Riles McTackle has always wanted to be a football player. There was nothing he wouldn’t do in order to achieve his dream. Riles was born Riles McCallister, but he knew that if he was going to become a football player, he needed a football name, so he changed his name from McCallister to McTackle. He was five years old.
In his early years, Riles learned quickly that defense was his game. Being on the offensive side of the ball means that you need to either work as a group (like on the offensive line) or handle the ball well. Riles could do neither of those things. For years Riles would try to carry a football across the yard or down a hallway, but he would always drop it after just a few steps. There was something wrong with his hands, he couldn’t tell what, but they refused to keep hold of anything for very long. Carrying books during school was a challenge until he was able to bully a nerd to carry his books for him. So being a ball carrier was out for Riles.
As for working as a unit like on the offensive line, Riles also quickly learned that playing well with others was not a strength of his. He had very few friends. One time years before during a school baseball little league game, Riles saw that someone was stealing second base. Riles tackled the poor kid to the ground, breaking the kid’s leg in the process. That kid was Riles’ best friend at the time, but that relationship soon ended, Riles wasn’t completely sure why. Eventually, Riles’ closest friend was the nerd that Riles bullied into carrying his books for him. Needless to say, Riles was not good at playing well with others.
Riles looked at kicking for the briefest of seconds before realizing that kicking wasn’t football, it was soccer for people that wanted to pretend they were cool. That left one area of the field left for Riles, defense. The backfield needed too much ball handling still for Riles. He wanted to tackle people, not jump up waving his arms like he’s trying to stop a bus. Linebackers were tempting, but it still required too much coordination with those around him. That left one clear place on the field that was true to Riles McTackle, the defensive line. As a lineman, Riles would have one job: break through the poor sap in front of him and tackle the other poor soul that was unlucky enough to be holding the ball.
Riles tried out for his high school football team during his freshman year but got off on a bad foot with the head coach when Riles tackled him as soon as he saw him to prove his might. The coach, being mature and professional, still let Riles try out. Riles did well on the practice dummy but failed at almost every other aspect. He got a 48 second 40-yard dash because he stopped part way through to tackle one of the players that looked at him the wrong way. Riles tripped during the jumping drills and couldn’t string an understandable sentence together during the interview because he refused to take out his mouthguard. It came as no surprise to anyone except for Riles when he didn’t make the high school team.
Riles kept his dream alive, practicing his tackling skills on the nerd that he forced to follow him around all day. The nerd, to his credit, finally came up with a way to get through to the bully that wouldn’t leave him alone. The nerd decided to help Riles’ football career.
The nerd put a playbook in front of Riles and asked him if he knew what it was. Riles punched him in the face for daring ask him to look at a book. The nerd, used to it by now, continued. He said that this was a special football book, that it told players how to tackle the other guy the best. Riles punched him in the face for not saying so sooner. The nerd, realizing how far he would have to go, took out a red marker and started marking the defensive lineman. He told Riles that as far as he was concerned, these red marks are the only things he needed to worry about. Riles could be any of these red marks, and these arrows pointed towards the best way to get at the ball carrier to tackle him.
The next year, Riles McTackle stood by the football field again, ready for another year of tryouts. He stood there with a backpack, no longer using the nerd to carry his books for him. He also stopped referring to him as “the nerd” and started calling him by name, Michael. The nerd’s name was Mark, but Mark was happy to be seen as a person instead of as a wheelbarrow and never corrected him. Mark stood by his friend at the sideline. He wasn’t sure if Riles was actually his friend but it was closer than a year earlier. The coach noticed immediate improvement in Riles, after all he wasn’t tackling everyone in sight every chance he got. Riles even beat is 40-yard dash time, but was still abysmal as Riles kept tripping every third step. But the coach could work with that.
Riles made the team, barely, but he was proud of his accomplishment. Riles never stepped foot on the field during a game his sophomore year, but the coach gave him plenty of chances to tackle the dummies and some of the bigger seniors who could take a hit during practice. Riles could see he was finally getting a foothold into the career he dreamed of. Riles met with Mark, whom he still called Michael, on a near daily basis for football teaching and school tutoring. He was beyond needing red marker to tell him where his position was and could even point out where most of the other positions were on the field. However, he was still having trouble understanding why everyone didn’t immediately blitz the quarterback every play. Wasn’t sacking him a good thing?
