01-01-2022, 04:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-07-2022, 01:42 PM by Crunk. Edited 1 time in total.)
Part 1
Look at me…LOOK AT ME! You idiot…you butthead…you…you…dumb. What’s going on out there? You call that winning football? You think that’s gonna get you to Ultimus? Or even to the playoffs? Or even to a post-victory KFC trip? Get in your head in the game RIGHT NOW! And not just your head. Also the other parts of your body. I’m not gonna stick around to watch you play this terribly. I might as well gouge my eyes out. Like Oedipus. Or…Oberyn Martell. And, my god, it stinks in here. Look at you: stinking up every room you walk into. It’s that sweat. You got some toxic sweat, boy. Clean your ass up. Then we can have breakfast.
That’s what I say to myself in the bathroom mirror every morning. It’s tough being me. People act like they can do all the things I can do, possibly even better. Well do you have all of your streaming passwords memorized? Didn’t think so……I don’t either but I’d like to some day. But when you’re an athlete, the wear and tear of the football game(s) takes its toll. You’ll go home feeling like you’ve been shot in the knees, punched repeatedly on the sides of your torso, deflected knife shots with just your arms, and your hair’s all messy. The glamour of football ends when we go home after a long day of footballing. That’s when we become our boring old selves. Our boring, smelly, hungry selves. And that is, admittedly, when we become just an average person. We then have to deal with average person problems, such as remembering all of the streaming passwords or moving the cat from the top of the laundry or making focaccia without rosemary.
I wish I could tell some ultimate tale of my at-home prowess, but I’m honestly out of my element when I’m there. I love me the gridiron. I know the exact length in yards I’ve traveled whenever I walk. I wanted to get our backyard replaced with turf, but mom said it’d be cheaper to buy the Hubble satellite. I love coming home with those black chunks stuck in the bottom of my shoe. I love rubbing my scared-up arms down with Neosporin and praying I didn’t get another staph infection. My favorite injury I’ve ever gotten was turf toe. I mean, it hurt like a motherfucker, but that’s football injury if there ever was one. When I was younger, I got to visit then-Marshall Stadium (now The Nest) in Minneapolis, where the Grey Ducks play. I was in heaven standing on that big boy turf. You couldn’t drag me off that field. Well, Mrs. Gustafferson actually had to. This was when I was a junior in high school btw.
I wish I could live on the football field. I’d wake up on the logo and go to the kitchen on the 30 yard line. I would use the bathroom on the 20 but the toilet in there hasn’t worked since the pipe broke on the 40. I’d waive to my neighbor, who lives on the other 30. I’m not sure what they do down on the 10…I’ve always been suspicious of them. Unfortunately, housing projects are usually done on actual grass. Actual grass is absolutely disgusting. Why, you might ask? Two words: mud…….and…that’s the only word. Imagine playing a game of football on top of a giant birthday cake. That’s more-or-less what it’s like to play football on a wet field. Except you can’t even eat the field because it’s not actually a birthday cake. That shit’s not tasty one bit. Trust me, I’ve tried it many times. I realize I’m giving away my greatest weakness through my memoirs. Oh well, nobody will see this until I’m retired…or dead…whichever comes first…..or a prisoner of war.
For breakfast, I usually try to have some conglomeration of eggs, bacon, and pancakes/waffles (never both), with organic syrup (doctor’s orders), and a glass of OJw/H+H (orange juice with half-and-half). Then I’ll sit down on the couch and watch the news. I try not to check my phone when I wake up because then I’ll be stuck in bed for about an hour catching up on overnight twitter feuds. Then I’ll take the dogs out for a walk. We own a doxen-chihuahua mix and a pitbull-boxer mix. Their names are Princess and Ragnar. Guess which one’s which? Well, Princess usually sits on my lap while I eat while Ragnar guards our shoes at the front door. We don’t tell him to do that, he just does. While I’m not looking, sometimes, Princess slurps up my eggs and bacon. I guess that’s the pitbull in her shining through. Surprisingly, though, Ragnar takes much larger poops.
After that, it’s off to work. I say goodbye to Mom which is, honestly, always tough to do. I never know if it’s gonna be the last time I see her. I mean, she’s only in her late-50s and never had any major health problems. But…you never really know. And it’s especially brutal when it’s your parent. I still remember the last time I saw Dad. I was off to school one day, went to a friend’s house right after, and when I came home for supper it was just Mom. She told us Dad had a heart attack and died. I never saw his body nor went to any funeral for him. Any time I’d ask Mom about it, she’d dismiss it and occasionally talk negatively about him. I have a feeling there’s more to that story. But it’s passed me by to care much. I cherish my Mom. She’s the best person I’ve ever known.
