Your Personal Football Experience?

couch every weekend, does that count?

but following a violent injury (which required one year to recover from) I picked up socccer and played soccer my senior year in high school and in college.

Tried to walk on at TTU and So. Miss….didn’t get invited to scrub camp either time.

Corner/Safety

— now I coach instead.

Never played organized football. Played a load of pickup games, including sneaking into the HS stadium many times.

Baseball was my sport. Played until 15, then went to work, started driving, had a car, played in a band, had a steady girlfriend — baseball? who needs it? Shoulda dropped the girlfriend and stayed in sports.

Got into playing soccer, after coaching youth for several years, even though many players are half my age. If someone gets by me, I just trip him with my walker…

…if I played with the players?

….but our high school head coach was my driver’s ed teacher. Learned more about football in six week’s worth of 30 minute drives around town than you could ever imagine.

Got a few small college offers, but tried to walk on at UA. Didn’t even get through the first workout before my shoulder exploded. Would have been a practice squad scrub at best anyways, if on the off chance I made it. I have been coaching high school for 5 years now, and love every minute of it.

at Linebacker for one year. Then played Soccer my senior year. Also played defensive lineman in the Navy Captains Cup for Hampton Roads area.

Now, just try to be a student of the game.

…but once I tried out for JV in 9th grade I realized I was undersized and too weak. Well, I could have tried, but it was easier to quit that and concentrate on my education.

…that I’m an offensive line-man….

…and started my junior and senior year. We won state (T.R. Miller) when I was a sophomore. I was way too undersized to play at the next level so that was that but I still have “the dream” from time to time where I’m back on the field in all its glory.

…safety in middle school and stuck around through summer camp of my 9th grade year when I decided to hang it up b/c I figured I might get killed if I kept playing (was absolutely fearless to my own detriment.) Coaches were pissed I hung it up, but I went onto a pretty good soccer career that saw me shrug off interest from a few small schools because I wanted to live in a decent sized city.

In addition to football and soccer, I also ran track and played baseball. I liked wrestling, but refused to wear the uniform (I was pretty stubborn back in school.)

partly because I moved to a different country and partly because I got more into skating and smoking weed. Basketball was always my thing anyway. I played lots of tournaments in the Netherlands and Germany and even won MVP of one ’em. Damn that was fun.

and got hurt. Not wanting to put my baseball career in jeopardy, I hung it up after that.

Played baseball from age 4 through college. Saddest day of my life was my last game in college.

Have loved Bama football since my conception.

that moved faster than me.

at Lincoln HS school in tallahassee. Had a scholly offer to FSU but blew out my knee my senior year. After that they wanted me to walk on. I said no like a tard and gave up football. Went into a bit of depression after losing everything I had worked for my entire life. My dad had played football at Kentucky State in the late 60’s (he was the first white man to attend K-State and actually had a movie made about him). Knowing about my dad’s success, i felt obligated to follow in his footsteps and not being able to do so made me feel like a failure.

I later realized how dumb that was, got married and the rest is history…

…other than IM flag ball in college. But I was a grad assistant (coaches’ film) at ’Bama in 2001—I learned quite a bit about the game then. I started paying close attention to the games (as opposed to just being in the room with the game on TV) when I was in 9th grade (the ’92 season).

I’ve played baseball since I was 7 (I still play in an adult league in Hoover). No college ball or anything, though.

Like Todd, one of my biggest regrets is not trying to play in high school. I was undersized (didn’t sprout up until 11th grade, and graduated HS at 5’11, 115 lbs.) so I would have probably been a free safety or blocking WR, since my high school ran the ball out of the Wing-T and almost never threw the ball. Still, looking back, I wish I’d given it a try…

from the time I was 7 years old until the end of my sophmore year in high school. I played free safety and wide receiver. I also played baseball, basketball, tennis and track. I eventually just got too tall without gaining enough weight to play serious organized football anymore. After football I became a high jumper, long jumper and triple jumper and was on the Bama track and field team. I never enjoyed playing any sport as much as I enjoyed playing football though.

for Brentwood High – just south of Nashville. I didn’t get many carries, but that suited me since I enjoyed blocking much more than anything else in football. I wasn’t tall by any means (still am not), but had good strength and my lack of height allowed me to get good leverage, especially in run blocking.

