For Your (or perhaps only my) Amusement

[TheCalvinator24]

The how I got the starting Right Corner position when I played football in 7th grade.

In my school system (and in most schools in Texas at our size classification and above), there are two full teams fielded in football in 7th grade (and 8th grade, too). The A-Team is considered the better team, but it is possible to play your way up or down during the season (as my prior story proved).

We weren't assigned teams until the morning of our first game. All of us were gathered in the Field House. The 7th Grade Head Coach said, "I'm gonna call a list of names. You guys come with me into the office. The rest will stay in here with Coach Stout." (I'm manufacturing dialog because obviously I don't remember details from 28 years ago).

My name was called by the Head Coach, which somewhat surprised me because, as I said in the other post, I was only 4'8" and about 60 pounds. When we got in the office, the coach then went down the starting line-ups, and we were supposed to respond when our names were called.

He did Kick Off and Kick Off Return first. I was listed on both teams.

Then he did the Offense, and I knew I wouldn't be there because I never practiced an offensive position, instead, I plent all my time learning the Free Safety position—heck, I never even looked in the offensive playbook—When we were on offense, I stayed as far away from the Coach as I could so he wouldn't make the mistake of putting me in, which he might have because my "official" offensive position was the one that was used to run in the plays.

He did Defense last. Line, Linebackers, then Secondary. He named the Left Corner, the Strong Safety, the Free Safety. Then, he called the name for Right Corner. The guy didn't answer. Coach called the name again. Still no answer. He hollered for the guy closest to the door to gout out in the workout area to see if the player had maybe missed hearing his name when we split up. The guy came back and said the player wasn't there.

Coach looked around the room and barked, "Scott!!! Can you play Cornerback?" I didn't hesitate at all, but called back, "Yes, Coach!"

That's how I became the starting player at a position I had never even practiced. Thankfully, the coverage schemes in 7th grade football were pretty simple. When I was learning Free Safety, I had also learned the assignments of all the other Secondary positions as well.

Okay, so maybe it's not all that amusing, but if the guy had been there, I probably wouldn't have played much that season because there just wasn't a lot of kicking off because there wasn't a lot of scoring.

[MarleysGh0st]

Okay, so maybe it's not all that amusing, but if the guy had been there, I probably wouldn't have played much that season because there just wasn't a lot of kicking off because there wasn't a lot of scoring.

Don't use this story at a game show audition.