these movies? Is there some superstudly California writer sitting around in Hollywood, banging out
screenplays that feature these scenarios when he’s not busy having sex
with his ultra-hot former cheerleader wife? “Write about what you
know,” he would proclaim, emerging from the bedroom to clickity-clack
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First And Life
on his 13-inch MacBook Pro.
No, that sort of thing didn’t happen. I didn’t even meet the
uncool nerdy computer guy. Maybe he was hanging out with the
cheerleader, who knows.
I was happy to just not drop my binder in the hallway and when the
bell sounded at 3:30 p.m. I was ready to leave—even if it meant putting
on bright blue short shorts and running around in front of coaches. I
wondered if I would earn the nickname Esus. “Hey, here comes AyZeus! Catch the ball, Ay-Zeus!” I prayed to multiple Gods that this
would not happen. I was willing to convert if one of them granted my
wishes; I was not that picky regarding religion.
Despite the blue short shorts and the complete lack of friends, I was
really excited about football tryouts. Actually, “excited” probably isn’t
the right word. Anxious? Fearful? Terrified? Not looking forward to
getting cut again? Alright, that last phrase is more than one word, but it
summed it up pretty accurately. I came from a really large city and the
year before I had tried out for the big-city football team.
As I walked to my small-town football practice, my mind wandered
back a year to the big city of Calgary and my horrible, horrible memories
of trying to make that football team. Me and about twenty friends from
our junior high showed up for football tryouts on the first day of high
school. We were pumped. I mean, we had cleats, shorts, matching
socks—one guy actually went out and bought an authentic Atlanta
Falcons jersey with his own name embroidered on the back.
None of us had any idea what we were getting into.
High school football tryouts in a big city are basically the same as
getting drafted into the army and then shipping out to Iraq, only more
dangerous. At least in Iraq, your fellow soldiers aren’t trying to stick
their helmet in your crotch or damage your internal organs. In the
Middle East, professional soldiers are all working together, trying to stay
alive and defeat an enemy. In high school football, the average player is
surrounded by immature, testosterone-filled maniacs who want nothing
more than to throw you to the ground in front of the coach in order to
gain an extra two minutes of playing time.
Football tryouts in the big city were complete chaos. Make that
complete chaos with girls watching thirty yards away in the bleachers.
Lights... camera... cue the embarrassment!
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Karl Wiebe
In Calgary, our football team the year before I tried out had boasted
the standard fifty-five player roster. That is the maximum number of
players that any team in the city could hold. The rest of the students who
didn’t make the team were, quite frankly, considered losers. It was very
easy to tell who made the team and who didn’t. Those students on the
team had big leather football jackets, bruises that they would proudly
display to their friends and admirers, and they would have sore wrists
from writing their phone numbers down for girls. The players who
didn’t make the team were also easily identified—they were the ones
sitting alone at lunch with sore wrists as well, albeit for different reasons
entirely.
One difference I noticed was that in a large metropolis, we had
received advance notice about the football tryouts. By “advance” I mean
one day. It was complete chaos as kids from all over descended on every
available sporting goods store within the city limits that night in an
attempt to purchase cleats, shorts, athletic T-shirts, and whatever else we
could grab that might give us an edge over the competition. You had one
night. If your parents had gone out to a movie that evening, your
chances of a professional football career were dead in the water. Unless
you could convince girls that “science” and “reading” were sexy, your
chances of getting laid fell considerably.
That second day, me and my junior high friends lined up in the
gymnasium after school to register. I don’t mind admitting that I was
looking good. I had a fresh new pair of cleats, a grey Minnesota Vikings
“official” practice shirt, and “longs”—shorts that actually came down to
the proper length, somewhere near the knee. I looked around. I counted
the number of visible bodies. I stopped after two hundred. More guys
were coming in.
I was starting to “officially” sweat in my Minnesota Vikings
“official” practice shirt.
Almost everyone was bigger, stronger and taller than me or the
twenty friends I had evolved from junior high with. We stood in line,
quietly awed by the fully-grown seniors who walked by us. One guy had
a beard. Wow. That just made me depressed, until I figured beardy
would try to put me on the ground at some point. It was at that point that
I became both depressed and scared. I secretly hoped beardy was a
coach, but I had seen him kicking another student's binder down the hall
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First And Life
earlier in the day over by the cafeteria. He had kicked it over to
mustache man, and it wasn’t like a “peach fuzz” mustache either. I was
pretty sure these two guys were not employed by the school board.
Despite my official Minnesota Vikings T-shirt, the first day of
tryouts almost killed me. We spent an hour doing wind sprints and beanbag drills, getting timed and analyzed by the coaches. There wasn’t a
football in sight. I never understood the bean-bag drill. I mean, you
basically line up in a gym, wearing outdoor cleats, because you didn’t
realize that half of the practice was inside, and then you have to run back
and forth, transporting multiple bean-bags, one at a time, to another spot.