His junior year Riles had his first chance to step onto the field during a game. It was late in the game and his team was down by 30 points. The coach didn’t see any harm letting Riles, who has shown a lot of improvement, onto the field to try to stop the quarterback that was walking all over them. Riles was excited, he couldn’t believe he was getting his chance! He lined up in front of the ball, ready to push past the guy crouching over it. Riles waited for the snap, it felt like it took half an hour. The ball snapped back to the quarterback and Riles couldn’t be stopped. He saw the quarterback in front of him, lowered his shoulder, and pumped his legs waiting for the impact. This was Riles’ chance, his time to show everyone that he was ready, his time to prove himself. Riles hit the quarterback square. The quarterback didn’t even try to avoid the tackle. Riles brought him down hard, too hard. He heard a crunch below him but didn’t feel any pain. Then he heard the quarterback screaming, a whistle blowing, and the thud of a flag landing next to him. What Riles didn’t notice was that the quarterback had handed the ball off to his running back several seconds before Riles got to him. The quarterback didn’t even see Riles coming; he wasn’t expecting to be hit. The quarterback had a full ride to a large school and scouts from all around came to his games. That all ended when the injury put a permanent limp on him.
Several long meetings later, Riles’ head coach was fired. The leading theory was that the coach was upset that he was losing by so much and purposefully put in an unstable kid to hurt the QB. Riles was kicked from the team and banned from attending any future sporting events at the school. Mark never left Riles’ side, playing Madden with him on Friday nights so Riles wouldn’t be alone.
Riles was ready to graduate. No more high school football meant high school no longer served a purpose. Mark tried to convince him that school was about more than just football, but Riles didn’t believe him. Graduation finally came and Riles was surprised to hear his friend be called “Mark” instead of “Michael.” Riles didn’t even see his best friend bat an eye at the mistake. Riles respected his friend for that.
Riles couldn’t get into Ohio State like he had wanted, so he got into the Lima Campus of Ohio State, a feeder campus for the main one in Columbus. Riles thought that still qualified him to try out for the team. Of course when he was asked for his student identification, Riles didn’t understand why he was turned away. That didn’t stop him though, his dream to play football professionally still held strong.
The Lima campus didn’t have a football program, so Riles had to start getting creative. He searched various search terms in the campus meet-up sites trying to find any group interested in football. He searched “tackle” and found a group that talked about its use of “tackle boxes.” He wrote down the meet-up time and place. When it was time to meet, Riles gathered all of his stuff, put on his pads, and headed out to the meet-up spot, the local lake.
The fishermen and Riles looked at each other with confused looks. The fishermen confused that someone would come to their fishing club in football gear and Riles confused that there were only fishermen where his football club was supposed to be. The fishermen were friendly and invited Riles to stay and fish with them. Four years prior Riles would’ve been offended, tackled one of them into the water, and stormed off in a huff. But now, Riles decided to sit with them hoping that someone else in football gear would show up soon.
Over time Riles started viewing fishing like tackling fish with a hook. That wasn’t a very good way of thinking about it, which is why he had a lot of difficulty catching fish. The fishermen were kind and tried to show Riles how to use the pole, but Riles didn’t have the dexterity needed to maneuver the pole around. Eventually Riles became so frustrated that he dove into the water, resorting to doing what he did best, tackling. Some of the fishermen started packing up their things, knowing all the splashing around would scare the fish away for the day. But then Riles jumped out of the water, holding the biggest catch of the day out in front of him. Riles tackled a fish in the lake. The fishermen wooped in delight, never before seeing someone catch a fish with their bare hands. Riles was invited back the next weekend to join them again. Riles was excited to feel wanted.
Weekends turned into similar routines. The fishermen would fish and catch what they could before lunch. Then Riles would run out into the lake and tackle as many fish as he could and bring back his haul to join the rest. Usually he came back empty handed, but the few times he came back with something to show was worth all the effort. After lunch, the fishermen would play a quick game of two-hand touch football with Riles, who was all-time defensive lineman. Riles only sometimes forgot to not tackle his friends.