Then I’m off to work. By work, I, of course, mean my job as the starting strong safety for the New Orleans Second Line. That is my job, as weird as it sounds. I know a lot of people forget that team athletes are, technically, employees to their league. We’re not too different from your average 9-5 worker. Except we’re a lot faster….and we throw a brown, leather macguffin around. Football is, also, a full-time job. There’s much more that goes into it than just showing up on Sundays. In order to be a great team, you need to have some great practice. While the team may only hold official practices on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and sometimes Friday, I usually try to get into the facility at least once a day. Maybe I’ll be looking at some tape, getting some reps in the strength room, shooting the shit with the coaches, or attempting to influence team management into making moves that benefit me and me solely. Regardless, football is a full-time job that I give as much attention to as I can….unless it’s an equipment management meeting in which case zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
Speaking of New Orleans, it’s been something living here. I’ve had the pleasure of calling Minnesota my home for my entire life. There’s a lot of preconceived perceptions people have of the Land of 10,000 (technically 14,000) Lakes. Those include the weather being harshly cold, people being overly kind and hospitable, everyone likes to hunt and ice-fish, we like electing professional wrestlers to public office. Those…are all true. But the summers are really hot as well. I was next-door neighbors with a family from Louisiana growing up. They actually owned their house in Minneapolis for seasonal purposes as they’d only be up there to escape from the ‘sweltering’ Louisiana summers. Minnesota could, easily, hit the high 90s on some days in the summer. It really was the coldest of colds and the hottest of hots living there. So I didn’t expect much of a change moving to Louisiana…except there would be no ‘cold.’
BOY…WAS…I…WRONG! I understand why my neighbors fled this state over the summer like rats fleeing from a barn owl. It is somehow the perfect mix of dry and wet. You cannot go 0.1 inches outside without being ravaged by bloodsucking insects. Have you ever reached a point where your body runs out of sweat? I didn’t even know such a thing could happen. But that’s exactly what happened to me one day when our AC broke. I could barely even stay conscious. So…I’m definitely planning on fleeing this place come the summer. But the weather is pretty nice for almost the entire year. There’s this strong belief among the football oldies that football is a sport best played in rain or shine. They used to play games in -20 degree weather or in hurricanes or tornadoes. A guy would get electrocuted by a lightning strike and they’d just move on to the next down. Nowadays, most teams play indoors; a shocking revelation not widely accepted until just a few years ago when the weather decided to be proper loopy because we keep burning coal. Speaking of hurricanes, I’ve been told I have to look out for those here. A few more of those and we’ll have the ISFL’s first aquatic stadium.
New Orleans is great, though. I still haven’t, exactly, gotten into gumbo yet though. I’m not sure if that’s a right of passage or not. Either way, I’m enjoying myself. And it’s clear to me that people want me to be here. That’s a huge reason why I was adamant to be a top pick. I was definitely a surprise pick from where I was taken. Many pundits didn’t even have me going in the first round. I knew I was a longshot for the #1 pick, but going to a team with their first possible pick is just as good in my opinion. None of this would have come about, of course, if I didn’t make a switch to safety. I think it’s about time I talk a little bit about my journey from offensive wideout to defensive backfield. Where do I begin…
…uh….I’m not good with transitions. Anyway, the day after we decided upon a switch to safety, I began working with a group of league vets and DB coaches in order to get me into safety form. Honestly, that was the easy part. Playing safety is a lot of reading offense and decision making. It actually gave me a lot more freedom than what being a receiver did. As a receiver, you’re pretty much glued to your set route. But when you’re playing zone defense, you can tag onto whomever you believe needs the most attention. If your coaches trust you enough, they might even let you blitz whenever you desire. Learning coverage was not a problem for me. I was already pretty good at catching balls so I could snag some picks if needed. But then there was the physical side of being a safety. I had the speed and agility to take on the role. But in order to be a defender, I had to put on some mass.
