The last time I played organized sports was my final game of high school football at Westford Academy, located right here in Massachusetts. It was the annual Thanksgiving Day contest against Acton-Boxboro, our biggest rival.
Before the game, my coach looked at all of us and said, “For most of you, this is your final game. This is the last time you’re going to experience playing in front of a crowd. And let me be honest with you gentlemen, besides the birth of your children, there will be no greater feeling in life than making a play out there and having hundreds of people stand up and cheer for you.”
I rolled my eyes when he said that.
Maybe it was because I had been in the doghouse ever since the season started. Maybe it was because we were about to be demolished by the best team in New England. (At the time, Acton-Boxboro had won eight straight league titles and held a 36-game win streak, a streak that stretched to 52 games before it was broken this year.)
At halftime, the score was close, due in large part to the weather – it had snowed the night before, turning the field into a Green Bay Packers-style frozen tundra. (Bad weather always evens out the playing field.) Again my coach gave us a clichéd speech in the locker room.
Again I rolled my eyes.
In the third quarter, one of our cornerbacks got injured. The backup cornerback had been injured the week before and since I was the double-backup cornerback, the coach was forced to put me in. In my first series, we got Acton into a 3rd-and-15, a definite passing situation. This was the first time all season I was on the field for a meaningful play.
Seconds before the snap, I realized they were probably going to throw my way, because I was the smallest player on the field. The fact that my coach was nervously biting his nails on the sideline confirmed it.
The quarterback received the hike, play-faked to the tailback and lobbed it to the receiver on my side, running a post-corner route. While the ball was still in the air, I darted in front of the receiver. We leaped for the ball at the same time. He got his hands on it, but not before I swatted it down.
That’s when the crowd erupted. A bolt of adrenaline electrified every nerve ending in my body. My teammates rushed over and helped me up, smacking me in the helmet and patting me on the butt. When I made it to the sideline, I think I high-fived the whole team in three seconds. I had a childish smile from ear to ear, but I couldn’t help it. It was the best feeling in the world.
And to me, that’s the beauty of playing sports. If you’ve ever played in front of a crowd, you know what I’m talking about: the exhilarating adrenaline rush, the way the noise of the crowd energizes you, the spine-tingling goose bumps you get knowing that everyone is cheering just for you.
It happens in a thousand different ways in every sport: when you dive for a loose basketball, crank a home run, sink a 40-foot putt, serve an ace or deliver a knockout punch.
The feeling is totally different from anything else in life – because at what other time do hundreds, sometimes thousands of people gather to cheer you on and go wild when you just do your job? Regular life isn’t like those Visa commercials that show Peyton Manning tailgating outside an insurance adjusters’ office, asking a supermarket employee for an autograph and cheering on a butcher by chanting “CUT THAT MEAT!”
That feeling is why athletes train so long and so hard. Why home-field advantage is so important. Why Michael Jordan came back from retirement. Twice. Why not even a stroke could keep Tedy Bruschi off the field for the Patriots. Nothing in real life can compare.
As of now, I’m officially retired from playing sports. The closest I come to playing sports these days is Beirut. And although hitting the last cup is satisfying, it doesn’t come close to playing football. All I know is people don’t sit in the stands to watch me play pong or go insane when I pass my international relations final by two points.
But I had a lot of fun playing in front of a crowd. And so have – and so will – millions of other athletes.
That’s the beauty of sports.
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