If
you hold a memory that isn’t shared by others, does that make the memory no
longer real?
As
far as I can recall now, the peak of my athletic career occurred in 1976 at the
age of 11. For me, football wasn’t just a sport. It was my passion. Growing up
in South Florida in the mid-70s meant no home-town baseball team to get in the way
of football. It also meant three
straight Super Bowls for the Miami Dolphins and the ultimate undefeated season.
When we played pick-up football games on my street the rule was no team could
be the Dolphins, because we all wanted to be the best team ever! That was solved when I was 10 and the NFL
announced that in 1976 two new teams would join the league—the Seattle Seahawks
and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. One day
after school we picked sides and after that we had a regular match-up of Bucs
and Seahawks on a near daily basis on our street—light-post to light-post, or
end-zone to end-zone. Our games started the very day Sports Illustrated arrived
in my mailbox with logos for these two new NFL teams on its cover. Our own
little neighborhood rivalry that lasted for years.
My
once-in-a-lifetime athletic moment occurred the same year that the Tampa Bay
Bucs debuted with a dismal 0-14 record. It wasn’t in a neighborhood pick-up
game but on the Miramar Optimist football field that was sandwiched between
Henry D. Perry Middle School and the Florida Turnpike. The highway provided the
sounds of speeding traffic in lieu of screaming fans, but the manicured grass field
was pristine compared to my asphalt street lined with palm trees and cactus where
each neighbor’s yard singularly added a new dimension to defensive scheming
through its shrubbery, decoration or the placement of cars in the driveway. As
the years quickly pass by me now the memory of that Saturday afternoon 40 plus
years ago remains as clear and vivid as ever in my head. I can still smell the
fresh cut grass, and feel the almost cool breeze I associate with football
season as if it were yesterday. Yet, I can’t help but think that it was so long
ago that maybe I am just remembering a dream, a vision, or a hope. Or perhaps I
just made the whole think up? Maybe it wasn’t me at all?
So,
it was a surprise to me when at a recent family gathering I had the occasion to
see my “former” uncle. I say former because Richie is my aunt’s first husband,
now long ago divorced. This of course makes him a ‘funerals and wedding
relative’. You know, a relative you only see every four or five years on occasions
that make you say, “Great to see you, sorry we only see each other....” However, Richie was not just my new uncle when
I was 11 years old; he was also my football coach.
At
this particular family event, a celebration of his and my aunt’s granddaughter,
we sat down at a picnic table, but instead of the usual small talk, Richie
surprised me.
“You’re
not going to believe this, but I had a dream about you the other night? I know
you probably don’t remember any of this,” he continued. “When you were a kid I
was your football coach.”
I
shook my head slightly. “Of course I remembered, but you remember too?” I
thought to myself.
“I
had a dream about what you did one game.” He almost hesitated, as if afraid
that I wouldn’t remember. “I was running right along with you in the dream, although
that’s not how it really happened,” Richie said. I suspect my jaw dropped a bit
when I heard this. “It was one of those
plays. The other team was driving towards a touchdown. You played linebacker,
remember? There was a pass play into the end zone, and you jumped the receiver’s
route, picked off the pass.”
 |
| Coaches Richard and Felix. I am the strapping young man in the back row, far right. |
For
a moment I was speechless. It isn’t a dream. I knew it. I remembered every
second. I remember the running back going into motion, I remember reading the
quarterback and seeing the running back go into the slot. I remember
anticipating his route, jumping in front of him at the right moment. I even remember
the feel of the cow hide hitting my hands as I grabbed the football out of the
air. I remember running to get out of the end zone and thinking I wouldn’t get
far, that I wasn’t fast enough. I remember after the first ten or so yards
realizing everyone was chasing me. I remember knowing I had to run faster than
I’ve ever run before, faster than I am capable of running. I remember the
feeling of being pursued the length of the field, feeling like I was flying,
and eventually crossing the goal line and the official signaling a touchdown. I
remember so well.
Richie
continued, “When you scored that touchdown in that moment you were the center
of the universe. Everyone ran to you to celebrate. Do you remember what I said
to you? After everyone congratulated you and celebrated, I pulled you aside and
I told you ‘to always remember this moment, never forget what you just did.
Most people never get to feel what you just felt in their entire lives, and it
could be the last time you ever experience this in your life’. Do you remember
I told you to never forget this?”
“Yes,”
I said. “I remember it all.” I am sure my teammates have long forgotten, just
as I’ve forgotten most of the details of that Optimist league football season
so long ago. I am sure the quarterback who threw that interception has no
memory of it. But for me the memory of
that 100-yard interception return for a touchdown a lifetime ago and that special
feeling I felt as an 11 year old is something I carried with me, and I guess I
still do. I am apparently coachable after all because of so many moments in my
childhood, I never forgot that single moment.
It
means even more now, just to know that it is a memory that I share with someone
else in this universe. It makes it real, and not just to me apparently. It
makes it important, even if only for two people who see each other at weddings
and funerals.
“You
remember,” Richie said, looking down, “makes my day…makes my day.”
Me too.
EPILOGUE
