A Word To The Wise – Youth football and the scales of ethics
I was wrapped up in a weighty football scandal many years ago and believe it is time to unburden myself. I got swept up in something that was much larger than myself, a disregard for rules and practices that erode the foundational principles the game of football was built on – teamwork, sports...
I was wrapped up in a weighty football scandal many years ago and believe it is time to unburden myself. I got swept up in something that was much larger than myself, a disregard for rules and practices that erode the foundational principles the game of football was built on – teamwork, sportsmanship and a fair playing field.
But I alone allowed it to happen.
I was 11.
With the start of the football season underway, many young athletes are taking to the field. Not the turf fields and bright lights of high school football, but the grimier, unmowed gridirons that host pee wee games and practices.
Picture it, Marysville, 1983. Lewis Field at the corner of Collins and Grove.
I have written before about junior football having some restrictions back in the old days. You would think the gridiron might be the one place where a hefty lad could be king, but even in those days everything was better for the thin fellas.
Back then, if you weighed over a certain amount you could not be a quarterback, running back or receiver. If you passed a second threshold you could not advance the ball even on a fumble or interception. I guess the mindset was that a rumbling tubby could injure a little guy if he was running the ball. Maybe they feared one big ol’ hoss dragging the entire opposing defense into the endzone, unstoppable.
Either way, you either got a giant “X” or “XX” on your helmet if you weighed too much, to let the officials know the pigskin was off limits to you.
But there was a third weight limit that few had to worry about and many didn’t even know existed. If you passed that benchmark you got another “X” – over your name in the program.
In Marysville Junior Football in the 80s there was a maximum weight limit for inclusion. One too many steakburgers at the county fair and you couldn’t play football that year.
And it wasn’t on a moving timeline. You were weighed one time for all the marbles.
So in the late summer of ‘83, I was doing what most young plumps were doing – eating. Back then, there was no internet, video games came from Radio Shack and kids didn’t have televisions in their rooms. But we did have McDonalds, Lays potato chips and an occasional visit from the Schwan truck. I liked food and it liked me so we hung out, a lot.
My dad saw the fever in this relationship and warned me that there was a max weight limit for junior football. We went to the bathroom to check the old scale and found that I was about to be persona non grata at Lewis Field. I was the only one shocked by this fact, obviously, because my parents were in the bathroom armed with a list of things that needed to happen for me to make weight.
It sounded like torture at the time, but in reality it only involved cutting back on snacks and doing a little bit of running ahead of the season. The weigh-ins didn’t happen until shortly before the first game, so my parents felt the pre-season practices would burn off the rest of the goo.
The plan was working out. Some weight was coming off and I was on track to cruise past the limit on the day of the weigh-ins. My father was a coach and told the other coaches that I would be under and good-to-go on the big day.
Back then they weighed you in on an old bathroom style scale in a dimly lit locker room on the north end of the field. All of other ferret-weighted players were weighed only to have a number for the program, or the back of trader cards you could have the photographer make if your parents loved you enough.
But for me, that scale was the oval Ouija Board of fate, holding my athletic destiny below its peeling, anti-slip coating. Even so, I was confident because I had weighed myself that morning and I was under.
I don’t know how it happened. Perhaps my home scale was wrong, or the league scale was wrong, or both scales were wrong. Maybe I blacked out and stole an extra lunch at school that day. Perhaps arrogance adds a few pounds.
I was over by three pounds. Had we waited 30 minutes I’m sure I would have shed those pounds in water weight from crying.
But as if the Golden Arches themselves stretched into that musty room and cut a fat kid a break, I was saved by the flexible ethics of my dad and the other coaches.
As it turned out, the league commissioner had stepped away just before I got on the scale, so he hadn’t verified the figure. One of the coaches quickly knelt down and found the tiny dial on the bottom of the scale and cranked it until my number on the line was the exact limit of the league.
They told me to stay on the scale as the commissioner walked back over and to not step off until he walked away. I was the last kid getting weighed, which was lucky, because the next kid that stepped on that scale might have shown up in the program with a negative number as his weight.
The commissioner walked over, looked down and nodded. My head coach put his arm around the commish’s shoulders and asked him a question as he led him away from the area. I got off the scale, the numbers sprinted back well past zero, and another coach bent down to crank the wheel back to zero.
The perfect crime.
I didn’t really care that much because it meant I got to play football and I was a master in the selfishness of youth. We stretched then took a lap before practice as we always did.
On the back straight-away my grandfather had parked his green Buick along the track and exited the car as I slowly jogged near. He reached in his back pocket, took out his wallet and said “Way to go Buddy. How about a little reward for your weight.”
He flashed some bills at me and I just shook my head as I passed. That was the point where I was ashamed. I hadn’t earned anything. I had failed completely and it took quick thinking, questionable morals and a little luck to get me on the field that year. I didn’t deserve a reward and I didn’t want him to be proud of me.
I remember all the details of that day, as well as the goal weight that I ultimately missed – thanks to the trader card you see accompanying this column.
If you flip that card over, it says:
Chad Williamson #62
Season: 1983
Position: NG, RG, Punter
Team: Rams
League: Marysville J.F.
Height: 5 feet, 3 inches
Weight: 150 lbs.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor for the Journal-Tribune.