hit them with your face

My friend at work was off to see his son's JV football game and off handedly said I should adopt a son or mentor one in football. Then I got an email with some great highlight shots of him in the game. This was my email response.

Awesome pictures. Jack looks great and doesn’t look at all like a Freshman to me. I’ve always said TE is the best position to play. Your pictures have inspired a post on dumbdumbdaddyo.blogspot.com which is a blog about my dad who taught me a lot about football. Chris, when you said I should adopt a son or mentor one in football I totally get what you meant. I’ve been thinking deep about what I would pass on to my son from my dad about football and what keeps coming to me is one of his great dumddumbdaddyoisms, “Hit him with your face!” This advice on several occasions kept me safe and allowed me to walk away with a concussion instead of a broken neck. Never spear, never lead with helmet, never put your head down, keep your chin up, keep your head UP, HIT HIM WITH YOUR FACE, he said these things over and over again. Hitting someone with your face may seem counter intuitive, but in football it does something magical. You see your way all the way through the hit, you greatly reduce your tendency to flinch just before contact, you start hitting with the sweet spots of the shoulder pads, you recover a lot more fumbles, catch a lot more passes, you fumble less, you beat everyone who puts their head down, you can see when a stiff arm will be useful, and most magically you will find a reflex that at the last instant throws your forearm up in front of your face and delivers the most devastating tool in the art of knocking people down, “The Forearm Shiver.” My dad also taught me how to harness the three greatest forces in the universe on the grid. Momentum, leverage and love and you would have to dig pretty deep into dumbdumbdaddyo to read my post on that. Attached is a team picture and my dad  #44 is in the front row. He was a Senior in 1951 and The Maryland Terrapins went 10 – 0 and then beat #1 ranked Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl.

My daughters are kicking butt in their sports and I couldn’t be more proud of each of them.

Chris I hope you are feeling better, hurts don’t it? Don’t come back too soon ;-)

Chris has recently broken his collar bone on his second ride with his new Trek road bike. This first draft of just hit them with your face or never put your head down was written right after looking at those pictures of Jack. I would posts them but have hit some technical difficulties. (Ah, figured it out). A great shot of him pancake blocking a defender and a bunch of him ketching passes as a TE! Those pictures really brought it back...

My dad taught me to never put my head down. He knew I was listening challenged and his way was to say things to me in several different ways over and over again hopping I’d listen to him at least a few. Keep your chin up. Don’t look down. Keep your head up. And my personal favorite, “Hit him with your face!”

Back in the day it was called spearing. Now they call it leading with your helmet. If you’ve read much of this blog you’d know the year my dad had his perfect season and played on the best college football team in the nation was 1952. They played with hard helmets and no face masks and his advice to me was to hit him with your face. Hit 'em with your face or you will break your neck. I suffered many concussions in my career and believe on many occasions I could have broken my neck if, at the moment before impact, I’d didn’t hear him in my head say, “HIT EM WITH YOUR FACE!”

This always helped me finish the hit and a coach once complimented me on a tackle in films when he said you can’t coach a person to hit like that. To run through someone, hit with your head up, and destroy them. I said it was my dad who taught me how to hit with my face.

Locker room celebration after the 1952 Sugar Bowl victory over #1 Ranked Tennessee to complete a perfect undefeated season. My dad, Jeff Keith, is under coach Tatum's left hand. Perfection looks like a lotta fun!

Art Modell wrote my dad a letter.

"Is there anything we can do?"

I think my dad kept this letter because it was such a great example of good customer service. My dad traded his Brown's season tickets for Maryland Terrapin season tickets when we moved from Cleveland to Maryland. When I heard Art Modell died today it made me think of my dad and this letter.

Larry and Luberta

When I was kid my DDD made me a sharp-shooter. I was a dead-pan shot with the bb gun so it was up to me to kill the flying squirrels that would infest our attic in Ocean Pines every year. I would stand on a latter with my upper half in the attic in the dark during the day and when their heads would poke up silhouetted in the light in the steeple of the rafters I would take them out. That was in the seventies. Recently, I was tempted to tap my assassin of small animal skills once again, fortunately fate would intervene.

Larry and Luberta were love birds. Pigeons actually, they were cruising our street looking for a love nest early this spring. They choose our attic or garage more specifically. I had left the access panel open in the ceiling of our garage and they set up house there just above our back door driving my children and dogs crazy. My kids were afraid, Tyler was livid, my wife put out a contract on them and Emma (our Golden Doodle) didn’t seem to have an opinion.

After a week of cooing and purring and pooping and Tyler (our Golden) barking his head off I had to take action. I put up the latter and as Suzy and the girls were pulling out on the driveway in the car I climbed up after the birds. I remember thinking, “What am I going to do when I get up there, grab them with my bare hands?” I also remember thinking that while I am holding on to the latter and reach eye level with the little beggars they could peck my eyes out. When I got face to face with the big one he did a little dance in a circle and puffed up his chest huge and I had the feeling he was about to attack so I reached out and grabbed him with my bare hands.

Zero panic. He got real calm and started to purr and then he started to bite me. His bites were ineffectual and the sense I got was that he was afraid of nothing. I took a step or two down the latter and threw him towards the open garage door. He flew out and then right back in and was coming after me. I climbed up and grabbed the littler one and threw her toward the door and she flew away, but Larry, he’s a fighter. He didn’t seem to like the idea of me closing the attic hatch, but I completed my mission and retreated into the house. Tyler was barking like a mad man.

For the next several weeks Larry and Luberta lived on the upper shelves of our garage and Larry kept getting more and more aggressive. Once he was coming right at me and I batted him with a removable doggie door. I wacked him pretty good and he crashed to the ground. He shook it off, danced his little jig, puffed up his chest, and came right back at me. I was stunned by his courage. He flew right at my face, but instead of hitting him again I thought I would let him take his best shot, he deserved it. Instead he landed right on my head and did his dance cooing and purring. He then he jumped down on my shoulder and purred right in my ear and literally gave me the chills. Larry and Luberta continued to live with us into the summer. They would perch on our window sills and watch us through the windows. They became a part of our little family and in the end only Tyler never fell to their charm.

One day Larry came up missing. Luberta looked so lonely without him. About a week went by and he shows up with two mangled feet. They were bloody and he could stand on one of them, but the other was definitely missing a few toes (if that’s what you call them). He couldn’t hold on to the window sills anymore so he hung out on the ground outside our front door. The girls fed him and petted him and gave him love. He healed up in a week or so. Then Luberta left him and he became really sad. He turned all his affections on me and my girls. We all love Larry.

He’s been missing a week or so. We checked and pigeons don’t migrate so we’re getting pretty worried about him. I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s a fighter.