“WHO THE FUCK IS 54?!” the varsity football coach roared. I froze and kept my head down because I, number 54, feared if I looked at him I would cry.
All 50 guys on the junior varsity defense were packed in our sweaty locker room watching film. We didn’t do this often, film time was better spent on varsity players, but Coach was looking for some undiscovered talent. Unfortunately, I was now both discovered and untalented.
Coach’s freakout started after we watched a play where I lined up in the wrong spot, and gave the other team’s running back a huge gap to score. It was a completely preventable mistake if I would just learn the plays.
While a simple task for most, memorizing plays felt overwhelming to me. The thought that I wasn’t a good player was uncomfortable and every time I opened that packet my heart rate would spike, my chest would tighten, and the voice in my head would incessantly tell me I was terrible. To combat this feeling, I resolved to avoid thinking about football whenever possible.
But now the thing I so desperately tried to escape was front and center. Coach smacked a metal locker and it reverberated as he raged, “THAT’S FUCKING AWFUL 54. WHO IS 54?” his eyes searched the room and I sank further in my chair.
Junior varsity had been big enough where one could hide and up to this point I was successful. But now, in this long drawn out silence, it seemed there was no avoiding it. Every second that passed increased the mounting embarrassment that would be sent my way.
Thankfully, God himself reached down and rang the school bell to save me from my public execution. We filed out of the room as coach snarled, “I WOULDN’T OWN UP TO THAT SHIT EITHER 54, IT’S FUCKING PATHETIC.”
I never returned.
The only reason I was on this team in the first place was because my parents forced me to be in a sport. I knew there would be punishment for quitting, but whatever it was, would not be as bad as crying in front of a room of teenage boys.
I decided to keep my quitting a secret for a few days while I figured out how to tell my parents. But this too would confront me sooner than I had hoped.
Football practice took up our lunch period and quitting meant I could leave campus to eat. One day, I went home to make a sandwich and was shaken when I saw my dad as I walked in. He was supposed to be at work, and I at practice. But here we were in the middle of the day, each pretending we were supposed to be there.
I feared immediate wrath, but none ever came. We had an enjoyable lunch and I went back to school, feeling odd but relieved about it.
He’d later tell me he’d been laid off and we’d need to move from Texas to Tennessee during the summer. I wouldn’t be punished but the understanding was once we moved I’d need to start football again.
I would’ve preferred to come in to Tennessee with zero expectations, but at 6’5 250 pounds, I was the perfect size for football. The coaches mistook size for ability and rolled out the red carpet for me. They let me pick number 80 after my favorite NFL player, gave me a new helmet reserved for the elite guys, and sent me to play tight end with the starters.
I enjoyed being treated this way, but it wouldn’t last long. At my first practice in pads, I dropped every ball. Five minutes after returning to the locker room, the coach came in, took number 80, and without saying a word, gave me 68.
I understood immediately. 68 was an offensive lineman’s number. Coach was telling me I was no longer a tight end. I was big and terrible, and that was where big, terrible people went.
I spent a month on the offensive line, where I was just as bad as I’d been before. Then, during a 1v1 blocking drill, I planted my foot in the mud and my knee folded under me like a closing laptop.
I hid my excitement when the doctor told me I was out for the season. I felt a severe knee injury was the best thing that could have happened to me. It got me out of playing without breaking my parents’ rule, and allowed me to larp as the player my new coaches first imagined. Now when people asked why I wasn’t playing, I could tell them I was injured instead of admitting I was bad.
As much as I would’ve liked to leave any mention of football behind me as I went to college, my size continued to invite the conversation. As a big guy, people love to ask you what sport you played, expecting to be dazzled with career highlights and stories about the Friday Night Lights.
Still insecure and desperate for approval, I would say “Yeah I played football but knee injuries ended my career”. My strategic ambiguity allowed me to tell the truth while deceiving the other person into thinking I was destined for great things before my horrible accident.
I always felt gross saying it. So here I am, confessing on Substack as penance for my half-truths.
Now when someone asks if I played football, I make sure to tell them I was terrible. I do this because they’re not asking if I spent four years on the bench, they’re asking if I was a star and got pussy.
Time has freed me enough from my embarrassment to share with the world, that I, 6’5 250 pound Dylan Brodeur, was not good at football and in fact, did not get pussy.
Thank you to Angelica, Eve, Nick, and Slobo for help with this post.