In the fall of 1977, I was attending North Carolina State University on a football scholarship.  College athletics, especially football, in the 1970s were very different from college athletics of today.  Most freshman football players were not expected to play and contribute to the program, aside from being tackling dummies and cannon fodder for the upperclassmen during practice. That first fall, I don’t remember ever even being taught any of the offense.  It was understood that you were expected to get beaten up and to take your lumps for a year, and then you might be given a chance to play and contribute as a sophomore.  Our entire existence was to be the “scout squad” for the varsity.  Being on the “scout squad” meant that we were expected to run the offense and defense of whomever the varsity was playing that week.  Since we spent each day at practice running the upcoming opponent’s offense and defense, we never were given any time to learn our own offense and defense.  And even while running the opposing team’s offense and defense, we were not expected to run them too “well.”  If we ever made the varsity/upperclassmen look bad, they (and us, of course) were punished.  So we learned to run plays sloppily and half-heartedly, (but not too half-heartedly as you still had to make it look like you were really trying your best) and we were not punished.  So when it came time to actually play a “real” game, it turned into a glorified pick-up game with strategies literally “drawn up in the dirt.”

      We had a freshman football schedule, although I’m still not sure why, where the state of North Carolina’s “Big Four” (Wake Forest, Duke, UNC, and NCSU) played freshman football games against each other.  We also played against a couple of other junior college varsity teams.  Since we were never taught our own offense or defense, aside from each week’s opposing teams varsity’s offense and defense, most freshman football games resembled pick-up football games where we “drew up plays in the dirt” and made up plays as we went along.  Of course, the interest in freshman football games was a bit lacking, to say the least.  I remember playing in Carter-Finley Stadium before maybe twenty or thirty people.  Since most of us players were from out of state and we usually played our games on Thursday afternoons, our parents and other family members didn’t even come to the games. Usually we had more people watching us practice against the varsity than we had at the freshman football games.

      We were scheduled to play against the University of North Carolina freshman football team at Keenan Stadium.  Even though it was only a freshman football game, it was still NC State vs. North Carolina.  The coaches and the upperclassmen hyped us up all week that we were actually going to be playing a game that was supposed to mean something. It was supposed to be something that we could actually look forward to in our rather isolated, get-beaten-up-on-a-daily-basis existence.  So naturally, on the day of the game, a monsoon hit. Because it was raining all day, of course UNC didn’t want its football field at the stadium torn up by a meaningless freshman game, so the game was moved to their practice facility. So, two totally unprepared teams went at it in the cold pouring rain on a practice field in front of absolutely no one. I’m not sure if either team got a first down all day. The game was not uneventful, however. I still remember two things about the game.  I remember my roommate, a slow-footed 6’ 8”; 295 pound defensive lineman from the backwoods of Pennsylvania named Rich Grube, chasing the UNC quarterback on a scramble from one sideline to the other.  Every time that Rich would get near the QB, the QB would deftly scramble out of trouble and head across the field again. It was actually rather comical watching this unblocked, lumbering giant chasing the ball from sideline to sideline.  Finally, the QB threw the ball.  After what seemed like four or five seconds after the QB had released the football, Rich finally caught up to him and laid him out with a vicious blindside hit. Of course, he was flagged for unnecessary roughness.  When everyone asked Rich why he had hit the QB so obviously late, he said, “Hell, I chased him for a half-mile.  I deserve to hit him!”  Nobody could really argue with him or his logic.

