There’s good in everyone, even fourth-grade football players

They used to call me “Mosquito,” the guys on St. Isadore Elementary School’s football team. I was in fourth grade and considerably smaller then. I was a runty kid to begin with. Add to that the fact I started school a year early and it was a foregone conclusion that my stature would at least in part dictate my nickname.

I was never quite sure how I wound up on that football team; I’m pretty sure my old man signed me up, hoping I would somehow and against all odds attain the sports hero glory that eluded him in his own childhood. At various times, he also signed me up for Golden Gloves, Young Marines, Little League and Cub Scouts.

I did OK as a Scout, but my boxing, baseball and military skills were no more impressive than were my meager efforts on the football field. On the rare occasions the coach made the mistake of putting me in the game, I could be counted on to do something terrible. The one time I actually handled the ball during a game, I ran 15 yards in the wrong direction before being tackled by members of my own team.

I got beat up a lot during the long walks home.

I probably wouldn’t have gotten clobbered quite so often, but in addition to being the team albatross, I was cursed with a mouth that would not close, no matter how many times it was punched.

I would smart off to guys twice my size (which back then was almost everybody) and then be amazed when they—following the code of the schoolyard—pummeled me into dust.

All this pounding might have made me smarter or at the very least, quieter. Eventually, I suppose it did. I no longer willingly offer my opinions to large, calloused gents in bars. I don’t point out the flaws of others, or even argue too strenuously with those who make note of mine.

I’m a lover, not a fighter. Or would be, if I could find someone to be a lover with. But that’s another story.

The point is (I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere), I got beat up a lot and, all in all, had a pretty grim childhood much of the time.

I’m not complaining. Really. Because if nothing else, my roughshod youth taught me there is good in everyone. (Yes, even my ex-wives.)

I learned this one day on that fourth-grade football field. It was just a practice scrimmage, a weekday afternoon. I remember it was cold; the leaves had vacated the trees and the tang of winter’s implacable advance was in the air.

My dad rarely attended practices, but he was at this one, sitting under a tree on the sidelines and pretending it didn’t bother him that his son couldn’t catch, throw, kick, or in all likelihood recognize a football, much less do anything worthwhile with one.

I was out there on the field, standing where guys who understood the game told me to stand, then getting knocked over by the kid facing me. I was more bowling pin than defensive tackle.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the ball was in my hands! Somebody pointed me toward the goalpost (the correct one, for a change) and the whole team chased me madly as I ran toward it.

Now, I know darn well those guys let me make it to the end zone. Those of the team who took notice of me at all hated my guts. But because my old man was there that day, they allowed me to play the hero.

The following week I was probably beaten up by at least one or two of those same guys, business as usual, but on that day, they decided to do me a kindness.

That one act shaped my whole outlook, my opinion of the human race. I returned the favor the following season by not signing up for the team.