CAMMAROTA: Don’t be afraid to drop the pass

The following column is the second in a series written by former Daily Free Press sports editors. Today’s column is written by Nick Cammarota, who was the sports editor during the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 semesters. Cammarota graduated from the College of Communication in 2009.

I can still feel the minced tire pieces pressing against my palms.

They always stuck there when I fell down on Nickerson Field.

They clogged my shoes and somehow snuck underneath my socks and in between my toes.

These pellets, though. These were the glue that held together my most vivid sports memory at Boston University. Which is odd considering all the hockey and basketball games I attended and all the different sports I covered for this very newspaper.

During my senior year, I played intramural flag football. Being 5-foot-8 and scrawny, I didn’t project well on many draft boards. But I had played a decent amount when I was younger, and came to realize that I served as a passable receiver/defensive back.

One of my better friends, Couper, who worked with me at the Free Press, is the size of a wooly mammoth and likely possesses more body hair than the prehistoric beast. He was playing in the Double-A league. The pro’s pros. And for some still-unknown reason, he wanted me to join that team.

I foolishly obliged. But as we began practicing – yes, I was as surprised as you are that we had intramural football practices – I realized I wasn’t in that far over my head.

Slowly we built a winning team and before long, we were undefeated heading into the playoffs.

We dispatched our first-round opponent with ease before reaching the championship against another undefeated team with names on the back of its Under Armor shirts. I’m pretty sure its headbands were customized, too, but I can’t be certain.

The game was tight. Tied in the fourth quarter. We had the ball inside our own 20-yard line with time winding down. For this particular play, I was in the backfield and ran a short curl. I was a check down, the last option for our quarterback Chris. He scrambled for a while before firing the ball directly at me. I didn’t feel any oncoming pressure, and knew I could turn upfield for a pretty decent gain. My heart raced.

Problem was, I didn’t catch the ball. It slipped through my hands. Disappointed, I turned and saw a charging linebacker snatch the ball before it dropped to the turf. He returned it untouched for six points.

I laid face down on the field for a long time, my palms pressing against those damn pellets.

Couper helped me up and attempted to convince me it’d be OK. The next day we returned to our normal lives. Had lunch together, I think. Continued talking about men’s basketball and that horrible loss to the University of New Hampshire. Still, the drop established itself as one of the many memories made on Nickerson and at BU – for better and worse.

There are other moments on that field, too. Tossing a baseball around on the first day of spring or playing pickup football with the Free Press sports guys – all of whom I thought were ridiculously cool simply because of the fact that they were older than me. We played regularly, no matter the conditions.

One weekend, Boston was blanketed in white, but BU magically cleared the field overnight without so much as a rat in West Campus noticing the plows. The result was a solid sheet of ice on top of frozen field-turf needles.

We played. We cut our elbows and knees, despite them being safeguarded by several layers of clothing, and many good shoes were ruined.

We played in the rain, too. And when BU made the rule that everybody who wasn’t a real athlete couldn’t play on Nickerson anymore, we found another field and played in the mud.

Even though I spent my four years in Boston as a full-time sportswriter/trumpet player and part-time student, it’s the games on that field that stick out to me. And that’s even considering that I covered three of Jeremy Lin’s games while he was at Harvard.

I still talk to pretty much all of those guys. I live with two of my college buddies. Those afternoons and evenings served as a way for me to meet people and expand those friendships beyond the five-and-ins and name-calling. They expanded into parties at apartments, nights downtown and multiple road trips. They served as a way to enhance a period in my life where I had the freedom to discover and explore without reservation.

So if I had to give one piece of advice, it’d be to find something you love to do at BU and do it. Simple, I know, but poignant I hope. Make the most of your time there, because it’s something that, looking back now, I value greatly. Heck, try 20 things you love to do if you can find the time.

Just don’t be afraid to drop the big pass.