Riles received a text one weekend from one of his fishing friends saying that he couldn’t go fishing with everyone. He was burglarized during the night and his fishing equipment was gone. Riles felt bad for his friend, so he went down to the store to get some fishing supplies for him. Riles severely underestimated how much fishing gear cost. He didn’t have the money to pay for it all. However, Riles was not going to let his friend down. He took a pole, a tackle box, some lures, and anything else he could get his hands on and started marching towards the exit. The clerk, seeing that Riles had no intention of paying for what he was holding, yelled at the nearby security guard to stop him.
The security guard stood in front of the door with a hand out, demanding that Riles stop. Riles was a defensive lineman, there was no way that some security guard was going to stop him from getting to where he was going. What Riles didn’t know, however, was that the guard was a left tackle, and a good one at that. Riles trained to break through barriers and the guard was trained to keep those barriers standing.
Riles spun to his left to get around the guard, but the guard got a good grip on Riles’ back and pushed him away. Riles pivoted back the other way to get through the far door but the guard got there first. The guard put his long arms around Riles but Riles broke the guard’s grip and shoved him to the ground, dropping the tackle box in the process. Riles bent down to grab the box’s handle and the guard, on his back, kicked his foot out right into Riles’ side, sending Riles to the ground. Riles is pissed, he just wanted to do something nice for his friend and this guard was getting in his way. Riles drops all the stuff in his arms next to him and gets himself up off the ground. He charged towards the guard, lowered his shoulder, and pumped his legs waiting for the impact…
The security guard has led a successful yet short career as a left tackle. He was all-state in high school, started for Alabama during a championship year, and was a top pick during the draft. He retired early because of the CTE reports that had come out, saddening many fans because no one doubted he would’ve gone to the Hall of Fame had he played a full career. He stopped the best defensive ends from getting to his quarterback time and time again. He flattened guys that were a head taller than him. He was a quarterback’s best friend and a defensive end’s worst nightmare. Nothing could’ve prepared the security guard for the hit that he took from Riles McTackle. Riles lifted the guard with his shoulder and pinned him to the doors. The guard’s head went back and hit the door frame, knocking him out cold. Riles walked back to the fishing gear as the guard slumped to the ground. Riles picked it up the gear, stepped over the guard’s unconscious body, and stepped out the doors the guard tried his best to protect.
By the time Riles got to his friend’s house, the police had found the burglar and returned all the stolen fishing gear. Riles’ friend thanked him for the thoughtful gesture (not knowing it was stolen) and suggested that Riles should keep the gear for himself so he could participate more with the club if he wished. Riles liked the idea.
Riles learned that his friend’s name was Louis, which was actually his name this time. Riles invited Louis over for dinner sometimes. Louis would laugh at Riles’ stories from high school and his failed attempts at being a football player. It was during one of these tales that there was a knock on the door. Riles opened the door and a woman with a briefcase stood in the doorway. She introduced herself as Cali and said that she was a scout for the NSFL. She was looking for qualified lineman for the league, happened to be driving through as she was traveling from Michigan to Ohio State. She heard about Riles from a certain security guard that was a friend of hers that she should look into him. A long conversation later, Cali gave her card to Riles and said she’d be in touch. Riles looked around trying to find Louis after she left, but Louis had left quietly a while earlier to leave him alone with his opportunity.
Several months later at the combine, Riles started running through the exercises. This time, he ran a 5.5 40-yard dash, not even stumbling once as he ran down the field. After the combine, Riles avoided anxiety by frequently fishing with Louis. He even caught his first fish with his new pole! Mark also came to visit Riles to refresh him on football strategy. Riles naturally introduced him as Michael to Louis.
The day of the DSFL draft came, when everyone dreaming of becoming a star awaited the results. With each pick Riles tensed, hoping to hear his name called, disappointed each time it wasn’t, especially if it was another lineman. Mark and Louis both sat with Riles in support. Then the Coyotes turn came in round 8, and the commissioner announced that the 43rd pick of the draft was Riles McTackle. Mark and Louis both shouted in delight, excited for their friend for taking another big step into his dream. Far away, Riles’ old high school head coach watched the draft, saw Riles get picked, huffed in admiration, then changed the channel to Jeopardy. The security guard, also watching, smiled. Riles, however, wasn’t smiling, or standing, or cheering with delight like his buddies were. He just sat there, letting the experience wash over him. He looked at Mark, thanked him, looked at Louis, thanked him, and then left to go to the gym. He had training to do…
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In his early years, Riles learned quickly that defense was his game. Being on the offensive side of the ball means that you need to either work as a group (like on the offensive line) or handle the ball well. Riles could do neither of those things. For years Riles would try to carry a football across the yard or down a hallway, but he would always drop it after just a few steps. There was something wrong with his hands, he couldn’t tell what, but they refused to keep hold of anything for very long. Carrying books during school was a challenge until he was able to bully a nerd to carry his books for him. So being a ball carrier was out for Riles.
