The Blocking Sled
Towards the end of summer I start to see them, standing at the far end of the practice fields that stretch behind the small country high schools. They look like antique implements of agriculture, something that was drawn by horses back when men spoke in horses rather than in horsepower. They always look forlorn, like most things that need us in order to move. Seeing them, I hear again the clatter of our shoulder pads against the pads, Shaun Bradbury and Josh Sturtevant on my left, Josh Sickles and Deonte Seals on my right. I was in the middle so as not to weaken one side or the other, which would cause the sled to turn in circles. We were like a team of horses, the sled a sleigh, and Irv Olson was the driver, his whistle his whip, screaming “Hep! Hep! Hep! Hep! Hep!” as he was borne backward into his boyhood on our five shoulders. If we timed it right, the sled seemed to bounce off our pads as if on springs and for a moment we’d lay full-out on our bellies, staring down through our face masks into the dark, private grass, before scrambling up to heave ourselves against it again. I could almost be deceived into believing it was my strength alone that was making it skate across the field on its rusted runners. But if I jumped the whistle, as I sometimes would, trying to make up for my lack of strength with impeccable timing, I’d spring back as if reprimanded, even as the other four pushed it forward. I learned then that the key was to wait for the whistle so as to conceal my weakness under others’ power. This was why I’d been placed in the center, after all. To keep the sled headed straight.