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+---- Thread: *It's Go Time (/showthread.php?tid=22623)
*It's Go Time - Yeenoghu - 05-31-2020
You know, my first game wasn’t even supposed to be against Arizona. We were supposed to play some small school out of San Antonio, but the whole Gulf Coast was dealing with cleaning up and taking care of each other after that hurricane. That’s a story for another time.
I think everyone in Houston knows the story by now, but our starter, Ollie Moore, he took a bad shot on the hand. Think he was trying to deal with the guard and the back ended up putting his helmet right on Ollie’s wrist. So coach told me I was in. Next man up, that sort of thing.
I remember, when he said it, I was excited and nervous all at once. Like, I was good at TWHS, but everyone on the field is good in college.
So I felt a little shaky, but it was go time. What else are you gonna do? Our defensive coordinator comes over and says “Just go out there and listen to Calvin. Whatever he tells you to do, you listen to Calvin.” Calvin was the Sam, but more importantly, he was a senior so he knew what he was doing.
Anyway, I sprint out onto the field and find 57 immediately. I run up to him like “Calvin, what are we doing?” He kind of laughs and says something back to me, but I don’t really hear him. Instead, I’m looking at this linemen from Arizona. He’s looking at me and pointing.
He says, “Hey, who’s this guy? What, they got the kicker out here? We runnin’ it at him, right?”
You might think that just about shot my nerves, but I just started laughing at this guy. He just looked like every other hothead you play against in high school. He’s got this wide stance, and his gut’s hanging out over his pants. He sees me looking at him, and he’s elbowing the guy next to him to try to get him to clown on me too, I guess. But at this point, I’m just thinking ‘There is NO way I can let this guy show me up.’ Right? So I guess they did what he wanted them to. The next play’s a handoff up the gut, and I’m on the tackle after maybe two or three yards. Now, I think, I’m here.
Growing up, I didn’t even really know what football was until I was in high school. Like all the other kids I grew up with, it was all soccer all the time. So I guess I’m all right at football no matter which way you look at it. Back in the day, we didn’t have any goals that we played on, or cones, or anything like that. We just put a backpack or a sweatshirt in the grass and called it a day.
I was never really one of those flashy kids who played on a prep team or whose dad drilled technique into them, but I wasn’t bad enough to be the guy that had to play goalie all the time either. Even back then, though, I was still really competitive. So, if I couldn’t dribble or shoot, you know, I thought at least I can stop the other guy. I’m back there just screaming at kids if they go too far forward or, God forbid, the goalie flinches away from a high shot. I’m sure if I went back and saw myself from afar, I’d think there was something wrong with that kid.
So that’s really how I got my start. I played on the rec league soccer teams until I made it to middle school, and that’s when they start letting you kick field goals instead of making the team go for two every time, at least where I come from. So, just like always, the head coach of the football team comes around looking for soccer talent ‘cause he wants to sign someone up that can really just nail the ball to play kicker.
A lot of us tried out, mostly because we got out of going to soccer practice that day. Now I’m not gonna tell you that I was banging in 50-yarders when I was 13 or anything like that. I was far from the best guy that tried out, and I didn’t get picked. But that was the first day I saw the high school team practicing. I didn’t know the rules really or any of the different positions, just that the team with the ball wanted to take it to the other side of the field. But there are some things that just sort of transcend sports, things that they all have in common. Now obviously in Texas, high school football is a big deal--it’s basically as big as college in some place. The offense has the quarterback, but by the team you’re talking about varsity football, that kid has been groomed to be the QB for years at least. It made me think about the forwards on my soccer team. They had such a head start on me, and I could never take their spot. That’s the same way I felt about the QB. But then I saw that the defense has a guy, too, and he’s in the middle, yelling at his teammates to get in position…
Anytime before you get to varsity, they have ‘tryouts’, but it’s just a formality. Everyone makes the team. So when I tried out, I was just trying to stay alive. The coaches would shout out some drills, and it seemed like everyone magically knew what to do. I was always a step behind and had to just copy the guy in front of me. So yeah, I made the team, but I’m still not really sure what position I played that first year. I hadn’t really hit my growth spurt yet, so I think they just used me and a few of the other kids as a warm body for the first team to practice against.
I spent that first year just trying to learn everything I could--the terminology, the strategy, all that. I started watching a lot of football on TV whenever I could, and I played a lot of Madden at my friends’ houses. It took a while for me learn from a distance like that, but I really just tried to drill into that the linebackers were doing. When I first saw them practicing, I thought they just kind of waited around until the guy with the ball showed up, and they’d try to tackle him. Rinse and repeat. But as you get into the pro levels, obviously, they’re doing all kinds of audibles and adjustments at the line of scrimmage. I was really trying to understand that sort of thing, what it all meant, and I started asking our coaches these random questions about different gaps and coverages.
I guess it worked, but it probably had a lot to do with growing about a foot during my freshman year too. I worked my way up from JV to varsity by my junior year, and of course, not too long after I ended up at the University of Houston.
In college, I just sort of turned studying film up to another degree. I’d ask the coaching staff for any sort of film on the next opponent that they could dig up. A lot of guys are just there for practice and the games, and that’s fine if you don’t have any plans to play after college--some guys can just get by on skill alone. So my teammates would be out at a party the night before a game, and I’d be looking for tendencies and tells to give us an edge on Saturdays. There are some real freaks coming out of college, especially at the powerhouse schools. Guys that can run a 4.3 40 and put up 25 reps on the bench. Obviously, there’s no point in hiding it, I’m not gonna be that kind of player. If I want to keep making a name for myself, I’ve got to figure out how to find my niche.
So now it’s the week of the DSFL draft. To be honest, I still can’t believe I’m going to be drafted. I wasn’t a five-star recruit out of high school. I’m not a freak athlete. I don’t play for a Power Five school. GMs and coaches from all across the league have reached out to me. I think what I like the most about it is a lot of the time, they don’t want to talk about my play. That’s all on tape, so I don’t think there’s anything I can tell them now that’s going to change their mind. It might be bad to say this since I’m not even a rookie yet, but I think they have respect for me as a player. As a student of the game. With my luck, I’ll probably end up on the team with the best linebacker in the league and have to fight to see the field. But then again, I’ve always made it work so far, so why not now?