I looked up into the driving snow. It was mid-afternoon and it was coming down so heavy that I could barely tell that the stadium lights were on. I bent at the waist and the rest of the University of Montana’s offensive team did the same.
“OK, no speeches. This is it. The whole season, everything we’ve worked for comes down to this.” I took a breath and said, “And here’s my guarantee to you. If the snap is good – and the ball is put down on my spot and held there – and you guys keep everybody out for four seconds I’ll kick it… and it will be good.”
Nobody made a sound for a moment. Someone shouted, “YES!” and we all repeated it, slapped hands, and broke the huddle. I paced the distance from the line to the spot where I wanted the ball placed, knelt there and wiped the area clear with a towel. Green, the place kick holder knelt in position. I knelt beside him and said, “Tommy, when I point at you, call the signals.” He just nodded.
I stepped toward the opposite goal line counting my paces as I went. At three I turned sharply and waited for the referee’s whistle that would signal the timekeeper to start the clock.
In that moment the butterflies left my stomach just like they had always left in Vietnam, when I turned my chopper onto final approach for what I suspected was going to be a hot landing zone. Though that had been fifteen years earlier, I thought, ‘some things never change.’
I heard the official’s whistle and pointed to Green. He turned back toward the line. Facing away from me his voice was muffled by the snow but I could still hear him; “Ready, set, hut one, ….
Without moving, breaking my concentration, or losing a bit of focus, for one split second I saw everything that had happened for the past ten months, from the moment I discovered that Kathy, my wife of over twenty years, had died in her sleep. For the next two weeks I wasn’t sure I could go on, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go on.
Kathy and I had been childhood sweethearts. Neither of us had ever had as much as single date with anyone else. We married less than a year after we finished high school. Because of Vietnam, I was drafted. After my first tour in Vietnam I reenlisted to go to helicopter pilot training. Our intention, mine and Kathy’s, had been to leave the service and get a civilian job flying helicopters. Things didn’t work that way.
Bobby, our only child was born. The Army needed me as a flight instructor. Kathy’s job with a bank turned into a management opportunity and before we knew what was happening Bobby was a high school senior and I was nearing retirement. Then Kathy was gone and since my retirement coincided with Bobby’s graduation we decided that we would go to college together.
The snow was driving without letup and I could hear Green continuing the snap count. Part of me was totally focused on the snow, Green’s voice, and what I was about to do and another part of me was clearly reliving the moment that Bobby and I left Fort Rucker, Alabama, and headed west to begin our collegiate career at The University of Montana. I somehow saw the day that Coach Jenkins, who had discovered that I was self-taught football place kicker had recruited me to coach his punter in place kicking, and then talked me into joining the team as kicker, then added the position of backup quarterback after assuring me that I would never play a game as quarterback.
Green finished the snap count, “hut two, hut, hut…” I saw the moment in the fourth quarter of the first game when Jeff Samuelson, our starting quarterback, went down with a broken collarbone. I remembered how I felt running on a minute later, the forty-seven year old UM Grizzly starting quarterback.
The ball came out of the snow as true as if our center could actually see Green, though I knew that in the snow there was no way that was possible. I heard the soft thud of the ball striking Greens hands. He caught it perfectly, and started bringing it down to the spot I’d cleared seconds before, at the same time turning it so the laces would be facing the goal post. I began moving toward the spot.
Part of me recalled every moment of the next ten games as I quarterbacked the undefeated Grizzlies until I went down with a broken hand in the last quarter of the last regular season game and Jeff came back on to run the team. Now here we were, one kick away from a perfect season and UM’s first national championship.
I took my last stride, planted my left foot solidly, and begin swinging my right foot toward the football. Everything was perfect and no one had broken through our line. With my head down, totally focused on the ball, I “kicked through” it and knew at the moment of contact that it would go true and that under normal circumstances it would easily carry the distance. I just didn’t know what effect the snow would have.
I raised my head and watched the ball disappear back into the snow from which it has appeared less than two seconds before. It seemed like a lifetime of silence passed before I heard the stadium announcer scream, “It’s good! IT’S GOOD! Grizzlies win!
Bobby heard about my joining the team as the kicker at a practice session. He exclaimed, “Daddy is on the team!” Someone who heard him shouted, “Daddy is a player.” Quickly it became a chant and in that moment, and for the rest of my football playing days I was known simply as “Daddy.” I didn’t mind. In fact I was rather proud to have had the chance and I considered the nickname an honor.
The morning after the final game the headline in the Missoulian was, “Daddy and the Grizzlies Win it All.” That headline and front page article is framed and hanging on the wall of Edwards Consulting International, mine and Bobby’s business, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, where outside, as I write these lines, the snow is coming down so hard I can barely see the street lights though it is mid-afternoon.
