A Thanksgiving Day Story
The spiralling football hit him right in the chest. Robert went down. I rushed over to see if he was ok as the other 7th graders crowded around too.
"Robert! Are you ok?" I shook him vigorously. He looked a little dazed.
"Mr. Josh," he wheezed. "I’m ok. But you’re shaking me really hard."
I let go of him and he fell back to ground. His classmates rallied around him patting his body and asking if it hurt when they patted at this particular place.
"Ok, Robert," I said. "We’re going to let you rest over here for a while and we’ll keep playing. When you’re ready, you can play with us again. Ok?"
He nodded.
"Ok, guys," I yelled. The girls nearest me winced at my yelling in their ears. "Let’s play football!"
The boys yelled their approval and everyone headed back onto the field.
I instructed the two teams to start on opposite sides of the field for the kick-off. Harry kicked the ball as hard as he could and it careened crazily toward the opposing team as both groups of children ran to try to corral the ball. James beat both groups to the ball and picked it up. He sprinted full speed around the other children and followed the sideline toward the end zone. Defender after defender leaped at him as he gingerly stepped around their outstretched arms and flying bodies. The last defender out of the way, James looked back at his classmates, grinned, and slammed fiercely into a soccer goal post. The boy flew backwards and hit the ground.
Again, all of us ran over to him to try to assess the damage and to pat his body and ask if it hurt when we patted in this area.
"James," I said. "Are you ok?"
James looked up at me and tried to breathe.
"James! Speak to me! For the love of God, speak to me, boy!" An Irish accent crept into my voice.
I was more than a little anxious. He had run into that goal post hard enough for me to be thankful that I was not the post. Meanwhile, the other kids crowded around. It was hard to see James between their patting hands. I did see his glasses though, so I spoke in that direction. James finally sat up and rubbed his chest. His breath came in shallow little gasps. He communicated that he had just had the wind knocked out of him. He took a seat next to Robert on the sidelines.
The rest of us set up a line of scrimmage near the spot where the goal post had tackled James. After reminding them of the procedure, Mark, the quarterback, yelled, "Huck, Huck, Height!"
Laura hiked the ball to him and locked arms with the people next to her as she shut her eyes tightly and screamed as loudly as possible at the thought of the oncoming defenders. The defenders came like a wave. They went through and around the offensive line. Bodies rolled on the ground as the ball squirted out of a pile of kids and into the arms of little Harry. Harry held the ball in his arms, unsure of what to do now. Two boys immediately jumped on him. I quickly pulled them off of Harry. I hoped he would still be alive.
"Harry! Harry!" I frantically waved my hands in front of his face, as though it would help soothe his obvious pain. He clutched his knee and groaned. I picked him up and carried him over to the sideline with his other injured classmates.
"Mr. Josh! Priscilla’s hurt!" Linda was tugging at my sleeve. I followed her over to where a group of girls surrounded one of their own. Priscilla sat on the ground near tears.
"Ow! My hand hurts," she said. I looked at it closely and massaged it for a couple of seconds. It seemed to calm her down somewhat.
"Hey, it’s 5:20," one of the kids announced. I stood up and clapped for attention.
"Time to head back, guys," I yelled. The girls near me winced and covered their ears at my coice shouting in their ears. Everyone picked up their articles of clothing and we started walking back to the classrooms.
I assessed the damage. Four damaged kids. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to introduce the game to these kids. We probably shouldn’t play it again. My thoughts were interrupted by some of the kids walking next to me.
"That’s a cool game, Mr. Josh," they said eagerly. "When can we play it again?"
Nope, scratch that last thought. We were definitely going to play again.
