Saints How many of you played or coached football (High School, College or Pro)? (1 Viewer)

I started in Pop Warner at age 7. My best friend's dad was my coach in Football, baseball, and basketball. I was always taller and bigger than my classmates, even ALL of the girls and some teachers by 6th grade, So I HAD to play. I LOVED all three sports anyway. (Didn't have a cell pnone to waste my time) I Letttered in all 3, at Pass Christian High School, MS coast. I was 6-3, 200 my senior year of 1982. I played Tight End and Defensive end. (QB's Blindside :)) We ran the Veer, so I was the "Adam Troutman" moving from left to right, depending on where the play was going. My job was to chip the DT, and seal the inside line backer, if I was on the left or right side of the line. Teams KNEW we were running it, and still couldn't stop us. We were a 2A school, BUT we beat 5A D"Iberville, (North Biloxi) my senior year at THEIR house! We went 6-4, and our 4 losses were by a combined total of 12 points.
We beat our arch rival Long Beach,MS which was a 3A or 4A school. They had the NERVE of scheduling us for their Homecoming game, which was the last game of the year. I won the Punt, Pass & Kick District finals at age 12 and 13, so I punted and kicked from junior High through High school. My greatest feat was kicking the extra point against Long Beach to beat them 21-20, for THEIR homecoming. :) There was about 23 seconds left on the clock, as my kicked went through the middle of the uprights.... Side note, Long Beach 13 year old all star baseball team had beaten my Pass Christain 13 year old all star team in the state finals, 2-0. We had beaten them in the district finals in PC, 6-5. I remember how crushed we were back then. I felt like beating them for their homecoming, ALMOST made up for them beating us in the state tourney in 1977, when I was 13.
I had the size, tenacity, dedication, and smarts to play Ju Co ball. The ONLY thing missing was SPEED! LOL My son had the size AND speed, and was awesome in baseball, but the practice part of the sport, is what he HATED. I'd give my left arm, to be thinking about running on the beach in the summer in PC, and getting ready for the gut wrenching time of two a days at the beginning of August in the South MS heat!!!
I think I was better at baseball, at 6-3 with a 35 inch sleeve, as a first baseman, I could almost strech and almost reach my shortstop with my very large and long first base mit. I made one error in two years. The slowest ball ever hit to me, and I pulled my glove up too early.. SMH....
I watched EVERY sports event I could lay my eyes on back then, so I knew all of the intricacies of the games, as I learned to play them. Most importantly, I LOVED practicing. My buddy and I would beg his dad/coach to let us practice for another half hour or so. We really didn't want to go home and watch GIlligan's Island, or the Munsters. I mean Mary Ann was very HOT and all, but we could see here ANY DAY on TV.... Thanks WGNO New Orleans!!! LOL
***I left out the fun part of having injuries: Tore my calf muscle in a "B game" in 10th grade. (missed last 4 games of the season)
****My ONLY major injury was when I was playing Fraternity Flag Football at Southern Miss... Tore my right knee up, on a wet field with tennis shoes on...:( (miniscus, Lateral and colatteral ligaments, and my ACL) AMAZING to me, after thinking of ALL the contact I had... I had a concussion in practice as a junior, didn't know my name, or where I was. I remember waking up, sitting in a chair in front of the shower..... No WAY in Hades, was I going to miss the next game.
---------See if you tell the coaches you are hurt, you will have to SIT ON THE BENCH. "Sit on the Bench" was NOT a part of my vocabulary! However, now I NEED both knees replaced, and I walk like Sasquatch, I think maybe, just maybe, I should have come out of several games. However, that white athletic tape, could do wonders for a 17 year olds body. :) I would be sore on Saturday mornings, but I was groovy by Monday's practice in shorts and helements. :)
 
Last edited:
Played since I was 7 through high school WR, KR, CB.
My dad just retired and was a coach at the high school level since 1977 so plenty of knowledge thankfully passed down there, and I ref high school now for the last 5 years on the Northshore.
 