“OK, no speeches. This is it. The whole season, everything we’ve worked for comes down to this.” I took a breath and said, “And here’s my guarantee to you. If the snap is good – and the ball is put down on my spot and held there – and you guys keep everybody out for four seconds I’ll kick it… and it will be good.”
Nobody made a sound for a moment. Someone shouted, “YES!” and we all repeated it, slapped hands, and broke the huddle. I paced the distance from the line to the spot where I wanted the ball placed, knelt there and wiped the area clear with a towel. Green, the place kick holder knelt in position. I knelt beside him and said, “Tommy, when I point at you, call the signals.” He just nodded.
I stepped toward the opposite goal line counting my paces as I went. At three I turned sharply and waited for the referee’s whistle that would signal the timekeeper to start the clock.
In that moment the butterflies left my stomach just like they had always left in Vietnam, when I turned my chopper onto final approach for what I suspected was going to be a hot landing zone. Though that had been fifteen years earlier, I thought, ‘some things never change.’
I heard the official’s whistle and pointed to Green. He turned back toward the line. Facing away from me his voice was muffled by the snow but I could still hear him; “Ready, set, hut one, ….
Without moving, breaking my concentration, or losing a bit of focus, for one split second I saw everything that had happened for the past ten months, from the moment I discovered that Kathy, my wife of over twenty years, had died in her sleep. For the next two weeks I wasn’t sure I could go on, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go on.
Kathy and I had been childhood sweethearts. Neither of us had ever had as much as single date with anyone else. We married less than a year after we finished high school. Because of Vietnam, I was drafted. After my first tour in Vietnam I reenlisted to go to helicopter pilot training. Our intention, mine and Kathy’s, had been to leave the service and get a civilian job flying helicopters. Things didn’t work that way.
Bobby, our only child was born. The Army needed me as a flight instructor. Kathy’s job with a bank turned into a management opportunity and before we knew what was happening Bobby was a high school senior and I was nearing retirement. Then Kathy was gone and since my retirement coincided with Bobby’s graduation we decided that we would go to college together.
The snow was driving without letup and I could hear Green continuing the snap count. Part of me was totally focused on the snow, Green’s voice, and what I was about to do and another part of me was clearly reliving the moment that Bobby and I left Fort Rucker, Alabama, and headed west to begin our collegiate career at The University of Montana. I somehow saw the day that Coach Jenkins, who had discovered that I was self-taught football place kicker had recruited me to coach his punter in place kicking, and then talked me into joining the team as kicker, then added the position of backup quarterback after assuring me that I would never play a game as quarterback.
Green finished the snap count, “hut two, hut, hut…” I saw the moment in the fourth quarter of the first game when Jeff Samuelson, our starting quarterback, went down with a broken collarbone. I remembered how I felt running on a minute later, the forty-seven year old UM Grizzly starting quarterback.
The ball came out of the snow as true as if our center could actually see Green, though I knew that in the snow there was no way that was possible. I heard the soft thud of the ball striking Greens hands. He caught it perfectly, and started bringing it down to the spot I’d cleared seconds before, at the same time turning it so the laces would be facing the goal post. I began moving toward the spot.
Part of me recalled every moment of the next ten games as I quarterbacked the undefeated Grizzlies until I went down with a broken hand in the last quarter of the last regular season game and Jeff came back on to run the team. Now here we were, one kick away from a perfect season and UM’s first national championship.
I took my last stride, planted my left foot solidly, and begin swinging my right foot toward the football. Everything was perfect and no one had broken through our line. With my head down, totally focused on the ball, I “kicked through” it and knew at the moment of contact that it would go true and that under normal circumstances it would easily carry the distance. I just didn’t know what effect the snow would have.
I raised my head and watched the ball disappear back into the snow from which it has appeared less than two seconds before. It seemed like a lifetime of silence passed before I heard the stadium announcer scream, “It’s good! IT’S GOOD! Grizzlies win!
Bobby heard about my joining the team as the kicker at a practice session. He exclaimed, “Daddy is on the team!” Someone who heard him shouted, “Daddy is a player.” Quickly it became a chant and in that moment, and for the rest of my football playing days I was known simply as “Daddy.” I didn’t mind. In fact I was rather proud to have had the chance and I considered the nickname an honor.
The morning after the final game the headline in the Missoulian was, “Daddy and the Grizzlies Win it All.” That headline and front page article is framed and hanging on the wall of Edwards Consulting International, mine and Bobby’s business, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, where outside, as I write these lines, the snow is coming down so hard I can barely see the street lights though it is mid-afternoon.
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