Great, now I’m fired up from typing about the good ol’ days. That copier is starting to look a little like a LB…(puts hand down)

for Athens High School. I had 2 different coaches Coach Ezell and Coach Rivers(Phillips dad) I started my Soph year at Nose, but didn’t start at guard until 11th. I was your typical rabbit rusher. 5’ 9" 200 ish, and I always played good technique according to my coaches. That was my advantage due to my size. I originally started playing in middle school, and we had some great players in my mind. We went undefeated 7th, 8th, and 9th grade seasons. They thought highly of our class, and we tried to maintain. It’s a different story once you get to the high school games though, and we finally lost our first game as a class in 10th grade. Then my junior year we went all the way to the semis in state and got our butts pounded by Russelville High School 34-0. They straight out played us!! I miss those days now…and I wish I had stuck around for my senior year as well. Still, it was great.

Along the same lines of this topic, I wish I had $1 for every time someone has told me they had a D1 scholarship offer before they got hurt their senior of high school. Yes sure, buddy.

But I was nowhere near having a scholarship lol. I played defensive end for a 6A school in Birmingham, I was good enough to start but not even close to being good enough to play at the next level… Not to mention how ridiculously undersized I was…5’8, 185 pounds playing on the line. Hell, even in High School that’s small. I made up for some of it by having freakish horse-legs, so my low center of gravity and disproportionate lower-body strength meant I could hold my own against bigger guys…usually :)

I broke my back during my 3rd game of my senior year…it was pretty bad. Shattered 3 vertebrae which were impacted into the nerves at the base of my spinal column. Most people don’t walk again after that kind of thing, and for a while I didn’t…but I ended up being one of the lucky ones. Not only am I still mobile, but I even work full-time on my feet. I’m in a lot of pain to this day, but I’m really not that upset about it.

It’s funny, I don’t tell that story to many people, but on the rare occasion I do, people always say things like “oh, that’s horrible” and “I bet you wish you’d never played football”…and the funny thing is, even knowing the consequences, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. That’s how much I love the game. Besides, living with the pain has made me mentally tough, and if some pain is the worst thing I have to deal with in a day, I’d say I’ve got a pretty good life!

then, finally hung it up. Wouldn’t you know, my senior year the team won the state championship. Oh well, I was the smallest guy on the team EVERY year I played and was a starter at tackling dummy and road kill for the backs and a backup at DB. Actually got in at DB and got an interception in my last ever game on the last play – not much to crow about but my teamates thought it was cool enough to give me the game ball – preserved a shutout.

in high school, after playing QB through 9th grade. I went to the same HS as Kevin Norwood, (probably where he got all his WR skillz from).

We ran a Power-I Option type offense with loads of misdirection. I was a tall skinny sophomore playing reciever in our spring game against Gulfport High who had arguably the top linebacker prospect in the state that year, Rod Davis.

Rod Davis at USM

A misdirection, option based offense often requires a “crack back” block on linebackers and safeties when they aren’t looking. This particular play, I was lined up as a split end on the right side of the ball, and we were running a reverse that started to the left as an option, then the reciever from the left side of the ball intercepts the pitch from qb to tb and runs around my side back to the right. The idea was to get OLB, Rod Davis who was lined up opposite me, to start running away from me, then when he recognizes the reverse, to change direction. At the exact moment that he recognizes the play and changes pursuit from a full sprint, BOOM! I am supposed to crackback block him.

The play started off as planned, I took off full speed toward him when the ball was snapped, but because he was a future D-1 backer, he recognized the play early and it was Tweety Birds for me. He never got off balance and instead lowered the boom on me. I ended up with a mild concussion and dislocated my shoulder, not from him hitting me, but from me hitting the ground. OUCH! Still gives me a headache to think about.

