Donuts on Game Day: Don’t Get Sidelined Doing Something Stupid

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

We were playing the Blackwell Bears, one of the biggest games the Kennesaw Generals 100 pound midget league football team would play that year.  We wore the green and gold of the Greenbay Packers and our opponents wore black and white like the Oakland Raiders.

As a team, they had a reputation of playing tough, hard-nosed football like you’d expect of someone wearing black and white.  I knew one person on the team, their star speedster, Win Platt.  If you count his Dad, I knew two people since Mr. Platt was also their coach.  I’d met them a couple of years before when we competed against each other in Junior Olympic track meets.  From that casual acquaintance I’d receive an undeserved grace card that day.  His kindness would also be Coach Platt’s downfall.

Earlier that day, we had a league fundraiser and all the kids got dropped off in neighborhoods to sell boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts.  I sold some and I ate some.  Reports of me eating an entire box are greatly exaggerated but I might have had three or four…six tops.   😉  Who could blame me?  I was a half-starved 12 year old boy who barely made weigh in every week.

I’m not sure how they do it today but in 1972 it was based on age and weight.  Before every game every player got weighed.  An official weigher, and both head coaches observed as each person stepped up on the scale that was pre-set to the limit.  At the beginning of the season it was 100 pounds.  Later in the season, the rules allowed players to weigh up to 105 pounds.  I’m not sure why and never asked.  I was just a kid that wanted to play.  I was tall and well developed for my age so every week was a drama until we got past weigh in.

You Never Know When Someone Will Do You a Favor

My typical game day routine was to fast, turn my parents car into a sweat lodge, and suck lemons (yes, suck lemons) until I got weighed.  Then, my first stop would be the concession stand for a binge meal of ball park hamburgers and hot dogs.  Healthy huh, but we didn’t know any better and it was my mission to play every week.  I never failed to make weight but it was always close. In addition to the strict health and nutrition regimen describe above, it usually took stripping down to my undies to being light enough to pass.  This day, though, was closer than ever.

I stepped up on the scale and it tipped up (too heavy).  I breathed out and it bounced off the bottom.  I breathed in and it hit the top again and barely moved towards the center.  This cycle repeated several times.  Technically, the weight pointer should reach equilibrium between the top and bottom stops.  It was either touching the top (again, too heavy) or barely off of it.

The opposing team’s coach had the final say and Coach Platt was within his rights to have said I was too heavy, even if it was only by ounces.  Instead, Coach Platt looked at me and then he looked at Coach Daniels and said, “Ahh…let him play.”  I’m convinced he made the decision to let me play because of our brief encounter a few years earlier.  That turned out to be a pivotal decision.

The game was tied 0-0 with about a minute left in the 4th quarter.  In college and the pros that’s a lot of time.  For 12 year olds it’s not and the game was pretty much destined to end in a scoreless tie.  But for the Kennesaw Generals and me, magic happened that evening.  Coach Daniels called my play.  I don’t remember what it was other than I got the ball.  Almost unbelievably I scored to make the game 6-0.  I honestly don’t know if we scored the extra point or not because I was in shock.  We kicked off and held them for the few plays that were left and our last minute win went in the history books.

As the two teams met in the middle of the field to shake hands, Coach Platt looked at me, shook his head and said, “I shouldn’t have agreed to let you play.”  He said it with a smile and although he was disappointed for his team and his son, I could tell he was happy for my team and me.

Football and the Game of Life

I took two lessons away that day.  First, don’t eat donuts on game day.  Translated to adult speak, don’t do something stupid that could take you out on the day of your big game.

Second, treat every person you meet, every relationship you have, with the care it deserves.  You never know when a random acquaintance can come to your aid and change the course of your life. Even more than that, everyone deserves to be loved.  There’s a soul inside and they need to know they matter.  To someone.  Anyone.  It’s of eternal importance and they matter.  Every one of them.

I never saw Coach Platt again but the grace he showed that 12 year old kid can still be felt today.  The body looks different but the donut eating kid is still alive and well inside.

Anybody want a donut? The hot light’s on.   😀