I was still in grade school when I started playing Youth Football and my baby sitter had to pick me up from school and trek me over to the practice field every week day during the season and then the blur of practices began and that blur melted into the blur of league games.
It wasn’t a blur because I was unable to compete, it was a blur because I was playing ball for all of the wrong reasons. I loved sports but wasn’t the least interested in organized football at that point in time and was doing it for the sole reason of having my dad (father #2) see me play in what was his favorite sport.
As other stories here have mentioned in so many ways, the desire of attaining my dad’s interest in me was my own little Myth of Sisyphus where the struggle becomes the only thing achievable. I wanted it because he was ‘dad’ and I needed to look somewhere for that person and know that he wanted to see me and I’m sure that scenario has replicated itself ad nauseam for millions of children throughout time but it is nevertheless true, especially for boys and their fathers.
When I was small, I admired so much of what he could do as an artist and performer that I was willing to turn a blind eye to his failures if only I could have his attention. That’s why I joined the youth league that year because he told me he would come and see my games; maybe not all of them but at least some of them and that would be good enough for me.
I busted my ass in those practices and pretty much hated every minute of time I could envision spending elsewhere but I had a mission so I ignored my boredom and half-heartedly got back in the tackling line to smack some kid with my helmet.
My mother got me to the games and ended up working a little in the concession stand which became a minor blessing since I would rather have chugged hot dogs than play defensive end but duty came first and I’d trot out on the field to play my position and save the treats for after the game.
That’s when the trouble began.
Dad told me he’d be at the opening game and so I was keeping a lookout in the stands for his arrival. Unfortunately, I was doing this while I was on the field and if I was doing that then I wasn’t paying any attention to the fact that they were running a sweep left and it wasn’t until I got slammed to the ground by the pulling guard that I realized that there was a safety factor that I was forgetting here.
I tried to split my time between saving myself and scouting the stands but it was hopeless and I ended up getting splayed out several more times before the game came to a merciful end and I carted my bruises off to the concession stand for a junk food band aid.
Dad said he was sorry he missed that one but would try and make the next game and so the whole thing happened again and I got caught over and over looking into the stands only to wind up on my back. He apologized for missing that one but the pattern was pretty clear to me that he was never coming to any of my games and he never did.
During that season the coach would pull me out of games sometimes and ask me where my head was at but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I was embarrassed to say I was looking for my dad when I was supposed to be playing football. I was embarrassed to watch other boys interact with the their fathers before and after a game and hear them cheering for their sons. But I was mostly embarrassed that I took so many blind-sided hits because I was looking for my dad’s sorry ass to show up. Now how could I answer the coach’s question with any of that?
I know my mother felt bad for me but there was nothing she could do but get me another dog and bag of chips and make sure I got to and from the games. So I played the season out because I couldn’t bring myself to quit anything after I’d started it. I was a bit of a masochist that way.
In every situation there are those damn lessons to be learned and I suppose the most immediate one here was ‘always watch your blind-side’ but obviously there are larger ones. Although I never ceased trying, I couldn’t change the dynamic with my dad but I could experience what he couldn’t allow himself to enjoy. When I had the chance to be a presence in my nephew’s life I jumped at it without reservation.
Although I have no children of my own (an essay for another time) I can give that part of me to my nephew that I never received and in many ways it is a win, win for both of us. He knows that I love him and care about his life and what he does and I know that he values that and loves me in return. I may never have experienced a father that cared about me but I can know what it’s like to give unconditional love to a child.
It lifts you right out of whatever idiocy is flying around in your head and puts you squarely in someone else’s life and I think if my dad, depressed and alcohol dependent as he was, could have understood that he would have lept at the opportunity.