As for working as a unit like on the offensive line, Riles also quickly learned that playing well with others was not a strength of his. He had very few friends. One time years before during a school baseball little league game, Riles saw that someone was stealing second base. Riles tackled the poor kid to the ground, breaking the kid’s leg in the process. That kid was Riles’ best friend at the time, but that relationship soon ended, Riles wasn’t completely sure why. Eventually, Riles’ closest friend was the nerd that Riles bullied into carrying his books for him. Needless to say, Riles was not good at playing well with others.
Riles looked at kicking for the briefest of seconds before realizing that kicking wasn’t football, it was soccer for people that wanted to pretend they were cool. That left one area of the field left for Riles, defense. The backfield needed too much ball handling still for Riles. He wanted to tackle people, not jump up waving his arms like he’s trying to stop a bus. Linebackers were tempting, but it still required too much coordination with those around him. That left one clear place on the field that was true to Riles McTackle, the defensive line. As a lineman, Riles would have one job: break through the poor sap in front of him and tackle the other poor soul that was unlucky enough to be holding the ball.
Riles tried out for his high school football team during his freshman year but got off on a bad foot with the head coach when Riles tackled him as soon as he saw him to prove his might. The coach, being mature and professional, still let Riles try out. Riles did well on the practice dummy but failed at almost every other aspect. He got a 48 second 40-yard dash because he stopped part way through to tackle one of the players that looked at him the wrong way. Riles tripped during the jumping drills and couldn’t string an understandable sentence together during the interview because he refused to take out his mouthguard. It came as no surprise to anyone except for Riles when he didn’t make the high school team.
Riles kept his dream alive, practicing his tackling skills on the nerd that he forced to follow him around all day. The nerd, to his credit, finally came up with a way to get through to the bully that wouldn’t leave him alone. The nerd decided to help Riles’ football career.
The nerd put a playbook in front of Riles and asked him if he knew what it was. Riles punched him in the face for daring ask him to look at a book. The nerd, used to it by now, continued. He said that this was a special football book, that it told players how to tackle the other guy the best. Riles punched him in the face for not saying so sooner. The nerd, realizing how far he would have to go, took out a red marker and started marking the defensive lineman. He told Riles that as far as he was concerned, these red marks are the only things he needed to worry about. Riles could be any of these red marks, and these arrows pointed towards the best way to get at the ball carrier to tackle him.
The next year, Riles McTackle stood by the football field again, ready for another year of tryouts. He stood there with a backpack, no longer using the nerd to carry his books for him. He also stopped referring to him as “the nerd” and started calling him by name, Michael. The nerd’s name was Mark, but Mark was happy to be seen as a person instead of as a wheelbarrow and never corrected him. Mark stood by his friend at the sideline. He wasn’t sure if Riles was actually his friend but it was closer than a year earlier. The coach noticed immediate improvement in Riles, after all he wasn’t tackling everyone in sight every chance he got. Riles even beat is 40-yard dash time, but was still abysmal as Riles kept tripping every third step. But the coach could work with that.
Riles made the team, barely, but he was proud of his accomplishment. Riles never stepped foot on the field during a game his sophomore year, but the coach gave him plenty of chances to tackle the dummies and some of the bigger seniors who could take a hit during practice. Riles could see he was finally getting a foothold into the career he dreamed of. Riles met with Mark, whom he still called Michael, on a near daily basis for football teaching and school tutoring. He was beyond needing red marker to tell him where his position was and could even point out where most of the other positions were on the field. However, he was still having trouble understanding why everyone didn’t immediately blitz the quarterback every play. Wasn’t sacking him a good thing?