How is this possibly applicable to football? I don’t remember any plays
being called in the huddle that involved tiny bags filled with seeds, corn,
beads, or marbles. I don’t think any NFL quarterback ever said to the
troops in the huddle, “okay guys, we’ll throw the ball over to the
receiver, but I want the tight end and the weak-side tackle to run to the
thirty-five and transplant these tiny sacks of corn. We may not win the
game, but the grain farmers will have a great crop in a few months.”
I remember in junior high, us kids would just get together and
wolf down our peanut butter sandwiches as quickly as possible. We
were excited. I don’t even remember chewing. We would then play
pickup football for the remainder of the lunch hour. I remembered being
a much better player than perhaps I actually was. I was fast, and I
remember catching a ball here and there and running, juking and
sprinting into the end zone. I had even thrown a few passes in my day! I
don’t remember ever moving bean bags across a gymnasium floor or
doing forty-yard wind sprints over on the soccer field.
What’s up with the wind sprints? Were the coaches actually
paying attention? Could one adult with a clipboard seriously be marking
down the finishing times of eight kids every ten seconds or so? I hated
the thought of exerting myself purely for the sake of exercise. Yes, I
knew that a healthy body lived longer and all that stuff. Who cares! I
glanced around for any females. If the coaches weren’t paying attention,
at least have some girls around please. I wanted to know that my efforts
were being judged and graded, either by the authorities in charge or some
members of the opposite sex. And besides, what did wind sprints have to
do with football? I admit I was being cranky. Here I was, working hard,
and there were no girls around at all. Just one half-interested adult with a
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Karl Wiebe
clipboard and possibly a ball-point pen.
As I was only sixteen at the time of these big-city tryouts, I trusted
that my coaches weren’t complete idiots and so I did as I was told. I
limped off the field about two hours later, sweaty, tired and confused.
There had still not been an actual football sighting. It was all just
running. And bean-bagging. No actual footballs. We thought we saw
one at one point but it turned out to be a seagull. I figured it was the
exhaustion that was causing me to hallucinate. I hoped no girls were
going to run over to me to ask me out, since I was having trouble
focusing and understanding sounds. Luckily for me, no such event
occurred, or appeared even close to happening.
My groin hurt—I was sixteen years old, and no one at that age ever
stretched or warmed up. Besides, like most sixteen-year-olds, I had
weighed the health concerns of not stretching against looking nerdy and
had ultimately decided against the stretch. I had elected for standing
around near the bleachers and trying to look cool. Now that practice was
over, I was now seriously questioning the decision, since the whole
bleacher posing had not gone particularly well—none of us had beards,
our own automobiles, or valid identification for purchasing liquor for
starters.
We all staggered over to a big sweaty group and took a knee as per
the adults’ instructions. The coach rounded us all up at the end of the
first day and told us to check the list tomorrow for practice. It was then
that we would see if we had been cut or if we had survived to the next
round.
The next day, about three-quarters of the four hundred guys who
had shown up were gone. They were off the list. I swallowed hard and
eyeballed the paper on the coach’s door in the hallway. I was on the
list—near the bottom, but I had made it! Whew.
I was thrilled. Exhausted, excited and thrilled. And exhausted. My
groin really hurt. That had only been the first day. Good Lord, I
wondered how bad the second day would be. Would it be possible to
make the team posthumously?
I looked closer. I was actually second from the very bottom. I went
from jubilation and excitement to indignation in about three seconds as
only a sixteen-year-old kid can. Second from the bottom! That was
outrageous—I wasn’t that bad. I had ran my skinny butt off out there.
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First And Life
What were these coaches thinking! Who was in charge? Were they even
watching? Had they seen me over by the bleacher? I had a million
questions, and I wanted answers.
It was then that I realized that the list was in alphabetical order—
with my last name being Wiebe it made sense. I hoped John Wong knew
that too, although I think he was probably just as happy as me to be on
the actual list, even if he was dead last. I guess they cut Mike Zebra and
Zak Zucchini, if they even existed. It was me and Wong heading up the
bottom of the list. Andrew Adams must have felt like a gold-medal
winner for a couple of seconds.
I found out that day at lunch hour that my friends from junior high
were impressed. All of them had been cut. All of them. In my head, I
had ranked some of the better players from our days at the junior high,
and I figured I was about third or fourth best of the bunch. So I wasn’t
surprised when they cut Lamont, who got winded tying up his shoelaces.
Steven was another guy who was cut. Steven, who’s glasses were so
thick that his eyes looked like an owl’s. It was like peering right into a
pirate’s telescope as he was scouting for land from the USS Bounty. I
smiled. His glasses were really, really thick. When you are sixteen, this
stuff is funny. Ladies, when he winked at you, you knew it. However,
Lamont and Steven aside, there had been some all-around good athletes
from our pack that had not made the cut. Why was I so special?