      The other thing that I vividly remember about the game happened later in the game. At the beginning of the third quarter, we called a halfback pass to me (I was a wide receiver).  Being the fastest player on the field, I was happy that I was going to finally get a football thrown to me, even in this driving rain.  I was expecting to score on the play and finally break this 0-0 tie.  At the snap of the football, I faked blocking the defensive back and then took off.  The defensive back bought the fake and I was wide open by about thirty yards.  However, since it was pouring rain, the halfback couldn’t get a good grip on the ball and he threw a wounded duck up in the air that was going to be about fifteen yards too short of reaching me.  I immediately stopped and began running back for the ball; unfortunately, the defensive back who had been faked out had now turned and was sprinting towards me and the football. The two of us were running full speed toward each other. The ball was going to land between the two of us, so I dove for the ball just as the defensive back also dove.  We hit helmet-to-helmet in mid-dive. However, since I was concentrating on catching the ball and he was concentrating on hitting me, I got the worst of the hit.  Of course, the ball hit the ground, incomplete. When I tried to get up, I found that I could stand up, but I couldn’t straighten out my back.  I was hunched over, Quasimodo-style, like I was looking for something that I had just dropped on the ground. I couldn’t straighten my back. Hoping that it was just a “stinger” or something non-serious and that it would soon go away, I slowly made my way back to the huddle, still hunched over. (Being the son of a coach, I was taught that you didn’t take yourself out of a football game, no matter what.)  We called the next play in the huddle, broke the huddle, and I slowly made my way out to my wide receiver position, still hunched over. Some of my teammates thought that I was joking around as I tried to run downfield all hunched over.  After the play was over, I realized that this was not going to go away, so I finally made my way to the sidelines and came out of the game. Eventually the trainer said something about it being a dislocated vertebra or a pinched nerve or something else; I was in too much pain to really care or remember.  So they took me to the UNC locker room, laid me out on a table, and packed me in ice until they could do something else after the game.  Since there was usually only one trainer assigned to the freshmen games, he went back to the game and left me in the UNC locker room. Since the trainer and the coaches didn’t seem too worried about the injury, I wasn’t too scared or worried.  It hurt like hell, but I could stand up and I could walk, so I didn’t worry about paralysis or anything like that.  However, once they packed me in ice, I really couldn’t move. So I lay there on my side on the table, stripped down to just my pants, packed in ice, waiting for the next two quarters to end and for the game to be over.  After about five minutes, however, the door to the locker room burst open and the entire UNC team came storming in, shouting, cursing, and throwing their helmets.  Something had obviously happened during the game to piss off the entire team, but I was not sure what.  All that I knew was that I, a half-naked NC State player was lying in the fetal position, alone, incapacitated, and utterly defenseless in the opposing team’s locker room.  It turns out that a pretty nasty fight had broken out on the field between the two teams and the game was called off in the third quarter.  I didn’t know any of this at the time; all I knew was that I was alone and vastly outnumbered in hostile territory.  The players then noticed me and I immediately became the target of some rather harsh words.  I was expecting that, at any minute now, someone from either our team or someone from our training staff would come and rescue me, but no one showed up.  After a period of time, I just became an amusement to the UNC players.  I was laughed at, cursed at, and made fun of.  I guess that I did look rather useless and odd.  But as the UNC players started to shower, get dressed, and leave, I began to wonder where my teammates were.  Come to find out, my loyal coaches and loyal teammates had completely forgotten about me and had headed back to Raleigh on the bus! The entire UNC locker room emptied out before someone called over to NC State to see if someone was going to retrieve the pathetic crippled player whom they had abandoned and forgotten about. Someone had to drive back over to UNC to pick me up.  (I guess that I should have realized then that I was not exactly of any importance!)

      I guess the coaching staff felt guilty for abandoning me at UNC during the JV game on Thursday because they allowed me to dress out for the varsity game against UNC that Saturday. (At that time, as an act of pity, they usually only let one freshman football player dress out for the varsity games on Saturday.) By Saturday, I was able to stand erect and move about.  I knew that I wasn’t going to play any, but they were going to allow me dress out for the varsity game.  The fun started out when we boarded the bus at Reynolds Coliseum at 10:30 and began the approximately ten minute trip to the game field at Carter-Finley Stadium for the 1:00 kick-off.  We hit a traffic jam as soon as we pulled out onto Western Boulevard and could not move.  The State Fair was going on at the same time and there was also a major traffic accident somewhere near the fairgrounds and no one was moving in any direction.  We had a Highway Patrol escort and, even with that, we were not moving. As time slowly ticked away, everyone, except me, was becoming more and more nervous about getting to the game on time.  I knew that I wasn’t going to play, so I knew that there was no reason for me to get upset; I was just along for the ride. However, as 11:30 came and went, 12:00 came and went, and 12:30 came and went, the coaches and the team became more and more apprehensive about getting to our own home football game on time!  Finally, the late Bo Rein, the head football coach at the time, could stand it no more and tried to take matters into his own hands.  He began screaming and cursing at our police escort.  It was the only time in my life that I ever saw a sober man curse out a policeman and get away with it!

      “Dammit, you stupid @#%!  I’ve got over 50,000 @#%! people and a @#%! national television audience waiting at the @#%&! stadium!  You’re being paid to get our @#%! asses to the @#%! game!  Turn on that @#%&! blue light and get our @#%& asses there, you @#%! rent-a-cop!”

        Two things: one, being just a freshman, I was just glad that I wasn't the one being yelled and cursed at! And two, I had seen people curse at police before, but they were usually drunk and were immediately beaten up and arrested.  I had never actually seen anyone get away with it before!  However, I really felt sorry for the cop; there was actually nothing that he could do.  Both sides of the road were lined with cars and there were even cars parked on the sides of the roads so there was no place to go.  I have to hand it to him, though.  He did his damndest to try to get us there on time.  He was forcing cars and people off the road to the left and the right.  We finally arrived at the stadium at 12:55 for a 1:00 kick-off.  The UNC football team was already there wondering where the hell we were.  We were not even dressed!  We took about five minutes to throw on our uniforms and about ten minutes to quickly warm-up.  We were given two five yard delay-of-game penalties for being late to our own home football game! 

      Unfortunately for us, things didn’t get any better once the game started. We proceeded to go out and just go through the motions and lose the game to our hated rivals. However, the entire week-long experience was memorable for me, even if no one else knew about or remembered or cared about what happened to me. It was one of my first epiphanies that college sports was a huge business and I was merely a tiny cog in a very large machine. Or to put it another way, I was a condom. I was useful as long as some serious fucking was going on; but as soon as my usefulness was over and I was no longer needed, I was flushed away and a newer replacement was found and used.