His junior year Riles had his first chance to step onto the field during a game. It was late in the game and his team was down by 30 points. The coach didn’t see any harm letting Riles, who has shown a lot of improvement, onto the field to try to stop the quarterback that was walking all over them. Riles was excited, he couldn’t believe he was getting his chance! He lined up in front of the ball, ready to push past the guy crouching over it. Riles waited for the snap, it felt like it took half an hour. The ball snapped back to the quarterback and Riles couldn’t be stopped. He saw the quarterback in front of him, lowered his shoulder, and pumped his legs waiting for the impact. This was Riles’ chance, his time to show everyone that he was ready, his time to prove himself. Riles hit the quarterback square. The quarterback didn’t even try to avoid the tackle. Riles brought him down hard, too hard. He heard a crunch below him but didn’t feel any pain. Then he heard the quarterback screaming, a whistle blowing, and the thud of a flag landing next to him. What Riles didn’t notice was that the quarterback had handed the ball off to his running back several seconds before Riles got to him. The quarterback didn’t even see Riles coming; he wasn’t expecting to be hit. The quarterback had a full ride to a large school and scouts from all around came to his games. That all ended when the injury put a permanent limp on him.
Several long meetings later, Riles’ head coach was fired. The leading theory was that the coach was upset that he was losing by so much and purposefully put in an unstable kid to hurt the QB. Riles was kicked from the team and banned from attending any future sporting events at the school. Mark never left Riles’ side, playing Madden with him on Friday nights so Riles wouldn’t be alone.
Riles was ready to graduate. No more high school football meant high school no longer served a purpose. Mark tried to convince him that school was about more than just football, but Riles didn’t believe him. Graduation finally came and Riles was surprised to hear his friend be called “Mark” instead of “Michael.” Riles didn’t even see his best friend bat an eye at the mistake. Riles respected his friend for that.
Riles couldn’t get into Ohio State like he had wanted, so he got into the Lima Campus of Ohio State, a feeder campus for the main one in Columbus. Riles thought that still qualified him to try out for the team. Of course when he was asked for his student identification, Riles didn’t understand why he was turned away. That didn’t stop him though, his dream to play football professionally still held strong.
The Lima campus didn’t have a football program, so Riles had to start getting creative. He searched various search terms in the campus meet-up sites trying to find any group interested in football. He searched “tackle” and found a group that talked about its use of “tackle boxes.” He wrote down the meet-up time and place. When it was time to meet, Riles gathered all of his stuff, put on his pads, and headed out to the meet-up spot, the local lake.
The fishermen and Riles looked at each other with confused looks. The fishermen confused that someone would come to their fishing club in football gear and Riles confused that there were only fishermen where his football club was supposed to be. The fishermen were friendly and invited Riles to stay and fish with them. Four years prior Riles would’ve been offended, tackled one of them into the water, and stormed off in a huff. But now, Riles decided to sit with them hoping that someone else in football gear would show up soon.
Over time Riles started viewing fishing like tackling fish with a hook. That wasn’t a very good way of thinking about it, which is why he had a lot of difficulty catching fish. The fishermen were kind and tried to show Riles how to use the pole, but Riles didn’t have the dexterity needed to maneuver the pole around. Eventually Riles became so frustrated that he dove into the water, resorting to doing what he did best, tackling. Some of the fishermen started packing up their things, knowing all the splashing around would scare the fish away for the day. But then Riles jumped out of the water, holding the biggest catch of the day out in front of him. Riles tackled a fish in the lake. The fishermen wooped in delight, never before seeing someone catch a fish with their bare hands. Riles was invited back the next weekend to join them again. Riles was excited to feel wanted.
Weekends turned into similar routines. The fishermen would fish and catch what they could before lunch. Then Riles would run out into the lake and tackle as many fish as he could and bring back his haul to join the rest. Usually he came back empty handed, but the few times he came back with something to show was worth all the effort. After lunch, the fishermen would play a quick game of two-hand touch football with Riles, who was all-time defensive lineman. Riles only sometimes forgot to not tackle his friends.
