If you take close look at the helmet of a member of the 2010 Palo Alto Vikings football team, you will get a glimpse into the life of a warrior who by day hammers out essays and math worksheets, and by night hammers opposing players to the turf. A helmet that started off in August as a smooth, spotless, gleaming white headpiece has progressed into mangled and chipped orb that looks like it served a term as a bengal tiger’s scratching post.
A ding in a helmet is more than just evidence of a past collision. Each chip, scar, or chunk of sticker missing from a helmet has a story behind it. I could pick up my helmet and point out individual gashes and streaks of paint, then tell you the story of how such an imperfection in the uniformity of my bonnet was acquired. But to me, the scars that criss-cross the front of a players’ helmet are as far from imperfections as Davante Adams’ (’11) vertical jump is from mine. A ‘stick mark’ on a Paly Vike helmet is art: art acquired in the pursuit of perfection.
From the moment I strapped on a helmet in 4th grade and had my first taste of contact, I was hooked. I fell in love with every aspect of the game and the culture that surrounds it. There is no feeling in the world like stepping onto the gridiron and awaiting the opening kickoff of a football game. On that field, mind and body are in sync, senses razor sharp, heart pounding, with the sights, sounds, and smells surrounding you blending together and magnifying. You feel untouchable. It’s the feeling I get any time I step out under the lights in the green and white with my brothers. It started in the Pop Warner days; Weighing less than 100 pounds, I would run around in bulky pads with the coordination of a baby deer. I distinctly remember being blocked into a gigantic puddle of mud during my first month of practice. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I emerged from the muck and walked home covered in mud, to the horror of my mother.
I can tell you all about the time my Palo Alto Knights team (which included many players from this years team), placed third in the country at Nationals, defeating a team from Pennsylvania in the final seconds of the game on a pass from TJ Braff (’11) to Miles Anderson (’11). Or I could tell you about how my Freshman year, during the second game of the season while playing on JV, I broke my left hand in a contest against Burlingame. All good, I thought, because I was allowed to play with the cast padded, until two weeks later when I broke the other wrist. I could even tell you about how Kevin Anderson(’11) and I, as young freshman used to workout at lunch, for fear of letting the seniors see our pathetic bench press. Needless to say Kevin is doing just fine on the bench now, but looking at us then you might not have pinned us for future State Champions. I can tell you any number of moments from my football career, but none will ever compare to my senior season.
Throughout the 2010 CCS playoffs every time I left the locker room and headed toward the field, I felt weighing on my shoulders the possibility that it could be my last time, and that no matter how far we had come, or how well we had done up to that point, it could all come to a screeching halt in one game. That feeling just makes you want it more. In three games, we squashed out the looming possibility of elimination. The Mitty game tested us like nothing before. I can’t say I wasn’t scared that my high school career was going to end right there, in the torrential downpour that soaked Hod Ray Field to the core. But even lining up for that fateful 4th and goal from the 24, I believed, like I did every time we stepped onto the gridiron this season, that we could do it.
Four weeks after Christoph Bono’s(’11) pass floated in the rain and found its way into Adams’ arms in the corner of the endzone, we exited the locker room of the Home Depot Center and began the walk to the tunnel leading onto the field. After defeating Valley Christian in the CCS Finals, we had a pretty good idea of who we would be facing. When it was announced officially that we would be taking on Centennial High School of Corona, few gave us a chance at holding Centennial under 40 points. We stepped onto the field against an opponent who outsized us, both by physical size and sheer numbers. Before kickoff, as the rain drifted down and coated our helmets, I told my teammates: “This is David and Goliath…and we’ve got the rock.”
The game was a battle from beginning, but when the clock wound down to zero, it was us alone who stood as champions. Everyone had overlooked the underdogs from Palo Alto.
My helmet sits in my room now, grass from the Home Depot Center still plastered to the white shell, along with the fresh red streaks left from impact with Centennial helmets, which blend in seamlessly with the gashes attained during battles won on the road to perfection. One of the first things my dad taught me when we would play catch in my youth was how to hold the ball. You tuck the pigskin hard into your elbow, squeezing with your forearm against your rib cage, and lacing your fingers over the exposed tip of the ball. It’s known as the ‘four points of pressure’, and it makes it nearly impossible for defenders to rip the ball away from you. My dad, whether he knew it or not, added a fifth point: a love for football that I will hold on to forever. I’m never letting this game go.
Editor’s Note: This version of text differs from the print version.