As a receiver, I never really worried about my body size. I played out of the slot, mostly, and relied upon my speed and footwork to get room rather than my physicality. As for safety, you have to be the stronger person against offensive players. That meant it was time to get a lot more rigorous in the weight room. Now this might be a weird thing to say as a football player, but lifting…not a huge fan. Yes, I know it’s very important as far as cultivating muscle and becoming stronk. But…it’s kinda boring. Just picking stuff up over and over again gets tiring. I much prefer doing wind-sprints or chin-ups or anything that gets me moving. Weight training slows things down a whole lot. And I’ve never lived my life in the slow lane. I’m usually, like, in the 2nd fastest. The fast lane is where the assholes tailgate you and I’m not a fan of that. Building up my strength is still a work in progress at this point. I first had to get over all the strains that came with weight training. I could barely even bend my arms for a few days after my first session. Once it comes along though, you better bet your bucket I’m gonna be blitzing any lane I get.
Let’s talk about my experience with the DSFL draft. From what I was told, the DSFL draft is a crapshoot. It basically means nothing towards your standing in the ISFL draft. If you perform well in the D and shake plenty of hands while doing it, ISFL scouts will come knocking. Despite knowing that, I was pretty demoralized by being the 5th WR taken. I did declare to most GMs, at that point, that I was willing to explore a position swap. I think the idea of a receiver not exactly wanting to play receiver scared some GMs. That was far from the case, though. I wanted, with all my heart, to play receiver. But I wanted to be a high draft choice just a little bit more. I was part of a great program, though, in Tijuana. I’ll probably get more into detail in the future. But I will say they were integral in helping me make a strong transition to safety and absolutely helped my draft stock. That was also where I experienced my first major football heartbreak. I’m sure it’s the first of many!....
What was I talking about? I went on like seventeen different tangents. I think it was…oh yeah, when I’m at practice. I feel like I am my best self when I’m on the football field. If I could’ve, I would’ve taken my SAT on turf. Maybe then I would’ve gotten something better than a 1320 (yeah, I know that’s a solid score but the moment you mention that here come the douches saying they got a 1540 or whatever I’m sorry we all didn’t learn trigonometry in 4th grade and write in d’nealian). For most players, they have two different personalities. They have one for when they're on the field and one for when they’re not. For me, I feel like I’m the same way all the time. Football is my life, as cliche as that sounds. When I see friends who don’t even play, we’re always talking about football. I’ll sometimes get my mom to throw the ball around with me. She can’t throw for shit but that extra work catching balls, I feel, pays off regardless of the circumstance. I’ll sometimes try to brush my teeth and shave with my toes just outside of the bathroom. I don’t recommend doing that last one but the point is I’m always a football guy….unless Jeopardy is on in which case I’m a trivia guy.
Look at me…LOOK AT ME! You idiot…you butthead…you…you…dumb. What’s going on out there? You call that winning football? You think that’s gonna get you to Ultimus? Or even to the playoffs? Or even to a post-victory KFC trip? Get in your head in the game RIGHT NOW! And not just your head. Also the other parts of your body. I’m not gonna stick around to watch you play this terribly. I might as well gouge my eyes out. Like Oedipus. Or…Oberyn Martell. And, my god, it stinks in here. Look at you: stinking up every room you walk into. It’s that sweat. You got some toxic sweat, boy. Clean your ass up. Then we can have breakfast.
That’s what I say to myself in the bathroom mirror every morning. It’s tough being me. People act like they can do all the things I can do, possibly even better. Well do you have all of your streaming passwords memorized? Didn’t think so……I don’t either but I’d like to some day. But when you’re an athlete, the wear and tear of the football game(s) takes its toll. You’ll go home feeling like you’ve been shot in the knees, punched repeatedly on the sides of your torso, deflected knife shots with just your arms, and your hair’s all messy. The glamour of football ends when we go home after a long day of footballing. That’s when we become our boring old selves. Our boring, smelly, hungry selves. And that is, admittedly, when we become just an average person. We then have to deal with average person problems, such as remembering all of the streaming passwords or moving the cat from the top of the laundry or making focaccia without rosemary.
I wish I could tell some ultimate tale of my at-home prowess, but I’m honestly out of my element when I’m there. I love me the gridiron. I know the exact length in yards I’ve traveled whenever I walk. I wanted to get our backyard replaced with turf, but mom said it’d be cheaper to buy the Hubble satellite. I love coming home with those black chunks stuck in the bottom of my shoe. I love rubbing my scared-up arms down with Neosporin and praying I didn’t get another staph infection. My favorite injury I’ve ever gotten was turf toe. I mean, it hurt like a motherfucker, but that’s football injury if there ever was one. When I was younger, I got to visit then-Marshall Stadium (now The Nest) in Minneapolis, where the Grey Ducks play. I was in heaven standing on that big boy turf. You couldn’t drag me off that field. Well, Mrs. Gustafferson actually had to. This was when I was a junior in high school btw.
