The Sporting Life:
The Public Professor’s
Saturday Sports Column
My friend Richie and I first met back in junior high school. We both attended J.H.S. 141 in the Bronx, me stepping across the street from P.S. 24, he coming up the hill from P.S. 7.
One of the truly amazing things about making the leap from elementary school to junior high was that you got
to go outside for lunch. For those not in the know, it doesn’t really matter how cold or rainy the weather is, outside almost always looks like a better option than the cafeteria of a New York City public school. Grab your coat, take the brown bag your mother packed, and head for the great outdoors.
In the Bronx it’s mostly paved.
No matter. We used those lunch hours to talk about sports and music, to play football (two-hand touch), basketball, or whiffle ball, and to watch other kids fight.
Richie, myself, and several other youngens ended up forging a long lasting friendship during those lunch hours, both at 141 and later at John F. Kennedy High School.
One of the things that first brought us together was a love of sports. Early forays into gambling on it were complemented by endless discussions about it: in class, during lunch, after school, in the bowling alley, at the pool hall, or just walking down the street. When you grow up in New York, you do a lot of walking down the street.
All these years later, my old friend Richie is currently in the hospital, busy kicking the shit out of some serious maladies. And I know he’ll be reading this, so today I’d like to share one of my most memorable sports moments about him.
During high school, we spent many afternoons playing football on the Kennedy football field. Oh Lord, that field. It was artificial turf. Not the new, downy soft kind. The old kind. Think River Front Stadium in Cinci, the Vet in Philly, or Three Rivers in Pittsburgh. A slab of cement, thin foam padding, and a topper of fake grass that had no give and was actually quite sharp. And it hadn’t been upgraded in over a decade, so the padding was practically non-existent. Not too many years later, the field would be condemned and JFK would have no home games that season. None of us were on the team, but we had almost daily pick up games after school. And we usually played tackle. Without pads. It was kinda like playing in the street, but with hash marks and no cars.
Now let me tell you about me and Richie, or more specifically, our respective body types. During adolescence, Cheese man was just topping out over the 6 foot mark. I never quite made it to 5’10”. And then there’s the whole endomorph/ectomorph thing. I have always been skinny. How skinny? Into my 30s I had a simple litmus test for determining if someone had an eating disorder, specifically anorexia.
You skinnier than me? Yeah, you’re anorexic.
For the longest time I was 5’9″ (and a half!) and 118 lbs. And that was while living on Delis and McDonalds. In other words I was a maxed out freak of nature. Kinda like what Usain Bolt is to fast, I was to skinny.
Richie? Not so much. In his 20s he would start working out and get into shape. But in high school he was still 
a bit on the pudgy side. I can’t give you a number, but let’s say mid-200s. I was giving up hundred pounds for sure, probably more.
So anyway, we’re winding down one of our frequent games. The score was tied. It was obviously the last drive of the game; there’s no clock, you just know by the way it’s going. It was fourth down. Being skinny and reasonably fast, I was hanging back in my usual safety position. And since it’s the last play and only a TD can lose the game, I’m about 20 yards off the line of scrimmage, standing by myself around the goal line. Richie was on the other team. Being large and not the fleetest of foot, he usually blocked.
But the other team broke the huddle with those Cheshire Cat grins on their faces. They set up in an unusual formation, and then someone went in motion. Next thing you know, they hand the ball to Richie.
I stand there, mouth agape, as one defender after another gives a half-hearted, matador wave. They’re tired, they wanna go home, they appreciate the humor of it all. And Richie easily rampages through their flimsy arm-tackles.
Sometimes you have to be a man. Sometimes you gotta make a stand and draw a line in the artificial turf. And when you’re a teenager, you believe stupid shit like that.
I crouched slightly, got up on my toes, and put a bead on him; or more accurately, he came barreling at me. He was pretty much a straight line runner.
As he bore down, I took a deep breath, bent forward and launched myself toward him. It was a perfect form tackle. Just beautiful. When I sprang forward, my right shoulder planted itself perfectly into his quads. And down he went.
There was just one flaw. I didn’t wrap up. You gotta wrap up. The problem was, before I could get my arms around his legs, the sheer force of his combined mass and velocity knocked me backwards, and I landed on my ass. As I did, he teetered sideways, stumbled, and fell into the end zone, just across the goal line.
Everyone on both teams was cheering. Me? I looked like Beetle Bailey crumpled on the ground after Sarge had put a good beat down on him. And it had all been for naught. Richie was triumphant!
And he will be again.
Get better, Big Guy. Game’s not over yet.
You can also find me every Saturday at Meet the Matts.