I spent the better part of English class wondering about this instead
of reading Hamlet. As the teacher droned on about iambic pentameter, I
figured that there was only one possible and reasonable explanation. The
coaches had seen something out there. Amongst the hundreds of
scrawny, sweaty, pasty boys, I alone had shown that inner fire that would
get me on to the team. They had probably gone home to their wives and
children and demanded that they themselves “pick up their game” as the
coaches had finally witnessed what it really meant to be a competitor.
I mused further as we “silently read” Hamlet in class. Maybe
these coaches weren’t complete morons after all. Maybe the bean-bag
drill was a time-tested way to separate the golden wheat from the dismal
chaff. Sure, there was still another round of cuts to be made. However,
from the remaining one hundred or so players, I was confident I would
make the final fifty-five. I had a one-in-two chance, I figured. I had
only seen like four guys with full man-beards and a few of the guys had
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Karl Wiebe
their own cars and kind of looked like my dad, but that was OK. I smiled
and pretended to read Hamlet.
However, it wasn’t just English class. I couldn’t concentrate in any
of my other classes during the day either. All I could think about was
football. I imagined myself walking down the hallway with the big
leather football jacket, and in my mind I pictured seniors, a few years
older than me and light-years more cool than me shouting “high five!” in
the hall as I approached. Girls would whisper to each other and teachers
would nod in approval as I made my way out the door at the end of the
day.
“He’s on the team!” one of the teachers would say, probably to an
esteemed colleague. They would nod, thoroughly impressed and maybe
even a little in awe.
As I end of the day neared I grew concerned that my grades might
suffer as my evenings would be spent constantly answering the phone.
“Sorry ladies, I need to get my homework done!” I would admonish, in a
playful, flirty way, which would only make me more attractive.
Whoops, the phone would ring again. “Stay in school. And don’t do
drugs!” I figured that saying things like that would put me in good stead
with the girls’ parents.
The bell finally rung. Hamlet was dead. It was time to play. This
was it—the final day of cuts would begin. I was one of the first out to
the gymnasium floor, ready to do more bean-bags and wind sprints.
Man, I was going to bean these guys! I was going to kick some beanbag! Just call me captain of team bean-bag. Here we go! Bean-bag,
bean-bag!
The coach herded the group of a hundred-plus kids outside into the
gentle autumn day. The weather was light and breezy, but the looks of
stress and concentration were heavy and still.
Right from the start I knew I was in trouble. One of the defensive
coaches came up to me and said, “Wiebe, right?”
“Yes sir.” Hand me the bean-bags, coach!
“Line up over there.” He pointed to the wrong end of the field.
“Um,” I stammered. Yep, the um was kind of “my thing”. “Um, I
thought I was playing wide receiver?” Everything a sixteen-year-old kid
says to an adult is basically a question at this point.
“Nope,” the coach said, pointing. “We have too many receivers as
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First And Life
is. We need DBs.”
DBs? Dee-Bees? Argh.
I hated defense. And I hated defensive back most of all. I nodded,
swallowed and began to trot with apprehension over to the “wrong side”
of the field.
I didn’t like dee-bee. First of all, they have to hit people. I weighed
in at maybe one hundred and ten pounds, and a lot of that weight was
sneakers and hair. I wasn’t going to hit anyone with any considerable
force. I imagined an opposing player running into the end zone with me
hanging on to their leg like I did to my mother when I was four years old.
I stood at the other end of the field and did my ankle rolls, a few
stretches and tried to warm up my groin. By “trying to warm it up” I
mean I bent over a couple of times and grimaced. I wasn’t exactly a
kinesiology professor. Rolling the ankles. That was it in my bag of
tricks at that point. My mind was racing. I had no idea how to play
defensive back.
All right, calm down, I said to my quick-turning brain. Calm down.
Just get through the drills, impress the coaches, and they’ll see your inner
light. Remember the bean-bag!
The coaches called a standard scrimmage set up and they lined up in
a standard offensive set. As a defensive back, I was on the outside,
closest to the sidelines. I lined up against a big kid about two years older
than me. This big kid was a wide receiver—the position that I had
wanted! Nay, the position that I deserved.
The ball was snapped. The big kid took off running and I sprinted
along beside him. I knew I was supposed to stop the guy from catching
the ball, but that was about it. I had never played dee-bee before in my
life, and I had no idea when to turn around, how to defend a pass, or even
where to go. So that the big kid who outweighed me caught the ball and
I looked completely ridiculous should really surprise no one at this point.
This exercise in futility continued about five more times, and each
time I was completely turned inside-out as the receiver caught the ball. I
think one time I flailed my arms a little bit and made it difficult for the
offensive wide out to catch it, but he still did. No one fell down, there
was no interception, there was nothing. It was pathetic.
“All right,” the coach yelled. “Take a drink.” We all broke for five
to the water bottles, and I made my move.
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Karl Wiebe
“Um, coach?” The sentences always ended in a question. “I think I
should be playing wide receiver?”
“No way,” the coach said, checking his clipboard. “We have you
down as a DB.”
“I think I would be a lot better as a receiver?”
“Well,” the coach said, either impressed with my tenacity or
depressed with my complete lack of any muscles. “OK. Get on over to
the receiver corps. We’ll be running a few more snaps.”
