Hold It Now, Hit It...

It felt like yesterday when I stood outside the church in New Canaan in the June sun about to graduate from St. Luke’s. Pictures with Lishnoff, the Caden twins, Jerry and Nicole. Four years just blew past. A minute ago I was a freshman in fat laces and mad open because I was cool with dudes like Dezlin and Gault. Shit, I was the Fresh Prince (with no Uncle Phil) before the show. I drifted through prep school. I think I filled out three college applications and had maybe two football offers from Division two schools. I did visit Middlebury and Plymouth State though. I had no shot at Middlebury, just went to party. Lived a lifetime since the Hopkins loss. The game was for a spot in the championship against Brunswick. Cried my eyes out on the fifty-yard line after the final whistle.

I had one good year. That’s it. I was stuck behind Bailey on the depth chart until my senior year. Hubbard and Bailey were the two best tailbacks in the league. Hubbard played for King, he was bigger, more powerful and Bailey faster with gazelle-like grace. They ran like Earl Campbell and Gale Sayers. My sophomore year Hubbard popped one up the middle and was in the open field. He looked at me apologetically then ran me over. I held on to his ankle for like seven maybe ten more yards after contact until he just tripped.

He got up patted my helmet and said, “Nice tackle, little man.”

I sat out my junior year but came back senior year with some shit on my chest.

After I snot blasted Trew in the Oklahoma drill, Coach Moeller said, “Whoa, we got ourselves a football player here.”

Coach Moe took over junior year, the team went from 2-6 to 5-3 and 6-2 my senior year. I started out fourth on the depth chart on some Tebow shit. Guidotti got bit on the hand by his girl’s dog, Pedrick fumbled too much, and some how I got ahead of Trew. All before we played our first pre-season game at a jamboree against Fieldston, Horace Mann, Bridgeport Central, and a few other teams. They called us lunch because we only had twenty-one dressed.

In the pre-game speech Coach Moe pulled a smashed cream puff from a crumpled brown paper bag.

“One of these squads has no respect for us, somebody left this in front of our team bus. Let’s show them what really beats inside our chest.”

We walked quietly to the field, played with reckless physical intensity, got back on the bus and bounced. Coach had all kinds of crazy inspirational pep talks.

Before the first game of the season against South Kent he put his massive hand on my shoulder pad and simply said, “Get ready, Baxter we’re feeding you the ball all day.”

I responded with a workmen-like twenty-five carries for a hundred and five yards & a touchdown. Should’ve had another on a reversed field six-yard run but, Lishnoff got called for a clip. We won 6-0. Had a two hundred yard game against St. Mary's on Homecoming that year too. My game towel had “The Big Payback” written on it. We played them for Homecoming my sophomore year, they housed us 44-0 AND I got blind-sided on a pick-six, knocked the fuck out on the sideline and everything. Should've had 1,000 yards my senior year. Finished with seven hundred plus and I gained most of that with three games to go. Wish I had another year with Coach Moe.

Wished I listened when, Coach Haven’s said, “ You gotta pump before you can primp”.

I should’ve done a fifth year somewhere.

When I was five, Mr. Renzulli took me to see Rippowam play Greenwich High. He was my kindergarten teacher's husband and the equipment manager for Rippowam. I sat in the locker room watched the players tape up, the coach give his pre-game speech and it was my very own NFL Films Presents video. I followed the line marker guys all game. They even made a tackle on my side of the field and we all had to jump out of the way. When your five teenagers look like the pros.

I swear Steve Young was the quarterback for Greenwich that day.

They all looked tough and that’s how I wanted to be. My uniform always looked pretty but I played tough. When I played city youth football for the Norwalk Rebels we’d host a team at the end of the season. We hosted one year then go out there the next though I always seemed to miss travel trips in favor of church functions. We played Jacksonville one year and the kid who stayed with me talked mad trash the whole week. The morning of the game I stubbed my pinky toe on my bed and broke it. I cried while I tapped it up in the bathroom and played the game. Scored two touchdowns, one was a seventy-five yarder on a power sweep. Broke my wrist in a JV game at Rye Country Day, tried to jump over a kid, just taped it up and went back in. Used to love that shit. But one day I didn’t want to play anymore. My Dad said I would regret that I never gave the amount of effort required to honor my gift and I would miss the discipline.

M

RIP, MCA...