All I could remember was him standing over me saying "CAN"T CRACK ME DAWG!" I had to watch the gamefilm to remember the play.

….from age 10 in little leagues all the way through HS graduation. Tried to walk on at a JUCO and the coach told me don’t waste his time because I was to small. I played DE/LB and special teams specialist. Last summer we got to participate in an alumni football game against our biggest rival and it was great to put the pads back on again after 10 years. I was sore as hell for about a week, but I’m definitely training to play again in 2011.

I played pee jinks football and junior high (offensive and defensive line), but I partially tore a ligament in my knee in practice in eighth grade. I wasn’t very good at football, and I knew I was going to get a free academic ride, so I stopped playing after that. I was 6’4" and 220 by the time I was in high school, so there were a few guys that tried to get me to come and play. I just hated practice too much to go back.
I covered sports for the school newspaper and the city newspaper as well, so I had a press pass. I went to all the games (some of them on the team bus before I could drive) and stood on the sideline and kept stats and took pictures. Good times.

a Chess Club post?

played all through high school, captain junior and senior years, was a pretty good player on a very good team (eight college players), and decided I wanted to walk on at a Division One program even though I would have been a monster at D-III. Enrolled at Bama, walked on and made it through tryouts and earned a spot. Played a few years and everything fell apart in my personal life (dysfunctional family, abuse, no money, away from home with no support, no one to relate to, and no one to lean upon and I wasn’t strong enough to hold so much stuff in after so many years of holding it in and being the good kid who didn’t complain, give half effort, or slack on anything) so I walked away at the worst possible time because I was too immature and inexperienced to deal with the mountain of shit in my life all by myself. Plus, walk-ons don’t get a lot of pats on the back and after my childhood/high school years I got to a point in which I really needed a father figure to pick me up.

I think I have the wisdom to deal with those issues now; at 21, I was really confused and in need of some support. In high school it was someone with whom to eat dinner, someone to come to my games, someone to ask how I was doing; in college it was someone to call, someone to come to a game, someone to ask how I was doing or send some money or come to my graduation…that sort of thing…tried to convince myself those were signs of weakness, that others were weaker because they had that, but it ate me alive in the end).

Anyway, decided I wanted to expedite my college experience so I hurried up and graduated and went to work. During this time, I coached high school teams for six years in various parts of the country, never really enjoying it because I liked playing and became (become) frustrated trying to motivate kids who are soft, afraid to hit, lazy, et cetera. I was self-disciplined and self-motivated, but I honestly don’t know how to give that to someone who doesn’t already have a slight degree of it. I did help a couple guys earn scholarships, which was cool, but decided I’d rather just be a fan and gambler. So this is only the third year in the last twenty I haven’t been playing or coaching football and I’m good with it.

in the 3rd grade. small school, so from the 4th grade up through high school I rarely came off the field. played just about every position. my wee wee and pee wee years I played DE and Guard. was terribly undersized for the position but I made it work. all-county in junior varstiy playing DE and Center both ways. When I got to varsity I tried to convince the coaches that I need a position change for my health’s sake. Tried out for TE and got it. Then the new center got hurt just before the first game. So I wound up playing both ways again, you ready for this? Center and Strong Safety. It was crazy. Oh and my favorite was playing wedge-buster on kickoff team.

I was good enough to matter to a small 3A team but not to anyone else, so the rest is history.

I actually played with/against quite a few guys that y’all may know:

Brad Cottam
Ryan Karl
Mike Oher
Greg Hardy
Cassius Vaughn
Morgan Cox (UT long snapper now with Baltimore Ravens)
Barrett Jones

Private school football is pretty good in TN. I miss it.

One year at the beginning and one year at the end, then one year of HS ball.

I weighed 138 and started as a Nose Tackle. Apparently, I had this aggression problem that made me get into the back field on every play. I got an award, but I was too slow and small to go anywhere and I did not fit in with all the guys on my team—they’d played together for 8 years and didn’t appreciate me taking a job from one of them. But I loved playing nose guard.

