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It just occured to me that we have a lot, and I mean a lot of football experts on this board.

I've been disparaged from time to time for lacking knowledge of the game that others here have. Therefore, I'd be interested in learning what other's football "resumes" are with regard to having played the game.

I'll go first.

As many know, I was a life-long soccer "fag", That did not prevent me from playing freshman football at Milwaukee Boys Tech in 1974 (Soccer was only a varsity sport back then and freshman could not play on varsity teams at the time---I had to go out for something.)

First day of school, they make an announcement in the morning that those interested in trying out for the Frosh team needed to report to the cafeteria after school.

Overflow turn-out at the meeting----about 125 boys. Coaches had only brought about 100 physical forms. He went up and down the cafeteria giving the forms to the kids that looked the most promising as football players. I was among the 25 or so that he then told-----"If you're still interested in coming out for the team, come back tommorrow and I'll give you a physical card." Next day, maybe five of us undesireables showed up.

To speed things up, started out as a 7th string tight-end, all 5"7 and 130 pounds of me. I stayed seventh string until the one day Coach decided to see how his tight-ends could catch the football.

Let's just say that this soccer goalie showed them boys a thing or two about catching the ball. Became a starter, caught a lot of passes and even scored a couple of touch downs.

Retired after that season to a life of soccer.

So........I played the game bitches. Big Grin

I'd love to hear the football backgrounds of some of my X4 brothers!
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Played all four years in high school at guard and tackle on offense, starting my sophomore through senior years. Also played some defense, starting both ways my senior year. Then was an assistant coach at my high school for seven years, primarily working with wide receivers and defensive backs as well as coaching the junior varsity. My last year coaching I was actually our defensive coordinator, although not overly great at it. I also worked as a video intern for the Jacksonville Jaguars inaugural training camp at UW-Stevens Point where I helped film and dub practice tapes for distribution to the coaches. I got a pretty good taste of what a training camp is really like. Ate lunch with Doug Williams and Jeff Lageman and also helped Desmond Howard find his dorm.

I probably would have worked with them the following year had they decided to return to Stevens Point. They didn't, and I discovered rugby shortly after.
I did neuropsych screenings for the Jets during the Parcells era as the concussion protocols were just beginning. I remember doing testing with a rookie kicker during training camp and he was sooo nervous. I knew right then he didn't have the ice water in his veins needed to be a successful kicker. As far as actual playing experience, it's pretty much limited to street football growing up, as well as the early Nintendo football games until a thumb injury ended my career.
Played backyard until high school, which was the first opportunity for organized ball where I grew up. First play as a freshman on JV, returned kickoff to the house. Always played split end, corner and gunner on punt coverage. Only problem with playing SE at my HS: our coach insisted on running the ball 98% of the time because we always had a good running game and very average QB's. I made a living on pop passes and "waggles" which really only happened once or twice a game. Last game of my senior year I begged the coach to let me run a fly down the sideline off a double move - a play not even in our playbook. Easy 6. I yelled at him "we could have been doing that for 4 years!". Benched.

Made team as frosh at small college but had to redirect my free time to physics lab. Oof.
Two years of grade school and two in high as an end and tackle. (single platoon in those days). We ran a T formation offense, and one of our opponents a single wing (I would swear Michigan State did then too -- in 1954-55) so what I learned of the game from playing is pretty outdated.

The rest of my experience is as a spectator.
Playing > "Smear the Deer" in the backyard > 4 years in High School.

Coaching > JV in High School > Varsity in High School.

Filmwork > Plenty of High school game tape > DVD instruction > Youtube instruction
Played Nose Tackle and Offensive Tackle in high school all 4 years. Mostly played defense. Never tried to play in college.

Most importantly, I was a master of Tecmo Super Bowl. I also used to play Madden religiously. I figure that qualifies me for anything.

LOL, I also played "Smear the Deer" in grade school. Except we didn't call it "Deer".
Before high school I was a 2 way lineman for the West End Rams. We went undefeated 3 yrs. in a row. We beat the Caroline St. Cougars in one championship game 162 to 48. Eeker We had guys like "Bubba" "Wally" "Flint" and 'Brittle". Our fullback got hurt on every play. I was the all time league leader in "sacks with 16 and 3 forced fumbles. No tuck rule then. I carried the ball twice like B.J. Raji. I almost took it "to the house: on one play about 20 yards. I was rewarded for that by getting it again on the next play and ran over "Mr. Wonderful" (the high school coach's son) in front of all of his girl friends for the touchdown. I had to work through high school so no time for practice. I tried out for basketball but leveled the same kid again and yes the football coach was also the basketball coach and my school sports career was over. Frowner
quote:
Originally posted by Pakrz:
Backyard football up until junior high. Played my 7th and 8th grade years as a defensive back. I was too skinny and was getting smoked... so I said ****.q it.


