July 8th, 2011
In this, his latest post, Jim waxes nostalgically about the senses and the football memories they provoke Since this Spring has been the worst on record here in the Puget Sound area, it is difficult to wrap our minds around the fact that football season is just around the corner In the western Washington of years past, a guy could always count on a certain amount of hot weather in the middle to late July and again through much of August We would get a number of days in the 80s and even a couple of days that might reach into the 90s I cant get a feel for the weather now, It just doesnt feel like the warm-up for a season at all It doesnt look like itor smell like itor even taste like it The prelude to a football season in the Northwest has always been a story of our senses including:
The odor of the first drops of rain hitting the dust-covered earth after a long dry spell, swirling dust up and into the nostrils
Seeing the beads of perspiration on faces as the beads gather and become rivulets that trace patterns down grimy faces
The taste of those streams of perspiration as they run down the face and seep into the corners of the mouth carrying caked dust with them
The iron taste of blood after a particularly solid hit
The shrill sound of a whistle piercing the baked afternoon air
The booming voice of a defensive coach correcting his linebackers
The sight of those who refused to participate in summer conditioning programs bent over, hands on knees, either throwing up or trying desperately to suck air into lungs that have remained inactive for way too long
The initial crash of pads in the late summer, a sound that to a football coach is music, like going to a great concert
The calls of defensive backs and linebackers as they move into pass coverage
The taste of cold, cold water as it washes away the coating of dust at the back of the throat Nothing else works as well
The grunting that accompanies supreme effort as offensive linemen work on their 7-man sleds
The distinctive (and unfortunate) odor that hovers over a huddle when too many uniforms have gone too long without being introduced to a washing machine
As an aside, I have to tell you that back in the late 50s we had a drying room in which we were to hang our soaking wet, muddy uniforms Practice pants and practice jerseys were never washed, not once during the entire season They were just hung on racks I do believe that if our local magistrate had sentenced someone to death, the method most likely to produce the desired result could have been to lock the offender in our drying room overnight That, however, might have been too cruel, too inhuman
Our school (Raymond High School) did take care of and washed/dried our socks, jocks and t-shirts Unfortunately, halfway through our senior season someone washed the entire load of white clothing with a number of red practice jerseys The result was, of course, jocks that were pink The socks and t-shirts were pink as well, but for some reason the pink jocks were more embarrassingif anyone had ever seen them Its not like we wore them on the outside of our uniforms Still, its the ideapink jocks
At Raymond there was another sound that showed us all that football season had indeed arrived That particular sound was the scream of pain when someone put on a jock that one of the team clowns had slathered with analgesic balm, you knowRed Hot Jim Olsen
Tags: Senses
Posted in Education Sport Minute | No Comments »