Played o line as a little kid.

was too busy goofin off for football. but i sure had a great time playing it from midgets/mighty mites through the end of middle school. my Pop Warner team went to the Arizona state championship my 7th grade year, we got our asses handed to us. but hell, we destroyed our division/district (undefeated, gave up like 3 TD’s all regular season) and we beat the piss out of the team we played int eh semi finals too. and i had probably my best game all season that day. but once we got to the title game, i think we were a little star struck by it, and our coaches were certainly out coached. we flat out collapsed and got beat so badly i cant recall the score. we were down 3 TD’s like 10 minutes in due to a kickoff return, a drive we gave up, and a flea flicker we called that went about 65 yards the other way. that game sucked. and my 8th grade year i moved up the highest weight class in Pop Warner and that team was just okay, we didn’t make the playoffs and i didn’t start on D. so it sucked as far as i was concerned.

QB for Austin High School in Decatur. I was too small and too slow to be any good, but I had fun! We were 1-9 my senior year, but we beat Decatur High to be city champs! I also was a placekicker. I walked on at Troy State, but didn’t do any good so I left there. I did get to know Coach Chan Gailey and Rick Rhodes. I played with Greg Gilbert in high school, and played against Ricky Moore, Rodney Jarman, and Wes Neighbors.

played left half and returned kicks. My best memories are returning 2 kickoffs for touchdowns. Played baseball, threw a no hitter in Junior High. Those the greatest years until I had a daughter now these are the greatest years.

I ended up playing a Rover/LB on defense and basically a wingback since on offense we ran the “Power I” and on D we ran a 3-4, or a 3-3-5. It was complicated. We should have ran a 5-2 since no one really passed the ball. I started every down on both sides of the ball ever since I started at age 5 and even at 6A ball, our team, really, was a 3A school somehow playing 6A ball. I never left the field from kickoff til the whistle was blown. Kickoff, punt return,block,kick return, offense and defense. Even at a 6A level, we only dressed like 45 players since no one wanted to play for our coach, who was a little senile and old school. When I got there as a freshman, I made a name for myself for giving one of our star Senior RB’s a concussion when he caught a ball in the flat and the QB kinda floated the ball to him and I blew him up…I liked to hit, and actually met my match in a Vigor game(they were #1 in the country) and got my first concussion early in the 1st qtr….I couldnt see outta my right eye…all I could see was a “floating black hole”..it was the last game of the season of my senior year and my backup was a freshman who was getting tossed around like a rag doll, so I got put back in later in the 4th qtr and ended up getting my nose broke…that was the last game of my life and I dont remember anything past the 2nd qtr.
I think Roosevelt Patterson blindsided me on a screen or something.I made the play, but it was touch and go. IF you could walk, you could play. Thats when I made my mind up, nah, I’m done with football. Most of their team were your basic cheap, hood ball players that would hold, clip and choke til they got caught, just enough to let Lectron Williams sneak by ya and be gone. In the 4th qtr, our RB who had offers from smaller schools, was hit 4 yrds outta bounds and broke his lower leg like Prothro when he hit bench. It was plates and pins, career—POOF. I loved playing it, but I didnt see the point of walking on anywhere because I already knew it was a political game. A good friend of mine was a JUCO All-Conf, and was a proto-type at inside LB. Fast , strong and hit hard. He walked on at a DIV 1 SEC school, gained respect in practice by laying the wood and impressing coaches and starters alike,never saw the field even though he was better, faster and stronger at LB and learned that he would never start in front of a scholarship player(unless all the scholly athletes were injured and it was a last resort) because the alumni and boosters who paid that scholly would never stop bitching about it to the coaches, which back then, the coaches were controlled in a way by that power structure. I’m kinda glad times have changed a bit. After a year of being a Special Teams warrior, he decided to join the real special teams, the SEALS, now works for the Govt. in some aspect.