SPANKY

            We called him Spanky because
he looked like the Our Gang star. He
played left tackle on our high school
football team. Started on offense and
defense. Yet what distinguished
Spanky, in 1981 mind you, was his size.
Spanky weighed 310 pounds.
            A good, corn-fed, Minnesota boy
of Swedish stock.
            The name of our team was the
Cambridge Blue Jackets. Blue Jackets
evidently referring to those worn by
sailors long past. Our coach was a gruff,
chain-smoking, drill-general named
George Larson. By the end of his career,
he went into the record books as the
coach who won the most games in state
history. If you were unfortunate enough
to experience him breaking his clipboard
over your helmet as he shouted
Judas Priest! What do you think you’re
doing? you can still probably detect the
ring.
            So it was tradition every year for
our team to go to the state playoffs and
compete against bigger schools from the
cities. Cambridge lies an hour north of
Minneapolis and St. Paul. Now it’s a
bedroom community, but back then over
half of the people who lived there were
farmers.
            One of my friends, Peter, who also
played football and was a wrestling star,
had a trap line. I once stayed for a sleep-
over at his house. In the morning before
school, we pulled on hip waders and
marched through the snow and slush of
creeks and swamps as the sun came up,
checking for caught muskrats or mink.
That day, no luck.
            But this year, our team started the
season with little expected of it. The team
to be on was the year before. They were
the All-Stars. We the Bad News Bears.
            Nevertheless, to everyone’s
chagrin, we found ourselves playing the
number one ranked team, who had been
so all year, in the tournament’s first round:
St. Thomas Academy. They recruited heavily
and even tried to steal our co-captain and
quarterback Jon. We hated them. But what
really fired us up was a radio interview with
their players on the day of the game.
            The most popular show came from an
AM station called WCCO. A lot of news and
talk long before that format became popular.
On game days another tradition for the
players was to wear their jerseys to school.
So I’m sitting in fourth hour English, when
unexpectedly over the P.A. system comes
the familiar voice of the WCCO radio D.J.
asking a St. Thomas Academy player what
they think will happen next. Well after we
play Cambridge, we’ll probably play
Rochester John-Mayo in the semis.
            What?! someone in the class said.
Which expressed perfectly the sense of
indignation we all felt. How arrogant! How
typical coming from those people. How sinful!
            As we walked into the locker room at
half-time leading 7-0, Spanky took off his
helmet and slammed it into a locker with a
booming crash. We can beat these fuckers!
he shouted. And we all knew at that moment, as Coach Larson agreed with him, that he was right.
            Being a team with low expectations
added to the stress that came when
St. Thomas tried to kick a field goal from
the 17-yard-line at the beginning of the
fourth quarter.
            Wedgola! bellowed coach Larson. The
secret play we had rehearsed all season and
never used. The idea was to focus the
considerable mass of our line, who averaged
265 lbs. from tackle to tackle, like a
log-splitter over the center. In high school,
that person was generally a third string
quarterback of smaller stature. Such was
the case tonight. Send in the six-foot
four-inch leapers afterwards and you may
block the kick.
           Now even though Spanky had his
tender side, one morning at the beginning
of the season when we practiced three
times a day, he clamored to his feet caked
with mud and commented how beautiful
the sun was glinting off the dewy grass,
as it is Spanky nodded coach Humphries
beaming, but this was not that kind of
moment.
            The quarterback came up to center.
Just before he started calling the signals,
Spanky, hunched in his four-point stance
looking more like a giant black widow
spider with the other guys’ shoulder pads
and girth fanning out from his, says Guess
who’s gonna die, fucker.
            They mowed him and Jon blocked
the kick.
            Though paramedics carted the kid
off the field on a stretcher after the play,
later he was fine. As we shook their hands
after the game, most of the Tommies
looked stunned. Except the center who
experienced Spanky in ways I had during
practice when we were quote en quote
Live. The kid cried and was cursing. When
my teammates behind me saw him, they
cracked up laughing. Then one added,
Poor baby.
            Walking off the field my father said
to the head referee, You called a great
game. The man stopped, took off his
black cap and said as he rubbed his
head That was one of the best games
I’ve ever ref’d.

April, 2005