Yes! Redemption. Finally. Finally the coaches would see my
blazing speed and cool moves. I returned to the water bottles and
guzzled down a full bottle. With increased, confidence, I guzzled.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can clearly see now that I drank way
too much water. Way, way too much. I was excited, it was warm out,
and I was thirsty. My stomach rumbled and made a swishing sound, but
I ignored it. I kept swallowing, gulping huge mouthfuls of cold liquid. It
sounded like the washing machine in the basement.
The next step in my evolution to professional football player status
did not go so well. Running at full speed with a full stomach full of
water is very uncomfortable. We all lined up. The quarterback would
take a standard five-step drop and then gun a thirty-yard pass down the
wing to the receiver, who was battling with the defensive back (DB) for
the ball. It was a straightforward drill. I knew this drill. This was the
drill I was horrible at not ten minutes earlier. However, in addition to the
heaps of water that I had consumed, I also realized afterwards that I had
never actually caught a pass in my life with shoulder pads on. This, it
turns out, is much more difficult than one might think. It’s like trying to
play the piano with mittens on. You can do it, at least in theory, but it
might not sound exactly the same.
We were taking turns running pass patterns and catching the ball. I
was moving closer to the front of the line. The guy in front of me lined
up opposite the defensive back. This guy looked about a foot taller and
had about thirty pounds of muscle that made him look like an actual man.
He looked like he was ready to explode and get the coaches attention.
The ball was snapped. He took off down the wing, the quarterback
launched a strike and the receiver leapt up and caught it. Wow.
Big guy caught the ball. Big guy was impressive, but it only fueled
my desire more. I was ready. I was hydrated, maybe even a little more
16
First And Life
than necessary, but I put that out of my mind and focused. The defensive
back, now lining up opposite me, had been my team-mate ten minutes
ago. However, this was a whole different world. I had personally
negotiated a trade to the winning team and now I was going to light this
poor guy on fire. I delayed my sympathy for him as I had to focus on my
skills first.
I looked over at the quarterback, ready to see him pick up a ball and
take a five-step drop. Only the quarterback wasn’t there. He was over at
the table taking a drink. Another guy had stepped in.
Another guy? Who was this guy? I didn’t care—it was another
player, he was probably trying out for the quarterback position, and I
would help him get the job because I was going light this poor defensive
back on fire!
The new quarterback took the snap and I launched down the field
like a rocket. The new QB did a five-step drop, and I was already twenty
yards down the field. I had started out a fraction slower than I was
capable of going, and it had worked—I had lured the defensive back a
little too close to me. I suddenly notched it up to the highest gear and I
had at least four steps on him.
I turned my head around. The new, unknown QB launched the ball.
And the ball sailed about thirty yards over my head.
“Huuuu...” was all I managed, my full-speed explosion morphing
into an awkward, half-speed jaunt. “Huuuu...” It was supposed to be a
“WHAT THE HELL?” but I was too winded, and I felt like I wanted to
throw up some water. The washing machine was finishing the cycle. Uh
oh. I turned, kept trotting at half-speed and staggered back into the line
up at the rear. I stood there stewing for about a minute as I waited
patiently for my turn again.
The line moved forward. The receiver (big guy) in front of me
again lined up and he took off quickly, just like last time. The unknown
quarterback by now had warmed up, having thrown about twelve passes
at this point. He was getting good. He launched a strike right into the
hands of big guy, but he managed to drop it.
Perfect! Enter Karl Wiebe, all-pro receiver ready to shine.
I lined up at the line and glanced over at the quarterback.
No!
They had switched again. Unknown QB was gone. Enter really,
17
Karl Wiebe
really unknown QB.
Apparently I was first in line for the rotation, and every quarterback
was going to throw once to every receiver. I was the head of the pack!
I was going to protest but the coach blew his whistle and I was too
pumped up or scared to say anything. As soon as I heard the whistle, my
immediate response was “run!”. I took off and sprinted neck-and-neck
with the defender. There was no moves, no second gear—just an all-out
streak down the sideline.
And I watched as the ball sailed twenty yards in front of me. It
landed with a sad bounce and rolled to a stop.
Last time, the ball had been about thirty yards beyond me. This
time, it was only twenty yards. Either I was getting faster, or the caliber
of quarterback had just gone up. Maybe someday the ball would be
within reach! I was hoping that the quarterback had a goal in mind of
eventually having it be about “zero” yards away from me.
I jogged over to pick up the ball, and suddenly I threw up. I mean,
it was completely sudden, and I wasn’t expecting it, and most of it was
water so it wasn’t that gross. But, man oh man, was it loud. It was a
huge cough, and a spraying of water erupted all over the football and the
grass.