This. And I was a whizz at Electric Football. I still have mine. I also read every book on football I could get as a kid on up. Instant Replay, Quarterbacking by Bart Starr, Football Stars of 1965, 66, and 67. I also have a Vince Lombardi Football game that is some kind of card based game.
Madden 04:

After Brett Favre retired, I fired Mike Sherman and replaced him with Mike Zimmer. Unfortunately, we went 4-12 and the replacement QB was a huge bust. So I canned both of them, hired Holmgren, signed Kyle Boller, and we won the Super Bowl in two years.
quote:
Originally posted by trump:
Playing > "Smear the Deer" in the backyard > 4 years in High School.



You didn't really call it that, did you?

We played the same game with a slightly different name.

Slighly less PC in my day, I guess.

In winter, the rules on the playground were you could tackle a guy on the parts of the pavement that were snow-covered, but not tackle on the bare parts---- it sucked to get nailed on the border of asphalt and snow.
I'll take it seriously...

1975 Arcadia High School Freshman football team.

Started at Defensive Back on defense and End on offense (Actually alternated with Jim Bremer bringing in plays). Sounds pretty impressive until you find out that there were only 12 guys on the team. To be honest though, I think I could have played all the time on offense, but they made me bring in plays because I was one of the few who could remember the play all the way from the sidelines to the huddle (usually).

Lead the team in receptions (ties -- 1).

Sophomore year I decided to not play football since the year before my weight had ballooned from 84 to 93 pounds just during the season and I didn't want to grow myself out of the 98 pound weight-class for wrestling. Good thing too because by my senior year I barely was able to get down to 112 pounds.


So basically, I knew/know/ever will know very little about football.

Heck, I even thought this thread was about hoping football would start again.
I was just too small. I didn't start "sprouting" until junior year of HS. But, I played a ton of pick up football and was a crazy kid. Ran really hard and caught the ball really well. I was fast, but not real fast and like I said, just too small.

BK, while you were at Boys Tech (renamed Milwaukee Tech), I was at James Madison, class of '76. Man, our graduating class was close to 1000 kids. That is part of what I mean by too small. They sure had a lot of guys to pick from.

It would have been neat to live in a far more rural area where there was more opportunity.

By the way, my senior year James Madison beat Tech for the city championship. It was a good close game, which I saw.

I remember though that Madison played Thomas More (I think it was) who whupped them. I guess parochial league much stronger.
I played football from 6th grade through 8th grade for Corpus Christi Catholic School. We had to combine 2 schools to get enough players and I played defensive end and Tight End. Never got to catch any passes because we ran the ball the majority of the game. It was fun to whip up on the public school kids. I became pretty good at blocking the linebackers and laying on the ground watching the RB take it to the house. In high school I played basketball my freshman year and then decided I liked having money so I worked instead of playing sports. I did watch my brother play football because he was one crazy son of a bitch. He played running back and just punished the defense. He had one game where he scored all 45 points himself. He also played CB on defense and was all conference punter. The funny thing is he was smaller than I was. Of course I watched the Packers every Sunday as I still do.
For the record phaedrus (not that anybody cares) after my year at Tech, transferred to Riverside------they had girls----and a better soccer team.

Madison had a stellar soccer team. Lots of guys I wound-up playing against in the Wisconsin Soccer Association played there including Rolan Sikenger (sp?) a goalie that went on to play in the NASL, and Dave Hodgson who is still a Bavarian legend. Alioto brothers too, IIRC correctly.

In the very first state soccer tournament---1976---Madison beat us on PK's---strangely, taken from the 16-yard-line.

The next year, we redeemed ourselves by winning the state championship vs. Milwaukee South, again on PK's (I saved three).

Good times. Good times.
Watched my first Packer games with Grandpa in the early 80's at County Stadium. Grandpa talked of the "Glory Days" of Lombardi's teams. The Chargers with Fouts, Jefferson, and Company were often in the 3pm timeslot, so watched them a ton.

Was a skinny little kid. Read a ton of football books and watched any game that was on. At recess, friends and I played touch football ALL the time. 3rd string safety on the 5th Grade team that never saw a pass. After practice one night, Coach and a few of us played a 4 on 4 game, where I showed off my inner Wes Welker, to the shock of coach.

Almost got my ass kicked by the Senior HS team after I wrote a totally honest but (granted dry and humorful) article on our winless team. During college at Boise State, majored in sports journalism for a while and covered a lot of HS football as the reporter/photographer. Really enjoyed doing this until the reality of a good paycheck set in. Would love to get back into some form of sports journalism in the "twilight" years.

