In high school I wanted to try out for tight end on our football team. One reason was that I didn't really want to play offensive line (and being around 5'11, 175 lbs, I probably shouldn't have been anywhere near the line). The second reason was that 2 of the other 3 guys trying out for tight end started on defense as well, so it stands to reason that they could be tired from time to time. Furthermore, it was freaking summer practices. What did the coach have to lose by letting me try out? The worst that happens is I make a fool of myself and go back to the line.
So I went over to the coach that was practicing with the other TEs. The other guys seemed kind of psyched to see me. They were like, "[Catheter Man] you're going to play tight end?" I asked the coach if I could try out. He asked me if the other coach sent me over and being stupidly honest, as I usually am, I said no. He said, "You should go back to the line." I had to protest, "But I have really good hands." Without even throwing me a pass, the coach said, "We have enough tight ends." And with that my tight end career was over before it began.
I did learn something from playing on that football team however. Half the battle is looking the part. The coaches were dumb enough to believe that if you had big pads, you were good. It makes no sense, but that is the way it went. Then there is always the theory of relativity: if your brother was good, you must be good. But I digress.
When I started playing on my rec team, I remembered the "look the part" rule and chose the jersey number 6. I don't know why I chose that particular number, but I figured if I had a single digit number, I would look more like a receiver, even though I would be playing line (although lineman are eligible to catch in this league, so I'm really more of a tight end). That season I caught a few passes (all that were thrown to me), but I still wasn't getting the looks I should have.
This season, I'm at my best "look the part" shape of my life. I'm down to about 160 (probably the lightest lineman in the league) and I chose the number 81. I have been averaging about 2.5 catches a game, with only one or two drops that I should have caught.
Today, the defensive lineman across from me was really bad. He was not going to get to our quarterback, so a few times I just took off down the field and tried to find an open spot. One of these times I was wide open and the qb threw it to me. About 2 feet in front of the end zone I caught it and walked right in for my first touchdown ever. It kind of looked like this:
Ahh, sweet redemption.
