That attraction started early on during my three years at Washington Irving Junior High, when it quickly became apparent that all the pretty girls tended to hover about the more rugged boys there. Though I was crushingly shy, I was nevertheless a hopeless romantic with an active imagination, and the idea of having these budding beauties pay any attention to me held a certain undeniable appeal.
So, by the time eighth grade ended, I was determined to exert myself in some manly field of athletic endeavor. Football – by far the most glamorous of high school sports – was the natural choice.
And Wasson, where I would be heading after leaving Irving, had the city’s most glamorous football program. Only the much newer Mitchell High School program rivalled it.
So it was that I made my way over to Wasson one hot midsummer day in 1970, where I filled out forms and was indoctrinated into the mysteries of C-squad football (A-squad being varsity, B-squad junior varsity and C-squad ninth-grade dweebs like me.)
Our coach also happened to be my drafting teacher at Washington Irving – Ron Nighswonger (he was later the Thunderbirds’ longtime head varsity football coach, replacing the fabled Dick Westbay, more about whom in a future installment).
Nighswonger was an intense individual. Once, when he thought I was clowning around in his drafting class (probably was), he came up and locked a viselike grip on that long muscle between neck and shoulder and whispered encouragement to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could still see the indentations to this day.
Anyway, that intensity carried over to his coaching. He was passionate about football and a darn good teacher of the skills needed to succeed at the sport. We were all lucky to have him at the helm even though he drove us mercilessly in blazing heat and searing cold to shape our bodies and lift our levels of endurance.
But until I got to that point, I had to learn to wear a cup. I’d never heard about this particularly intimate bit of protective gear, and was not prepared for the hot rush of embarrrassment I felt as I first tried to wear it. It was all too much, so I didn’t wear one for a week or so.
For those who haven’t experienced a crushing blow to the groin, it might be difficult to comprehend how readily I changed my mind when a running back I was trying to take down in practice inadvertently planted a knee in that critical tangle of flesh and nerves. Suffice to say that I was never thereafter without a jock strap and a cup.