I stood there stunned for about one half of one second. I tried to act
nonchalant about it, and so I just immediately picked up the now
dripping-wet pigskin and slowly jogged back to the group. I tossed the
dark brown ball back to an absolutely huge, sweaty guy who was halfbent over with his hands on his knees. He was the center, the guy who
was snapping balls to the quarterback. The big guy stood there and let
the wet ball bounce and roll, eventually coming to an awkward stop
against some of the other balls. This guy made no move. It was obvious
he was not touching it. He made no attempt to grab it. He just stared at
me with that look that most second or third-year kids give the rookies. I
ignored him and trotted back in line, trying to jostle for a better position
in the lineup.
It didn’t work. We ran the drill seven times and I didn’t catch a
single ball. The chances of two players hooking up on a thirty-yard pass
when one of them is running at full speed with a defender only yards
away is quite small. About as small as the chances of my making this
team, I told myself as I handed in my shoulder pads and made my way
18
First And Life
home.
I was pretty sure I didn’t make the team, but as night fell and I
pulled the blankets up to my chin, I silently hoped against hope that I
would make the cut. I knew that I was good enough, and I knew that
getting on a big-city football team would be a big deal to my parents, my
friends, girls in general, and especially me.
It turns out, I was completely right. I didn’t make the team. My
name was nowhere on the list. My only consolation was that John Wong
had also been cut, which wasn’t much of a consolation at all, considering
I had never even met the guy. Screw John Wong. Screw all of them.
I spent that next day limping down the hallways and making my
way to class in pain, all the while trying not to think about it. I was in a
zombie-like state during my classes and when the final school bell rang I
realized that I was heading home instead of going out to the practice
field. Normally I’m a pretty shy guy, but I made my way down to the
gymnasium where the football team was. The roster was now trimmed
down to fifty-five guys and they were receiving practice jerseys and full
pads. I went over to the wide receiver coach, who I had ran around in
front of and also vomited on his football yesterday.
“Sorry son,” he said to me, looking at his clipboard. “You are not
on the list.”
“I know?” I replied, inexplicably in the form of a question. I was
stressed—my voice was going up and up on the octave scale. “I was
wondering if you could tell me how close I came to making the team?”
“Oh, sure,” the coach replied, checking his notes. “We ranked all
the players and you were... fifty-eighth. I’m sorry, son.”
Fifty-five players made up the roster. I wondered what the odds
were that three of them would meet some unfortunate accident in the
coming days ahead. As my anger would grow over the next few weeks, I
would put quotes around the word “accident” when thinking about it, in
order to give it some ominous overtones. This was in the days before
Tonya Harding. And I didn't have the strength to wield a crowbar or
blunt object anyway.
“Thanks, coach.” I replied, slinking out of the gymnasium and
trying to avoid eye-contact with the players. As I left, I tried not to hear
the laughing, yelling and general roughhousing that was going on in the
locker room as the football team got ready for practice.
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Karl Wiebe
Fifty-eighth.
Fifty-eighth.
Fifty-eighth.
But, I hadn’t really let it weight on me.
Fifty-eighth.
--Fast forward a full year.
I was in a new town, albeit a small one, and this was a new
school, albeit a strange one, and I decided I needed to erase that fear and
anger and start again.
I needed to live in the present. The Calgary scenario was gone.
I was gone. I was in Thunder Bay now. I was going to make the
Thunder Bay team.
As I made my way to the gymnasium, negotiating through the busy
hallway to get to Bluebears football practice after my first day at the new
school, I knew I didn’t have cleats with me, or any idea how this smalltown football program worked. To be honest, I hadn’t even considered
trying out for any sports teams in Thunder Bay because not making the
big-city team the year before had been incredibly painful and frustrating.
As I walked down the last set of stairs, I thought about the odds. I
knew that I probably didn’t have a hope of making the small-town team,
considering I hadn’t even considered trying out until only hours earlier. I
hadn’t worked out at all during the summer, and I had none of the proper
gear with me. I didn’t know how I wound up in this mess.
But, I did know one thing: no matter how hot it is, take tiny sips.
20
First And Life
Chapter 3
Hey, did you know that the football practice field wasn’t attached to
the school? I sure didn’t know this. I didn’t know anything. No one
was huge into “explaining things” as it were. I found out the details after
school when all the football players reported to the gymnasium for their
gear. I guess, more specifically, we reported to an undisclosed location
that was more under the gym than anywhere else. We wound up sitting
in the gymnasium and Coach Stevens welcomed us and told us to follow
him. We all walked over to the far side of the gym and he opened up a
set of double doors, revealing a dank, semi-insulated storage room.
The gym’s storage room had stairs and they led down into what
could only be described as a dungeon. It was musty and dark, with a
couple of little 40-watt bulbs hanging precariously from the ceiling on
long, black cables. This was the room where the thirty year old football
gear was held.
Because there were only about thirty of us, I was expecting that we
would have a great selection of equipment—after all, a normal roster in
football is usually about, oh, I don’t know, around fifty-five? Yeah, I
was pretty sure it was supposed to be fifty-five. It was not fifty-eight,
that much I knew.
