For me up until about a few years ago, Super Bowl Sunday was not about the exuberant party, the million dollar advertisements, or even the game, unless it involved the New England Patriots (shut up, I’m from there). It was certainly about a game of football, but not the one the free world made a makeshift holiday over.
If you want to the gauge the maturity of an assortment of kids, ask them to play a game of touch football. It will give you a more accurate assessment than any bubble-sheet examination in a psychologist’s office.
For any generation of American suburbanites, touch football (along with Wiffle Ball) is as much of a pastime as trick-or-treating or fireworks on the Fourth of July. It was the activity of choice for innumerable summer afternoons, weekends in autumns before the first snowfall, and in springtime once lawns had transformed back from mud to grass.
All it took was one kid with a football, practically everybody had one, knocking on another kid’s door. Wordlessly, the two would hop onto their bikes, skateboards, scooters, Ripstiks, what have you, and gather others from surrounding houses; always making the one with the flattest and most rectangular lawn the last stop. If the kids weren’t home, as long as they’re parents weren’t either, it didn’t matter.
We would play until sunset, from whence the game would transform into Manhunt, or something similar suited to darkness and the freedom of trespassing upon the back patios and playscapes of our neighbors.
Of course, rarely would the rosters of players be level or the teams evenly matched. The gap between the oldest and youngest players could be as large as six or seven years, and fifty pounds.
The original tradition was to play with tackling, but it would quickly be snuffed by parents after one unfortunate receiver got pounced by two linebackers larger than them, leaving a large purple bruise or two on their arm or head, and subsequently run home in a fit of pain and tears.
Boundary lines would be marked with the equipment of other sports: hockey sticks, baseball bats, tennis rackets, in a pinch shoes would work just fine. Of course the lines were never straight, and ambiguous in-between the markers.
Teams would be picked by a captain system. Sometimes the captains changed, but the order never did. Eventually, if the game involved less than eight players, nobody had to be told who their teammates were. If there was an odd number, the team with the greater number would have the smallest (and most neglected) player, or one person would just play for whoever was on offense. Nobody would ever complain about that role as it offered more opportunities for glory.
Like I said, how logical the rules were and how smoothly the game functioned served as a parameters of how intellectually and emotionally developed the players were.
One of the most absurd rules I remember existing when I was younger was Safety On The Ball. This would mean that when the offense huddled up to form their play, if they didn’t say “safety on the ball” as they placed it on the line of scrimmage, the defense could scoop it up and run it back for a touchdown. I remember suggesting we kill the rule when I was around 13 as we prepared for the game at an annual Oktoberfest party. There was little debate.
Another habit that I personally credit myself for terminating is counting seven points for every touchdown, meaning that after an hour of play, the score could be 56 – 35 or 21 – 42. I remember at one point saying, “If a touchdown is the only way to score, why not just make them one point each?” I would present this argument at every different game with different players I participated in, and one kid would typically argue, “That’s not how football works.” Yeah, well “real” football also doesn’t work by beginning each drive by chucking the ball downfield to the waiting offense instead of a kickoff. I usually won.
Another frequent cause of controversy surrounded blitzing. Since there was never an offensive or defensive line, one defender would always be assigned to go after the quarterback. Some games would ban blitzing altogether, saying the quarterback couldn’t be tackled, yet also couldn’t run. But usually, we would settle on a rule of one blitz per four downs, otherwise defenders would have to wait a count of five Mississippi (occasionally three), counted aloud, to cross the line of scrimmage.
The rule regarding first downs would vary a little bit more. When I was younger, or just playing on a smaller field, we didn’t bother with them. Make it to the end zone in four plays or bust. Other times, somebody would place a marker at midfield to serve as a first down checkpoint. Less often, the rule of completing two passes to earn a first down was incorporated, but this usually resulted in cheap screen passes being used to earn that second completion, and ensue a debate regarding the ethics of it. By debate, I mean the defense would threaten to quit unless the offense changed their tactics, only to be complete hypocrites once they had possession.
There were penalties, but we would have been better off without them. Infractions like holding and pass interference, when not obvious, were hard to identify for anybody who didn’t play the game beyond the pee-wee level. Squabbles were frequent, and usually just resulted in a redo of the play. The two touch-exclusive penalties that everyone could agree on were roughhousing and grabbing a shirt collar. Yards were converted to paces, and were never constant or accurate.