I wish I could live on the football field. I’d wake up on the logo and go to the kitchen on the 30 yard line. I would use the bathroom on the 20 but the toilet in there hasn’t worked since the pipe broke on the 40. I’d waive to my neighbor, who lives on the other 30. I’m not sure what they do down on the 10…I’ve always been suspicious of them. Unfortunately, housing projects are usually done on actual grass. Actual grass is absolutely disgusting. Why, you might ask? Two words: mud…….and…that’s the only word. Imagine playing a game of football on top of a giant birthday cake. That’s more-or-less what it’s like to play football on a wet field. Except you can’t even eat the field because it’s not actually a birthday cake. That shit’s not tasty one bit. Trust me, I’ve tried it many times. I realize I’m giving away my greatest weakness through my memoirs. Oh well, nobody will see this until I’m retired…or dead…whichever comes first…..or a prisoner of war.
For breakfast, I usually try to have some conglomeration of eggs, bacon, and pancakes/waffles (never both), with organic syrup (doctor’s orders), and a glass of OJw/H+H (orange juice with half-and-half). Then I’ll sit down on the couch and watch the news. I try not to check my phone when I wake up because then I’ll be stuck in bed for about an hour catching up on overnight twitter feuds. Then I’ll take the dogs out for a walk. We own a doxen-chihuahua mix and a pitbull-boxer mix. Their names are Princess and Ragnar. Guess which one’s which? Well, Princess usually sits on my lap while I eat while Ragnar guards our shoes at the front door. We don’t tell him to do that, he just does. While I’m not looking, sometimes, Princess slurps up my eggs and bacon. I guess that’s the pitbull in her shining through. Surprisingly, though, Ragnar takes much larger poops.
After that, it’s off to work. I say goodbye to Mom which is, honestly, always tough to do. I never know if it’s gonna be the last time I see her. I mean, she’s only in her late-50s and never had any major health problems. But…you never really know. And it’s especially brutal when it’s your parent. I still remember the last time I saw Dad. I was off to school one day, went to a friend’s house right after, and when I came home for supper it was just Mom. She told us Dad had a heart attack and died. I never saw his body nor went to any funeral for him. Any time I’d ask Mom about it, she’d dismiss it and occasionally talk negatively about him. I have a feeling there’s more to that story. But it’s passed me by to care much. I cherish my Mom. She’s the best person I’ve ever known.
Then I’m off to work. By work, I, of course, mean my job as the starting strong safety for the New Orleans Second Line. That is my job, as weird as it sounds. I know a lot of people forget that team athletes are, technically, employees to their league. We’re not too different from your average 9-5 worker. Except we’re a lot faster….and we throw a brown, leather macguffin around. Football is, also, a full-time job. There’s much more that goes into it than just showing up on Sundays. In order to be a great team, you need to have some great practice. While the team may only hold official practices on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and sometimes Friday, I usually try to get into the facility at least once a day. Maybe I’ll be looking at some tape, getting some reps in the strength room, shooting the shit with the coaches, or attempting to influence team management into making moves that benefit me and me solely. Regardless, football is a full-time job that I give as much attention to as I can….unless it’s an equipment management meeting in which case zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
Speaking of New Orleans, it’s been something living here. I’ve had the pleasure of calling Minnesota my home for my entire life. There’s a lot of preconceived perceptions people have of the Land of 10,000 (technically 14,000) Lakes. Those include the weather being harshly cold, people being overly kind and hospitable, everyone likes to hunt and ice-fish, we like electing professional wrestlers to public office. Those…are all true. But the summers are really hot as well. I was next-door neighbors with a family from Louisiana growing up. They actually owned their house in Minneapolis for seasonal purposes as they’d only be up there to escape from the ‘sweltering’ Louisiana summers. Minnesota could, easily, hit the high 90s on some days in the summer. It really was the coldest of colds and the hottest of hots living there. So I didn’t expect much of a change moving to Louisiana…except there would be no ‘cold.’
BOY…WAS…I…WRONG! I understand why my neighbors fled this state over the summer like rats fleeing from a barn owl. It is somehow the perfect mix of dry and wet. You cannot go 0.1 inches outside without being ravaged by bloodsucking insects. Have you ever reached a point where your body runs out of sweat? I didn’t even know such a thing could happen. But that’s exactly what happened to me one day when our AC broke. I could barely even stay conscious. So…I’m definitely planning on fleeing this place come the summer. But the weather is pretty nice for almost the entire year. There’s this strong belief among the football oldies that football is a sport best played in rain or shine. They used to play games in -20 degree weather or in hurricanes or tornadoes. A guy would get electrocuted by a lightning strike and they’d just move on to the next down. Nowadays, most teams play indoors; a shocking revelation not widely accepted until just a few years ago when the weather decided to be proper loopy because we keep burning coal. Speaking of hurricanes, I’ve been told I have to look out for those here. A few more of those and we’ll have the ISFL’s first aquatic stadium.