My high school football career lasted about an hour, but I have watched all levels since before there were Super Bowls and I am the size of an NFL defensive tackle. Does that count? :ezbill:

Me too. At Jesuit, the only way to get out of detention, which it seemed like I had everyday - lol - was to play varsity sports. I tried football for a week and the coach mercifully told me to focus on basketball and baseball. My pro ball childhood fantasies got crushes!

And I noticed that a lot of the football lockers appeared like they had been chewed on, and these were thick, heavy hard metal. I aksed one of my buddies on the team and he said that was exactly teeth marks. Apparently it was kind of a tradition after wins. For some reason, that made me want to really play basketball - lol
 
Freshman year, I played at Mt. Carmel HS in Chicago with Donavon McNabb and Simeon Rice... both were complete studs on another level entirely.
Played through HS but injured my knee... a bad knee injury derailed my career as I was already lacking speed and it only made things worse.
Coached my entire adult life... football, baseball, and now fast pitch softball.
I love the game of football, but I enjoy coaching the girls and fast pitch softball the most of any sport.
 
Played DT in high school. We stunk. I had fun but I can remember too many times that I woke up on the field not remembering what happened. That makes me wish that I hadn't played.

lmao - Yes, in our days, the high school coaches treated concussions like a stinger and the minute you could count 3-fingers, you were back in. At least that was the way it was in basketball and baseball.

I was pitching in a game and got beamed by a laser shot like drive. The coaches came out and talked to me. I knew my name so he gave me the ball back to continue pitching. I still don't remember the last few innings. I know we won that game and we didn't win many so I guess the story is that I pitched better when I was freakin clueless -lol
 
Played Jr High at Slidell Jr. High, WR and CB/S. During tryouts the coach said "You're one fast**s white-boy" and I made the team for that reason. Given the current times that probably wouldn't go over well as a comment. Played freshman football at SHS same positions, but was a little bigger so started to see some DE, especially during the following spring practices. During spring practice freshman year, my dad had a massive heart attack, couldn't work anymore and required a heart transplant so I quit football and started working to support myself at 14. That was the end of high school football for me. Years later (2001) in the AF, I made the Okinawa Giants team as a LB, but had suffered a knee injury in softball tournament so I never saw any playing time and my TDY schedule at the time didn't allow for me to play the rest of the time I was in Okinawa (2003). In 2009, I played for the Yokota Warriors at LG. Funny thing is, although I was 225-230lbs at the time, I was still faster than many of our skill position players. That didn't last long as I was injured on a cheap shot late hit in the second half of the first game and ended up with a 4-5" spiral fracture of my fibula and ripped a chunk of bone off the bottom of my tibia. I was at Misawa AB in northern Japan when it happened, so I ended up walking on if for about 8 hours including a 3-hour bullet train ride back to Tokyo and subway ride back to Yokota before going to the ER. I posted on here back then when it happened, but it sucked and it was about a year before I could walk/run without pain. I was not able to play the next year due to a deployment to Iraq and I left Yokota to go back to Korea in 2011. They say the base tackle football teams in Japan are about semi-pro level and it is probably pretty close. Many of the guys played HS, some college, arena league or some even higher so there was a wide range of talent on each team.

Edit for additional info:
During my AF career I also played many years of intramural flag football and coached our team that won a base championship the year I got hurt playing tackle football earlier that year.
 
Last edited:
I marched in the band. But how many football players you know can play flight of the bumblebee in the second octave? I played flag football in the Air Force but we lost the championship game against the Logistics squad. Back then I could throw a football over them mountains.

Fellow band nerd here. And I can tell you not many humans, much less football players, can play the national anthem on first-chair clarinet. The notes are higher than Morstead's punts ;)

Had some darned competitive flag football games in elementary school on the Westbank, though. My bony little arms kept me at WR. Catching passes kept me on the good side of all the bigger kids!
 
PA Knights by any chance? I remember facing Chris McIver on a few snaps as a punt team gunner and he absolutely stoned me at the LOS. He was an excellent DB there and I believe one of two American DBs on the team that year who absolutely stood out on every play we saw on tape or on game day.
No I played for the Norwich Devils. Now I think of it, he went to Ipswich the year after & then to the PA Knights after that, would have been 2002 when he played for Norwich. Who did you play for?
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Users who are viewing this thread

    Back
    Top Bottom