However, the assumption that a tiny school in northern Ontario
would have a high-quality selection of gear proved to be not only
unfounded, but completely naïve. Since there were only thirty of us, and
apparently the school had never fielded a full roster since the First World
War, there was never any significant funding for the program. As a
result, there was a very good chance that many of the young Thunder
Bay kids were literally suiting up in gear that their fathers had worn. I
could hear the cries now: “Hey doesn’t this kidney padding smell like
Tommy’s father, Mr. McLennan?”
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Karl Wiebe
The only new thing was the helmets, and when I say “new” I mean
that they had an old, faded sticker on the back that said “SA approved”.
This was crucial to avoiding spinal injuries, and, more importantly, the
school board not getting sued. But that wasn’t all. These helmets also
had actual facemasks. Not getting a brain injury is always considered a
positive, and with the inclusion of the facemask I knew that these
helmets weren’t from the Great Depression-era of football. “Spinal
Injuries Are Not Boffo”—I imagined reading the cover of the 5-cent
copy of the 1934 Fort William Gazette.
When I say that there was no football practice field attached to the
school, I don’t mean to imply that there was no field. There was a Fort
William Collegiate Institute field right next to the school. However, the
field in question was about the size of a postage stamp and had no grass.
I think that because the ground was level, it was legally considered a
field. Ethically, though, I wondered at what point does it become a
“field”? Is grass actually needed? It had no hills and technically you
could kick a ball on it. There was a sickly, little tree in the corner. This
tree was all by itself. I think it was a maple at some point, but it just
decided to stop growing. It was like, “screw you, sun, I am just going to
tread water here for a few decades and die.”
The little sickly tree was where some weird kids would hang out,
basically for the entire day.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t like the postage-stamp field—I didn’t
really care for those kids who hung out by the little sickly tree. One of
the weird kids wore a toque, even on warm days. I found that suspicious
although I wasn’t sure why. Hey Toque, what are you trying to hide?
There were the same six kids sitting there in the morning as I would
arrive for class, and I would see them occasionally during lunch, and
then as I walked passed them on my way home... I didn’t get it. I mean,
why get up and hang out by a tree all day? Man, I would rather just sleep
in.
I could imagine these kids getting up in the morning and their
parents yelling at them, “go to school, for the love of all things holy, go
to school!” and the punk kids were forced out of the house. Toque and
the boys were kicked out. The rickety screen door would slam shut and
the kids were suddenly out on the street. Toque would adjust his
headwear and flip his mom the bird. That would just be wrong.
22
First And Life
These punk kids would all meet up at “the tree” as it would
probably be known, because they didn’t seem very creative, and then
after about a half hour of watching the sun slowly move across the sky,
one of them would say conspiratorially, “well... officially we are at
school,” and then they would all laugh and sit under the tree for eight to
ten hours a day. You guys are awesome. You beat the system! Call me
old-fashioned, but my attitude was that if you are going to actually put on
pants and get out of the house, you might as well make it worth your
while.
The bell had rung. School was out. I had places to go. I passed the
tree-sitters and Toque and walked briskly down the street toward the real
football field. Goodbye, postage stamp field! I’m going to the real field.
I was told that it was about fifteen minutes away. Thunder Bay was so
small, I figured that the next town over was fifteen minutes away. I
jogged a little bit to loosen up my increasingly nervous muscles. I was
wearing my new ESUS LOVES ME shirt but I had my regular flannel
long-sleeved shirt over top of it, but unbuttoned to look semi-cool, and I
also had jeans on.
I knew how jeans worked. I was aware of the mechanics. Have you
ever seen a track meet? Like at the Olympics? No one is wearing jeans.
There’s a reason that athletes don’t wear jeans while they are playing
sports. All is well for about the first forty minutes, and that is when you
enter the danger zone—the time when the athlete becomes a little too
comfortable and maybe they make an extra twist or turn during the
course of play. That’s when the jeans decide that they are jeans, and not
jogging pants, and suddenly a testicle pops off. Boink. It was always at
the forty-minute mark. Maybe forty-two minutes. But definitely under
an hour. I would be careful to not make any extra twists or turns. Either
that, or I would practice for only thirty-nine minutes. I had my solarpowered watch. I figured as long as it didn’t get too cloudy, I could
reliably twist and turn. I looked up. There was one cumulus cloud lazily
floating across the stratosphere. I gave it a good stare.
The other option, of course, was to wear those blue shorts. You
remember, the blue shorts from the mystery box. The only problem with
that was that they were, well, short. Really short. Like 1970s-basketball
short. Do you ever flip by a basketball game on television, and during
one of the four hundred time-outs, they show old “vintage” clips of the
23
Karl Wiebe
Lakers or Celtics? It could be the most awesome footage in the history
of basketball—Larry Bird could be sinking a 60-foot jumper at the
buzzer, or Magic Johnson could be driving past two of the best defenders
in the world to gorilla-dunk a basketball, right at the buzzer, to win the
championship, and meanwhile all you can think of is, “wow look at those
shorts!”
