Freddogg Off The Chain

What's Gnu Bison Man?

A dreary fall Monday morning on North Broad Street in 1965 and most of the real players on the winless Temple football team just pulled the blankets up over the heads with no intention of making any classes schedule before noon. And with the Dreaded Monday afternoon football practice beginning at 3 p.m on the attractively named Geasy Field on 16th Street, attending any classes was out of the question.
After a mindless run around in shorts and helmets and non contact practice where we were berated for our lack of competitive lust and basic brain power we walked to South Hall for a film preview on Saturday’s opponent Bucknell. As I waited for the light to change a young prostitute scratching her back against a row house wall asked me if I wanted her. “Can I keep my helmet on,”I joked, because in a real life matching test the word prostitute always lines up with “nasty.”
We watched Hofstra open their game against Bucknell with a 70 yard straight shot touchdown run on a tackle trap play. How boneheaded does a mesomorph have to be not to realize that if you’re walking into somebody’s backfield untouched some Eastern European is happily on his way to plant your dumb ass?
The Temple coaches were so unimaginative that they planned to open the game against Bucknell with the same play expecting the same result. I was to be the pulling guard on the play so after watching the victimization of the Fat Bison over and over I raised my hand and posed a question.
“Coach isn’t number 78 watching this same play. Don’t you think he’ll get a steady dose of it during group work at practice?”
‘Shut the hell up and just do your job Frederick. We ain’t paying for your education so you can sit here and think. That’s the problem with you. You’re a smartass. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes coach, and thank you.”
The Bucknell locker room was old and spacious with big fat metal lockers that rattled like an empty oil drum if you punched the shit out of them.
We were wearing our deep red Cherry uniforms and we were the Owls. Jesus what was I doing there?
Coach George Makris, a former NCAA heavyweight boxing champion from Wisconsin who once said to me, ”Fredericks if I had your talent I would have been a first team All American.”
“Coach it seems to me that all your talents should be focused on being yourself. Don’t drag me into it.”
Makris wanted to punch me so badly but a smartass inside a helmet takes many chances.
The coaches gathered the team together for the pre-game psych talk.
“This game is for the Little Brown Shoe and I’ll bet most of you “Brainiacs “ don’t know what that means and even if you did you wouldn’t care about it. We’ll I tell you it meant something to Leon Bernacki. If Leon Bernacki were here he’d be ready to play his ass off for the Little Brown Shoe.”
I leaned towards a benchwarmer from Brooklyn.
‘Who’s Leon Bernacki?”
“Dead guy,”was all he said.
The seniors had tears rolling down their cheeks. Bernacki was one of their boys—a ROTC wear my uniform around campus kind of guy—Bernacki had been killed in a car accident that summer. The Little Brown Shoe was some military back and forth trophy that is sitting somewhere right now and I’m sure Bernacki knows where.
“So bring the shoe back to Temple for Bernacki! Do you understand? Bernacki!”
The team started chanting “Bernacki! Bernacki! Bernacki!”
Line Coach Dave DeFilippo looked like Danny Devito on steroids with long hair. He began assaulting a locker as I walked past him he snatched me out of line.
“You don’t give a dam about Bernacki do you Fredericks? Why do you always look like you’re staring at the world from inside a fish bowl? Are there people you care about?”
“I love you coach I really do.” Actually I did love that guy because he paid us cash money for second effort blocks.
We receive run it back to the 30 yard line and the offense trots into the huddle. “Thirty-two power trap on one,”said Quarterback Joe Petro who had an uncanny resemblance to Roger Staubach minus the talent.
I pulled to the right, out of the blocks like an Olympic sprinter. And running right for me was the enraged and swollen marshmallow frosty the snowman number 78. I was pushed back into Petro who fumbled the handoff to Stricker and at the bottom of the pig pile was number 78 with the football. He hoisted and screamed like he had done something.
“You’re still a big fat dumb ass,” I told him jogging to the sidelines.
Split end Tom Mitchell, an All American, uncannily great white wideout, who would later play in the NFL, was triple covered as he caught Bucknell’s first offensive play for a 30 yard touchdown.
And on the last play of the half Mitchell once again solved the riddle of the Temple defense catching a pass across the middle losing his shoe on a would be tackle and racing the last 30 yards backwards for his fourth touchdown of the first half.
“Was that a Little Brown shoe that fell off his foot,”I asked my Brooklyn Buddy.
“You think this is funny Fredericks, the defensive backfield coach screaming jumping into my face. “You think an all American running backwards for 30 yards for his fourth touchdown in the half is funny”?
“The question is—does Coach Makris think it’s funny,”I snapped walking to the locker room.
Sometime early in the third quarter I was down field covering a punt. The return man turned that mother up the middle and on an athletic move he high stepped two fallen bodies and in a twisted moment of poetic justice, kicked me right in my face with his dumb ass shoe. I didn’t see stars but rather porky pig retreating inside a tightening kaleidoscope. ”That’s all folks.”
When the offense was called I stayed on the sidelines. Where’s Fredericks? Why isn’t he on the field?”
“He’s going on about shoes Coach,”said Brooklyn Vinnie. “He says from the Little Brown one to Mitchell’s missing one and the one that kicked him in the face he’s just waiting for the other one to drop.”
The story should end here except for boneheaded coach Jack Jones who jumped in front of me and screamed, ”Do you have a concussion? Is that what you’re trying to say? Do you think you have a concussion?’
“How the hell would I know Coach? I think I may but I’m aware I may also be faking. I don’t think I’m faking but what’s up with this theme of shoes, just shoes all over the freaking place. And who’s Bernacki?