Twenty-Nine
Hank Williams Sr. died when he was twenty-nine years old as did Ronnie Van Zant of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
My first year of high school football I was given the number twenty-nine jersey. I emphasize given. Small school, never known for football with not many players and not much equipment. At five-feet four inches tall and one hundred and twenty pounds it was obvious I was not going to be a lineman so I got a running back’s or defensive back’s number. Us freshman did not get to choose.
I was just glad to be on the team. Football is a big deal in high school and I was happing just being on the team.
Twenty-nine as a number did not mean anything to me at that time.
Obviously I did not start or get to play much. Only in games when we won by a lot and I got play on the punting team and on the kick-off team enough to earn a varsity letter and get my first letter jacket. Big deal for a fourteen year old.
My small school went eight and two that year, best record in school history but did not make the play-offs. We were only the third best team in our region.
Going into my sophomore year I had grown a couple of inches and gained twenty pounds. Still no physical specimen by any measure, and certainly not a kid anyone was watching or noticed besides my parents. Five-six one hundred and forty pound kid who ran a blistering five-eight forty yard dash didn’t stand-out in any way.
Expectations were higher that year than they had ever been for my ‘non-football’ school coming off of our best season ever. And we had a lot of our star players returning.
Our best athlete who played quarter-back was pretty spectacular in every way. State champion in track as a sprinter and running the hurdles. All-state basketball and football player. He was our ticket to possibly making the state play-offs for the first time ever.
Shortly before school began that year, he transferred to a big public school to play basketball. College scouts were looking at him and the move was his best chance for a scholarship.
News of him leaving was so disappointing to the team and the town, one could almost hear the collective sigh of everyone losing hope for a great football season and making the playoffs for the first time in school history.
We lost the first three games of that year and were getting beat at halftime of the fourth game. Coach had moved our best running back to quarterback to begin the season. It was the smartest move to make but from the quarterback position he wasn’t getting many chances to utilize his best skills as a running back.
I played special teams again but I did become the starting safety on defense. And for two reasons. Small number of players to choose from and that was the best place to put your weakest player. Me. On offense I was the backup fullback with never any playing playing time on offense.
We were pretty good on defense as a team but the offense was scoring due to our best running back being boxed in at quarterback.
Our coach was a great one, who’s greatness in later years would really shine, started me at quarterback to begin the second half of that fourth game we were behind in. Strategically it made sense because our best running back could now move back to halfback and have more opportunities in the open field.
That was a smart move but it was actually an act of desperation to at least make some kind of change. We couldn’t do much worse when it came to scoring.
My only instructions were to number one. Do not fumble. And number two, just hand the ball off. I was terrified.
Our opening drive we moved the ball down the field and the change seemed to be paying off.
It looked like we were going to score we were moving so well on offense. Then from around the thirty yard line, I did what I was specifically told not to do. I fumbled the ball while trying to pitch it to our star running back on a sweep to the right.
Every player on both teams were all moving to the right when I dropped the football. As I was picking the ball up in a panic I get hit, and it spun me around.
Too late to pitch the ball, and as scared and disoriented as I was, I did the only thing I could do. I ran.
Coach Beard, up until the last time I saw him before he died many years later, never failed to remind me that I looked like a three-legged dog running that ball on that play.
I was low to the ground keeping my balance only by using my free hand clawing along the ground trying not to go down. No grace, speed or poise. Only me trying not to fall down.
When I crossed the goal-line for a touch down. I did not know what to think or do. I was more shocked than anyone. The score was a total fluke.
Everyone was running towards our sideline, both offense and defense, and lucky for me the only way I stayed on my feet was to move in the opposite direction.
Next time we got the ball we drove down the field again this time making it all the way to the one yard-line. I scored on a quarterback sneak.
Later I even got to throw one pass which was caught for a touchdown. We had come back to win the game.
Coaches strategy worked and he told me after the game I was going to be the new starting quarterback.
My teammates were all celebrating for me and that felt good. But me, as well as all my teammates and the coaches knew we won not because of me being good. We won because the team moved the ball better on offense with our star player at half-back. I had simply gotten lucky. No skill, guts or bravery involved in it all.
When head Coach Don Beard told me I had the starting job from then on, he lied to me for the first and only time ever. He told me he believed in me.
Me not realizing it at the time, and he never did admit it to me, he was too smart to believe in me because there was reason to.
His genius had nothing to do with football. He knew it did not matter if he, my teammates or anyone else believed in me as a quarterback. What he knew mattered most was me believing in myself and that was far more important for him than winning any football game.
He goal as a coach was to always do what was best for us players in developing us young men with character and confidence.
Next Monday at practice all my teammates kept telling I was going to have to get a new jersey number now that I was the starting quarterback. Even the assistant coach told me I couldn’t play quarterback wearing number twenty-nine.
I was no leader and I also cared nothing about wearing number twenty-nine. What I did care about was so many people telling me I ‘’could not do something’’.
Not one to fight back I went to Coach Beard and told him what everyone was saying about my number and that it was bothering me.
“Son. You are my starting quarterback and you can wear whatever number you want to wear.”
I didn’t know it and he didn’t know it at the time. But his one simple lie for my betterment, not his, changed my life forever.
After losing those first three games, we won seven in a row and our football team went to the state play-offs for the first time in school history.
The entire trajectory of my life changed because that one vote of confidence from a coach who really cared about his players as people and put them first.
Hank Williams and Ronnie Van Zant later on became iconic to me for many reasons. Music, character, creativity and relentlessness.
And all of this is intertwined with the moment in time when TWENTY-NINE became “MY Number” and ever since, it became a symbol to me that anything was possible if I were willing to ‘COMMIT’.
“He did not know, he could not fly, and so he did.”
—Guy Clark THE CAPE