Riles received a text one weekend from one of his fishing friends saying that he couldn’t go fishing with everyone. He was burglarized during the night and his fishing equipment was gone. Riles felt bad for his friend, so he went down to the store to get some fishing supplies for him. Riles severely underestimated how much fishing gear cost. He didn’t have the money to pay for it all. However, Riles was not going to let his friend down. He took a pole, a tackle box, some lures, and anything else he could get his hands on and started marching towards the exit. The clerk, seeing that Riles had no intention of paying for what he was holding, yelled at the nearby security guard to stop him.
The security guard stood in front of the door with a hand out, demanding that Riles stop. Riles was a defensive lineman, there was no way that some security guard was going to stop him from getting to where he was going. What Riles didn’t know, however, was that the guard was a left tackle, and a good one at that. Riles trained to break through barriers and the guard was trained to keep those barriers standing.
Riles spun to his left to get around the guard, but the guard got a good grip on Riles’ back and pushed him away. Riles pivoted back the other way to get through the far door but the guard got there first. The guard put his long arms around Riles but Riles broke the guard’s grip and shoved him to the ground, dropping the tackle box in the process. Riles bent down to grab the box’s handle and the guard, on his back, kicked his foot out right into Riles’ side, sending Riles to the ground. Riles is pissed, he just wanted to do something nice for his friend and this guard was getting in his way. Riles drops all the stuff in his arms next to him and gets himself up off the ground. He charged towards the guard, lowered his shoulder, and pumped his legs waiting for the impact…
The security guard has led a successful yet short career as a left tackle. He was all-state in high school, started for Alabama during a championship year, and was a top pick during the draft. He retired early because of the CTE reports that had come out, saddening many fans because no one doubted he would’ve gone to the Hall of Fame had he played a full career. He stopped the best defensive ends from getting to his quarterback time and time again. He flattened guys that were a head taller than him. He was a quarterback’s best friend and a defensive end’s worst nightmare. Nothing could’ve prepared the security guard for the hit that he took from Riles McTackle. Riles lifted the guard with his shoulder and pinned him to the doors. The guard’s head went back and hit the door frame, knocking him out cold. Riles walked back to the fishing gear as the guard slumped to the ground. Riles picked it up the gear, stepped over the guard’s unconscious body, and stepped out the doors the guard tried his best to protect.
By the time Riles got to his friend’s house, the police had found the burglar and returned all the stolen fishing gear. Riles’ friend thanked him for the thoughtful gesture (not knowing it was stolen) and suggested that Riles should keep the gear for himself so he could participate more with the club if he wished. Riles liked the idea.
Riles learned that his friend’s name was Louis, which was actually his name this time. Riles invited Louis over for dinner sometimes. Louis would laugh at Riles’ stories from high school and his failed attempts at being a football player. It was during one of these tales that there was a knock on the door. Riles opened the door and a woman with a briefcase stood in the doorway. She introduced herself as Cali and said that she was a scout for the NSFL. She was looking for qualified lineman for the league, happened to be driving through as she was traveling from Michigan to Ohio State. She heard about Riles from a certain security guard that was a friend of hers that she should look into him. A long conversation later, Cali gave her card to Riles and said she’d be in touch. Riles looked around trying to find Louis after she left, but Louis had left quietly a while earlier to leave him alone with his opportunity.
Several months later at the combine, Riles started running through the exercises. This time, he ran a 5.5 40-yard dash, not even stumbling once as he ran down the field. After the combine, Riles avoided anxiety by frequently fishing with Louis. He even caught his first fish with his new pole! Mark also came to visit Riles to refresh him on football strategy. Riles naturally introduced him as Michael to Louis.
The day of the DSFL draft came, when everyone dreaming of becoming a star awaited the results. With each pick Riles tensed, hoping to hear his name called, disappointed each time it wasn’t, especially if it was another lineman. Mark and Louis both sat with Riles in support. Then the Coyotes turn came in round 8, and the commissioner announced that the 43rd pick of the draft was Riles McTackle. Mark and Louis both shouted in delight, excited for their friend for taking another big step into his dream. Far away, Riles’ old high school head coach watched the draft, saw Riles get picked, huffed in admiration, then changed the channel to Jeopardy. The security guard, also watching, smiled. Riles, however, wasn’t smiling, or standing, or cheering with delight like his buddies were. He just sat there, letting the experience wash over him. He looked at Mark, thanked him, looked at Louis, thanked him, and then left to go to the gym. He had training to do…
Words: 2946