I would argue that the most critical component the success of any touch-football squad was not combined ability, but chemistry; and this is where the maturity of the players really mattered.
Some of the best touch football games I had were at UConn, with my collection of friends and I usually gathering for a three-on-three, or four-on-four match on the turf field of E.O. Smith high school, practically on campus.
It was great because the hash marks served as perfect boundaries, and the presence of an upright allowed for the opportunity of field goals and extra points. The fence surrounding it threatened “prosecution” for trespassers, so we always made sure to use it on a weekend, and never had any issue with police. When it was in use, we would retreat to the practice field behind it.
One such afternoon we were challenged by a collection of teenagers from the nearby city of Willimantic, one of whom claimed to play football for Western Connecticut State University. He didn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license. The group of kids weren’t friends, but had conglomated there for an E.O. Smith-Willimantic soccer game that they clearly had become bored with.
At eight-on-eight, it was one of the largest games I can remember being involved in. But their numbers quickly dwindled. Two kids quit after several drives of never being thrown to. The player I was assigned to cover, a round-faced Latino boy no older than 15 with mismatched shoes would furiously spit, “That’s it, I’m QB!” every time the ball was thrown to someone other than him, which was always because he could never make himself open. He also never got to play QB.
Every trick play we pulled succeeded, and our blocking allowed for my friend Chris, as fast and agile as a coked-up weasel, to sprint for score after score.
We trounced them. If they got a single touchdown, it wasn’t more than that. You can say it was because we were older and bigger, but the physical different was slight at best. None of my friends are athletes, I certainly wasn’t. Still aren’t. The difference between a 16-year-old and a 20-year-old body is rarely significant. I would argue we were in worse shape, some games would result in the lot of us walking bowlegged for three days afterward.
It turns out that when your coaches constantly stress the value of teamwork, they’re not just spouting a cliché. I wish I realized that when I played rec-soccer in elementary school, as I was a liability to whatever team I was on.
Since before I was born, my family would spend the first Sunday in February at the home of our lifelong friends the Thompsons. Their annual party is second only to Christmas, some years not even, I look forward to. Scott Thompson was my Dad’s best man at his wedding, and a gourmet chef who always prepares an immaculate gauntlet of ribs, wings, meatballs, hors d’oeuvres and clam chowder that would be worth flying across an ocean for.
For the kids, the only time we would feast upon it was halftime. Not the halftime for the (insert two NFL teams here), but our own, for we would spend the near entirety of the four-hour bash in the backyard.
The Thompsons’ had a serviceable yard for the game. It sloped slightly and one side was bordered by thick woods that sloped steeply downhill, which the ball would occasionally get lost in, but the boundaries were easy to draw and remember, and there were few hazards: trees, flagstones, birdbaths, gardens.
The ensemble of players would consist of myself, Scott and Angela’s two sons Seth and Ben (also part of the Oktoberfest lot), their longtime friend Matt, and several kids from their own neighborhood and later teammates from their respective baseball teams. I, for once, had the benefit of being the oldest and tallest. My vision disorder made me a clumsy receiver, but I was still a feared defensive back; and the few years we played tackle, thanks to several inches of fresh snow serving as padding, an unstoppable running back.
While the roster was never the same every year, it was stable enough that we all knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and always played to the point of exhaustion; easier to come by in thick layers and snow-pants than a T-shirt and shorts.
As a child, and guiltily a few years beyond childhood, on the ride home my head would fill with a fantasy SportsCenter recap of the game, completely with a list of top plays and panel debate over controversial plays. I wouldn’t remember the score the next day, or even any heroic moments, it all became an adrenaline and soda fueled blur.
Those days are in the past. Now I go the annual festival in jeans and a collared shirt, stay indoors sitting in arm chair, eat and drink. The only competition between the attendees is fought on a pool table in the basement.
My days of touch football aren’t over entirely, and they won’t be until my legs or lungs force me to take a permanent seat on the sidelines. But in the two week void between the NFC and AFC Conference Championships and the Super Bowl, whenever I hear people refer to the upcoming Big Game, the one for the Vince Lombardi trophy is not the one I have in mind.
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