Roughed up by the Little Guy

We were in Mr. S's gym class engaged in a raucous game of rugby. I had the ball in hand and was moving with dispatch towards the goal line. I was a rather big fellow in those day and getting all of that heft moving in any direction, much less forward, was quite an accomplishment. I was feelin' good.

As I crossed each yard marker I had one thought in mind and that was to SCORE! As my Mother would always say "I was bound and determined". There was one person between me and the goal: Daryl T. Tall and skinny, Daryl was not what I would call a formidable opponent so I set my sights on him, thinking that I would crush him on my way to rugby immortality. I was acting like a jerk but I didn't care. I rarely got to carry the ball and this was my big chance to show em' all. Moving at the speed of heat and with dirt flying beneath my sneakers, I closed the distance between the ill fated Daryl and I.

As I drew closer to Daryl something very strange occurred. I looked in his eyes, expecting to see stark terror and a wide eyed acknowledgement of his impending doom. Instead I witnessed an unnerving calm and a devilish smile that forced me to consider what Daryl might know that I didn't. Closer and closer, moving now with all the inertia that I could amass, I began to wonder, "Perhaps running over Daryl was not the best decision I could have made". Too late. I kept the locomotive moving.

15 feet to go, then 10, then 5. There was fire in my eyes as I closed the last few steps to Daryl, knowing that after Daryl there was nothing between me and rugby fame and fortune. And that's when it happened. Daryl T. did the last thing on earth I would have expected. He dropped to the ground in the fetal position, rolled up in a tight ball and covered his head with his hands. I could not deviate to the left nor to the right. Now the stark terror was all mine as I hit Daryl full force with both feet. I went flying head over heals. Higher and higher my big body flew. I landed flat on my back, the ball slipping from my grasp as I tried mightily to catch my breath. I looked like a dazed elephant who had been rolling about in the dusty red earth of the Serengeti.

"Holy sh-t, M., are you all right?", a class mate asked. He was smiling, almost laughing. I opened my grime filled mouth to respond but nothing came out, save a little dust. Then the laughs came. Full, hearty, knee slapping laughs that told me it would take years of fabricated machismo to live this down. As I managed to get up on my elbows I saw two things that forced me to collapse my body back to the ground, close my eyes and think about completing my "high school experience" at the innocuous Queen Anne High. The first thing I saw was a class mate picking up the ball and merrily heading off to score. "Hay. That was my goal", I gasped. The second was Daryl T. getting up and dusting himself off while looking down at me with that same divilish grin. I looked up and smiled, my lips heavily crusted with dirt. The smile was a demonstration of my new found respect for Daryl T.

Truth be told, Daryl T. and I both knew that on that date in our young lives, I had been bested and he was, indeed, the man.

Andy S. came flying over to me to see if I was hurt but he, too, was laughing. Not a mean laugh but a laugh nonetheless. "You OK, big fella?" he asked. "Yes Sir", I said lamely. As he helped me stand up I could not help but notice how Mr. S. absolutely reveled in this stuff. Dirt, collisions and an ultimate victory of David over Goliath. He loved it all.

And we loved him because he always let us play.
May he rest in peace.