Sunday, August 27, 2017

First Game

By Uncle Hans

High noon on Friday and we're boarding the bus. Destination is University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth Kansas.

     The football program at Trinity is going through some hard times. We have had three coaches in the last 3 years. Our new coach has coached at Trinity before and has excellent credentials. Unfortunately he didn't come on board until sometime in February and that left very little time to recruit. I have already talked on this blog about how selective Trinity is for it's football players. The result is that we have great guys, but only about 25 of them........

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Our travels went well into the night and included a hotel.  Our opponent has an enrollment almost 50 times larger than Trinity. They had more than 120 players in uniform on the field......

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On the positive side, it was a beautiful day, about 80 degrees with a little breeze and a very nice facility with artificial turf. This is our warm-up........

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We lost by a score of 49 to 0. The actual contest was closer than that, and our defense forced four punts, a fumble, and they turned the ball over to us on downs twice.

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This is the locker room at halftime. It was frustrating for me because of my eligibility restriction. It was a long warm day. Many guys played both offense and defense. Everyone, including all the freshman, got time on the field. Except for me. In the fourth quarter we were down by a lot, the guys were tired, and everyone got called on to help.

      Except for me. Because of NCAA rules, which I will rant about sometime in this blog and at length in the book, I have no eligibility to play. It really frustrates me because I feel I would have played today and I could have helped my team by relieving a tired teammate. Even if it were just on a kickoff return or a punt, I could have contributed a little and I could have gotten on the field.

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The coaches bought us all pizzas, one Pizza per player!  We got on the bus and went home. I was proud to be part of a team that played all four quarters against the odds.....   and never quit!

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Uncle Hans

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4 comments:

Greg MuellerUp said...

We want Hans. We want Hans(chant)

Anonymous said...

Greg,

It's starting to look like that movie! I was really frustrated and waiting for that chant. But there were only four Lions fans in the whole stadium! Someone's parents and their friends. Actually there were more football players and coaches then there were fans. And it was a beautiful day. Weird

Hans

Norman said...

Hans,you didn't give up. I'm disappointed that you're not eligible to play- is there an age limit? On the other hand, I really don't want you to get hurt. I like your spirit though. How do the other players treat you? Do you go full speed in practice? Do you do tackling drills. and do they hit you full speed? Would make an interesting book. Stay positive and stay safe!

Rock

Anonymous said...

Rock,

The eligibility thing is explained in a later blog. Because there are so few of us we can't afford any injuries in practice and full tackling is discouraged. I do everything else full speed but everyone else seems to be much faster than me. So basically I do everything everyone else does, just not as well. As an outside linebacker I do get blocked at practice and have the bruises to show for it.....

Hans