Put on my "football weight" after marriage, but can still watch pretty much any game and love it. Attended the Boise State/Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl, and in the immortal words of Barry Alvarez in the telecast booth, "I've seen everything...now".
quote:
Originally posted by Blair Kiel:
Why does it seem as if some people aren't taking my question seriously?
I'm serious. My football resume is exactly what I wrote. I also played "Smear The Bomber" but it had to be played at night with no lights. I also remember playing a New Years Day game about 30 yrs ago. A big lake effect squall was coming through and we were lined up for the National Anthem. We had a flagpole and and a recording. It was snowing like hell and a State Trooper stopped to see what was going on. He just shook his head and kept on driving.
played 4 years for the De Pere Abbott Pennings Squires TE/DE maxed out at 150lbs soaking wet we were 9-1 my senior year. The 1 loss is all mine!

Have been coaching competetive youth football, OK Pop Warner, for 8 seasons now. Fall 11 man and Spring 8 man. This Spring will be my 9th season. I may make DC. In the past I have been assistant coach-OL/DL, ST's and DB's, Scout offense. Have been hearing some rumours may get asked to coach HS JV for our local 6a school. If so then cant coach in spring due to recruiting rules. Florida is a football crazy state. In the division we play one team always makes it to the National Championship game

I fell into coaching due to GusBob JR. What dad does not brag up his kid? I try not to , could just go to film to prove it. at 14 he weighs 170 and runs a 4.9 40. 5 of our local High School head coaches came to watch him practice and play this Fall that I know of. They tell me he'd start varsity for them. He plays FB and MLB
As far as soccer goes, we would take some beat up ball of any size as long as it could hold air. We even used tennis balls in a pinch. We would soak the ball in lighter fluid and set it on fire. We played until the ball burned up and then get another. Big Grin Again this had to be played at night with no lights!
Played tackle football 4th grade thru high school. Started three years on varsity and got recruited by some football powerhouses like UW-River Falls and Ripon. Skipped football and played college baseball. You can read my jeenyus on America's Favorite Pastime on the Crew forum.
quote:
Why does it seem as if some people aren't taking my question seriously?

You act as though you're not used to this. You should know by now with 20,000 posts that this is standard operating procedure on x4.
Played RB (and emergency QB) and Linebacker through HS and college practice scrub. Blew out my knee late freshman year and never recovered already marginal speed.

Also have done some HS assistant coaching.
Played TE and MLB as a freshman and JV and started for the senior team as a Jr. Parents went through an ugly divorce so I missed the senior season.

And that was that. What could have been.....

LOL.. I have never considered anybody on a football fan forum an expert of the game.

My freshman year of HS, they stuck me at RDE for lack of anywhere else to put me I guess. I was several inches smaller than everybody else on the line, mostly got pushed around, never sniffed the QB. My skills were more geared towards baseball, which influenced my decision to skip my soph year of football. That was a mistake as it limited my chances of becoming a varsity starter as a junior. Soph year was kind of a "pay your dues" year I realized after the fact. So, instead I was the starting S on JV as a junior, and was a backup RB on varsity. I was terrific as an end of game kneel down RB! I did manage about 7 INTS that year though.

Senior year, they shifted me to starting RCB on varsity where I became a "SHUTDOWN" corner, posting another 5 INTS. Seriously, I was a very average, very slow DB. If they had a QB who could actually throw a good ball, opposing teams could have thrown deep on me quite easily had they known (One of my best friends used to toast me deep every day in pre-practice warmups, he did have a significant height advantage though). As a CB, I managed a respectable amount of INTS, five I think, but they were mostly due to our DL pass rush forcing QBs to throw up ducks. I don't recall ever jumping or cutting off a route to make a real INT.

I wasn't very good, but it sure was fun, and we won our conference that year. We got beat in the first round of playoffs, by one play that I can still see in my mind's eye. It was an option bootleg to my side. We actually defensed that play in practice, and my coach said, if they bring it your way, whatever you do, the ball does not get outside of you, you shadow the RB and if the QB keeps it, its the LBs or S's responsibility.

That's exactly what happened. They fake pitched it, so I flowed to the RB and forced the ball inside. The QB kept it, cut inside me, and I watched him run untouched about 80 yards along the sideline for their only score of the game. The safety who was supposed to cover that zone behind me was a couple steps late getting there, and that was all she wrote. Our QB, who also doubled as our very reliable soccer style kicker, missed a routine FG that basically cinched our loss.

good thread.... allows us all to get in touch with our inner Al Bundy and relive some old times.
Last edited by Blueshound

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