I remember back in high school, played football. Was a better defensive tackle than an offensive one, but we practiced both ways in case someone got hurt and had to fill in. This one particular game, the starting and second string offensive tackles were out hurt and I was first string defensive tackle, third string offensive tackle. That game I was going both ways, defense and offense playing almost every down. There was this one play as offensive tackle that called for me to step out and cut left or right, take out the linebacker, but when I did, he wasn't there, so like a moron I stopped and looked around in time to see the safety blowing by me at full speed through the gaping hole I left open, and he hit my quarterback so hard that he knocked his helmet clean off before flattening him. It was bad. My quarterback didn't get up for a while and our team medics were out there trying to glue his head back on so he could regain consciousness, because he was out cold. Looking back, that injury time out finally gave me a much needed break, the wrong way though. As I stood there watching them try to put his cleats back on, pull his shoulder pads up from around his waist, and perform CPR on what was left of him, trying to regain my own breath, I looked over at the sideline, and there was my head coach just looking at me. He moved his finger like, "Come here", so I did.
When I got there, he just stood, arms crossed, looking at me eye to eye as a former defensive guard or tackle that had played for the NY Giants in his younger days and he didn't say a word. His silence was deafening as he stared into my eyes, so I did the only thing I could do, and pleaded my case. "Coach, the play called for me to step out, cut, take out the linebacker, be he wasn't there, and now our quarterback is dead". I went on and on and on pleading my case until I finally ran out of things to say, stars in the sky to point at, and breath. When I got done, he simply asked "Are you finished?, and I thought a second and nodded that I was.
That's when Coach Rems said something to me that I have never forgotten and never will. He said, "Excuses have never gotten the job done, and they never will", then he told me to take a break and sat me on the bench for the rest of the game. They carried our quarterback off the field, but next week we were both back, his black eyes and my bruised ego mostly gone, although I don't think they ever found his one missing ear or all of his teeth.
Excuses have never gotten the job done, and they never will. I live my life that way. R.I.P. Coach Rems, you taught me a lesson that stuck with me.
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Today's Featured Article - Old Time Threshing - by Anthony West. A lovely harvest evening late September 1947, I was a school boy, like all school boys I loved harvest time. The golden corn ripens well and early, the stoking, stacking,.... the drawing in with the tractors and trailers and a few buck rakes thrown in, and possibly a heavy horse. It would be a great day for the collies and the terrier dogs, rats and mice would be at the bottom of the stacks so the dogs, would have a busy time hunting and killing, all the corn was gathered and ricked in what we c
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