I was aware of this phenomenon and I didn’t want the coaches to
ignore my running because I looked like I belonged to the Cold-War era
or ESPN Classic re-runs.
Innocent Bystander: “Hey coach, did you see that young, handsome
skinny student of yours catch that sixty-yard long bomb? He juked past
three guys and scored the greatest touchdown I’ve ever seen!”
Assistant Coach: “Sorry, all I was looking at were his pasty white
genitals hanging out of his underwear. Why is he just wearing gonch?
Who does he think he is? You call those shorts? They are way, way too
short.”
Head Coach: “Unbelievable! Cut the underwear guy!”
Principal: “Put on some clothes! You’re suspended!”
All The Cheerleaders: “You will never see us naked! Ever! E-VE-R. Give me an E—”
OK, so maybe I was getting a bit carried away. Fair enough. The
style of the day was to wear shorts that went down to your knees. This
was cool. I was lucky if these short shorts would go down all the way to
the bottom of my scrotum. So I had to make a decision—either I would
wear the shorts and risk showing the world my gender, or I would wear
the jeans and thus risk chopping my gender right off. I kept the shorts in
my school bag and figured I could get changed at the facilities when I got
there. I would use my previous experience with the big-city football club
to ascertain the scenario and see if it was worth it to essentially be a
streaker or get my nuts strangled. Game- day decision.
The directions to the real field were sound and I eventually arrived
at the Fort William Coliseum. If it sounds impressive, that is because it
was—well, considering that the last field I just saw had no grass, one tree
and six weird kids. The Coliseum was a hockey rink, an outdoor track
field, and a bleacher section that could hold about two thousand people.
I was impressed. Beautiful, large oak trees lined the perimeter of the
track field and in the middle of the immaculate, manicured lawn were
24
First And Life
two pristine white goal posts. They weren’t even the “soccer” style goal
posts—these were real football goalposts, like a Y, that were specifically
designed for high-end, uniformed, “real” football like I was about to try
out for. Get lost, soccer players! You bunch of sphere-kicking hobos,
there is nothing for you here!
This was big-time football. I got a little nervous and figured I
should get changed into the short shorts since I wanted to impress the
coaches. I would rather they glimpse a wee-wee than have me look like
a slow-moving Bible camp attendee. Besides, who is going to cut a guy
who is so close to Esus? They had seen a testicle before, I was sure they
would not care. They were like doctors! I glanced around and didn’t see
any girls anyway.
There were some boys hanging out by a dingy old portable trailer by
the side of the Coliseum. From across the parking lot, the trailer looked
like it was about the size of a station wagon. I immediately hoped that
this wasn’t our football team’s headquarters. There was no way. There
was a huge building here, next to the immaculate field, with change
rooms, showering facilities, benches and bleachers. I dismissed the
thought immediately and walked confidently up to the doors of the
Coliseum. I didn’t know who those losers were in the trailer, and I didn’t
care. I pretended that I didn’t see the one kid heading into the dinky
trailer wearing an FWCI jacket. It didn’t matter. I was off to the
Coliseum.
I swung open the stainless-steel door and walked in. It was dark. I
met a security guard sitting just inside. I was promptly instructed to
leave immediately and go to the trailer.
I swung open the stainless-steel door and walked out. It was sunny.
My heart sank. I walked back across the huge, dusty parking lot and
glanced over my shoulder at the beautiful, professional-style football
field that lay in the distance. There was a six-foot tall fence with cattlefarm barbed wire on the top. Fort William was serious about it’s football
and they didn’t want punks sneaking in at night over the fence to steal
blades of grass or take a whiz in the end zone. Either that, or they didn’t
want the grounds people escaping under any circumstances. My spirits
picked up again as I stole one last look at the huge bleacher section. I
imagined weeping parents, overcome with joy, and girls hanging out in
section AE or possibly AF waiting to sneak a glimpse of me as a trotted
25
Karl Wiebe
off the field, tired, sweaty and masculine—with real football pants.
We’re talking football pants that hid my balls.
I turned forward and continued walking, turning my attention to the
tiny, dingy, dented trailer. I could actually smell it in the early autumn
heat.
As I slowly approached the box, I tried to place the odor. The
closest I could come up with was “cottage cheese and frying bacon”. It
wasn’t as pleasant as it sounded, considering the only things in the trailer
that could be making that smell were half-naked boys. I walked up and
peeked my head in.
It wasn’t full of half-naked boys. It was full of naked boys. Well,
okay, not quite. There were definitely some naked kids in there.
However, some of the players had on various stages of equipment—one
skinny guy was fighting with the quadriceps pads that fit into his football
shorts, and the shorts were not only winning, it wasn’t even close.
Another person, who I determined was either a lineman, a really slow
wide receiver, or a seven-months pregnant lady, stomped around
completely naked. I involuntarily shot a look down at his midsection and
I couldn’t even see a tiny hose to indicate gender. Now that was fat! I
immediately felt like a pervert, because I was the only one wearing
clothes. I was like the reverse-streaker. However, I was obtaining no joy
from this view, either sexual or otherwise, so I knew that deep down the
perversion lay in the coaches making us get dressed in this squalor.