New Orleans is great, though. I still haven’t, exactly, gotten into gumbo yet though. I’m not sure if that’s a right of passage or not. Either way, I’m enjoying myself. And it’s clear to me that people want me to be here. That’s a huge reason why I was adamant to be a top pick. I was definitely a surprise pick from where I was taken. Many pundits didn’t even have me going in the first round. I knew I was a longshot for the #1 pick, but going to a team with their first possible pick is just as good in my opinion. None of this would have come about, of course, if I didn’t make a switch to safety. I think it’s about time I talk a little bit about my journey from offensive wideout to defensive backfield. Where do I begin…
…uh….I’m not good with transitions. Anyway, the day after we decided upon a switch to safety, I began working with a group of league vets and DB coaches in order to get me into safety form. Honestly, that was the easy part. Playing safety is a lot of reading offense and decision making. It actually gave me a lot more freedom than what being a receiver did. As a receiver, you’re pretty much glued to your set route. But when you’re playing zone defense, you can tag onto whomever you believe needs the most attention. If your coaches trust you enough, they might even let you blitz whenever you desire. Learning coverage was not a problem for me. I was already pretty good at catching balls so I could snag some picks if needed. But then there was the physical side of being a safety. I had the speed and agility to take on the role. But in order to be a defender, I had to put on some mass.
As a receiver, I never really worried about my body size. I played out of the slot, mostly, and relied upon my speed and footwork to get room rather than my physicality. As for safety, you have to be the stronger person against offensive players. That meant it was time to get a lot more rigorous in the weight room. Now this might be a weird thing to say as a football player, but lifting…not a huge fan. Yes, I know it’s very important as far as cultivating muscle and becoming stronk. But…it’s kinda boring. Just picking stuff up over and over again gets tiring. I much prefer doing wind-sprints or chin-ups or anything that gets me moving. Weight training slows things down a whole lot. And I’ve never lived my life in the slow lane. I’m usually, like, in the 2nd fastest. The fast lane is where the assholes tailgate you and I’m not a fan of that. Building up my strength is still a work in progress at this point. I first had to get over all the strains that came with weight training. I could barely even bend my arms for a few days after my first session. Once it comes along though, you better bet your bucket I’m gonna be blitzing any lane I get.
Let’s talk about my experience with the DSFL draft. From what I was told, the DSFL draft is a crapshoot. It basically means nothing towards your standing in the ISFL draft. If you perform well in the D and shake plenty of hands while doing it, ISFL scouts will come knocking. Despite knowing that, I was pretty demoralized by being the 5th WR taken. I did declare to most GMs, at that point, that I was willing to explore a position swap. I think the idea of a receiver not exactly wanting to play receiver scared some GMs. That was far from the case, though. I wanted, with all my heart, to play receiver. But I wanted to be a high draft choice just a little bit more. I was part of a great program, though, in Tijuana. I’ll probably get more into detail in the future. But I will say they were integral in helping me make a strong transition to safety and absolutely helped my draft stock. That was also where I experienced my first major football heartbreak. I’m sure it’s the first of many!....
What was I talking about? I went on like seventeen different tangents. I think it was…oh yeah, when I’m at practice. I feel like I am my best self when I’m on the football field. If I could’ve, I would’ve taken my SAT on turf. Maybe then I would’ve gotten something better than a 1320 (yeah, I know that’s a solid score but the moment you mention that here come the douches saying they got a 1540 or whatever I’m sorry we all didn’t learn trigonometry in 4th grade and write in d’nealian). For most players, they have two different personalities. They have one for when they're on the field and one for when they’re not. For me, I feel like I’m the same way all the time. Football is my life, as cliche as that sounds. When I see friends who don’t even play, we’re always talking about football. I’ll sometimes get my mom to throw the ball around with me. She can’t throw for shit but that extra work catching balls, I feel, pays off regardless of the circumstance. I’ll sometimes try to brush my teeth and shave with my toes just outside of the bathroom. I don’t recommend doing that last one but the point is I’m always a football guy….unless Jeopardy is on in which case I’m a trivia guy.
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