Football & the English Language
My first year as high school coach, five points
behind Norfolk Academy, eighty long yards
from the endzone, & Scott Berle, our defensive
backs guy & campus advocate for Vonnegut &
Brautigan, runs up: “OK, now I grok where I work.”
A few days before, he’d launched a lightweight
poetry snob from his classroom clear across
the hallway & through my usually closed door.
The boy bounced hard on the tiles. So, I turn
my willpower beam from the field to the revelation
promised by that always winning smirk. “One
of our players just yelled to our quarterback:
‘Keep abreast of the time!’ ” A week of hard laughs
& some Jack Black helped us swallow the loss.
Seasons on, another nailbiter, my quickest linebacker
& keenest Whitman hater at my elbow howling: “Get
HEEneeyus!” “Jack,” I say without taking my eyes
from the field, “that’s pronounced HAYnus.” “I know,
Coach,” he whispered, “but HEEneeyus sounds meaner.”
