Mike Maddock

I haven’t been injured on a football field since the third grade. That was the last time I played.

On a cold Saturday morning back in the dark ages of October 1978, I was a four–foot–tall scrappy little fullback. That day I took a hand–off, crossed the line of scrimmage, and got pounded by a swarming mob of eight and nine–year–olds. I fumbled the ball and left the field with a neck injury never to return as a player again.

I remember holding it together pretty good that day until my mom and dad came down from the stands. As soon as they reached me, I lost any semblance of the tough, dirt–eating fullback I had hoped to become and turned into a big, blubbering tub of goo. It was not my proudest moment. I don’t know if it was the pain in my neck or the seemingly shameful stares of my teammates that forced me into such an early retirement, but I do know I vowed never to cry on any field ever again.

I have come close to boo–hooing a couple of times over the course of my mediocre athletic career since that fateful day. In high school, I committed several errors playing second base and cost our team a victory. I didn’t cry, but I also never saw second base again except from a pretty good vantage point on the left side of the bench.

In college, I was playing receiver for my fraternity’s intramural football team when I almost lost it. At least this time I didn’t screw up, I was just hit with a raging stomach flu which cramped me up so bad I couldn’t stand up straight.

Finally, I teared up pretty good when Clemson’s long snapper shot one over the head of our punter last year allowing Georgia Tech to have an improbable come back, but I wasn’t anywhere near the field so that didn’t count.

Now, as my 36th birthday looms on the horizon, I’m on the football field once again. This time I’m there on Friday nights as a reporter and photographer, not as a pint–sized fullback or overzealous fan. But, unbelievably, I find myself fighting back the tears on occasion again.

Sideline reporting is hazardous work. Last Friday, I decided to keep snapping pictures instead of doing the smart thing like getting the heck out of the way as a running back and strong safety collided a few feet from where I was standing. Both players hit the ground and tumbled out of bounds towards me, then one of the strong safety’s size 13 metal cleats hit me square on the shin. The strong safety barely even noticed he’d left several cleat marks and a Nike swoosh on my left leg, but I felt like Lawrence Taylor had just stomped through my shin bone. I rushed behind the players and away from the view of the fans to gather myself.

In my dazed condition and hurried retreat, I ran into a cheerleader.

“Excuse me, Sir!” she politely said.

Sir?

Then, suddenly, I wasn’t quite sure if the swelling in my leg was as painful as the fact that a high school cheerleader had just called me sir. With that one word, she’d turned me from a cry– baby to a pitiful old man. Sure, I should have been happy she was demonstrating that the youth of the world is still very respectful, but that word “sir” hit me harder than that size 13 cleat.

I am a “sir” now… not a scrappy little fullback or even a bad second basemen, but a “sir.” I’m the old man on the sidelines with a camera and ear hair. It’s enough to make me cry.