“Karl Wiebe!” The coach’s voice boomed from the back room.
When I say “back room”, I am referring to a desk that was set up at the
back of the trailer, which was essentially a large box. I say “room”
because there were two yellow-stained office paper boxes that kind of
separated the area from where the boys were changing. The boxes were
lying in front of the desk. And when I say “desk”, I am literally meaning
a student’s desk, like one that was, oh, perhaps stolen from Fort William
Collegiate Institute, put in the back of someone’s pickup truck, and
driven to the smelly trailer so that the coach would have something to sit
on.
I jumped when I heard my name. I half-expected the team to freeze
and all turn to me, standing there dangling and drooping and flabby and
naked and whatnot, but no one even looked up. The battle between jock
and jock strap was in full force and an adult yelling my name like I was a
26
First And Life
contest winner wasn’t going to distract anyone from letting the kidney
pads win the physical battle against tenth graders.
“You’re late!” Coach Stevens bellowed from the vicinity of the
office paper boxes. “There’s your gear!” He pointed a pencil at a couple
of boys getting changed.
I looked over. I saw gear, but unfortunately there were two naked
kids wrestling with pads and laces. I swallowed hard and made up my
mind.
It was now or never.
I was going in.
Another bellow halted me in my tracks. “Wiebe!” The coach
pointed at me, just in case I thought there might be other Wiebes nakedly
standing around in the smelly junkyard of kidney pads. By the way, how
do those pads ever get washed? They look like weightlifting belts and go
right around your midsection. But they are thick and couldn’t really fit
in the washing machine. I wondered how many generations of kidney
sweat was hiding in my pad. Eww.
“Get over here!” The coach’s yelling snapped me out of my haze.
“You need to sign a waiver.”
I made my way through the sea of dank humanity and smiled
awkwardly at the coach. Although he had done nothing but yell since I
had arrived a few seconds ago, I had been around sports long enough to
understand that the teacher was in “coach” mode. I figured it was similar
to when the army commanders talk quietly with the grunts on the quiet
night before the invasion. They are human. They care about you, ask
questions about your girlfriend back home, look at pictures in your wallet
and then wish you good night. God be with you, my brave solider. Then
the next day they are yelling at you to take the beachhead while your
buddy’s body parts are lying in the surf.
“Wiebe! Sign in.”
“Yes coach! ” I looked at the paper. “What is it?”
“Just a waiver. Just sign it.”
“Yes coach. What is it?”
Coach Stevens looked up. “It’s a waiver. It protects the school in
case you are injured... you know, standard stuff.”
I hesitated for a moment, and the coach sensed weakness. He
moved in with the classic line: “Don’t worry, about it, it’s no big deal.”
27
Karl Wiebe
“Uh, okay?” Again with the high-octave and all sentences ending in
a question.
I knew this was a mistake. A waiver in high school football was
basically a license to kill. I was powerless. Big kids from grades 11
through 13—we’re talking kids with facial hair—would be able to
essentially beat me up during practice, or even during a game, and I
would be powerless to sue. I imagined myself lining up to take a snap,
and some bully emerging from the shadows with a knife in his hand.
Three stabs later, as I lay there on the grass like an assassinated Greek
senator during an ancient invasion of Athens, the coach would saunter
over. “Hey, that kid died!” He would yell. “Call the police!”
“No, wait!” The assistant coach would yell. “The attacker from the
bushes was wearing a kidney protector under his Metallica T-shirt. “I
think he’s officially part of the team.”
“Did they both sign waivers?”
After a quick check of the clipboard, the coach would ruefully shake
his head. “Metallica kid has immunity,” the coach would say, looking
down at the bloodstains on the otherwise well-kept field. “In fact, I kind
of like how Metallica kid took charge of the situation. Move him up to
second team for kick returns!” The bully would saunter over to the
orange punch container, casually chatting it up with the cheerleaders as
my body was prepared for cremation.
I signed the waiver. I figured if I kept a close eye on the hedges by
the orange punch container I would be fine. Besides, I reasoned with
myself that logically, if two parties had the power to destroy each other,
it would be a deterrent—kind of like the Soviets with their 4,000 nuclear
warheads and the U.S.A.’s 5,000 nuclear warheads. I realize now that
mutual annihilation is only a deterrent if I could actually annihilate
someone, which I could not do. I was hoping that no one would know.
Maybe I looked more dangerous than I felt.
I jostled for position with the other naked kids and stripped off my
T-shirt. As I was rummaging through my old, sweaty gear, I noticed my
comically tiny arms. I wished I had some warheads.
28
First And Life
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS SAMPLE
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First And Life: My Year As A High School Football Player.
You are probably dying to know how this book ends. Does young Karl
Wiebe wind up becoming a superstar? Maybe he winds up becoming a
professional football player? Probably not. But you might spend all
night thinking (no, demanding) that you get some closure to this story.
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29