It was December in the middle of the 8th grade. The snow hadn't fallen yet that winter but it was beginning to get cold enough for it to happen soon. In my Junior High School, there was an intramural football tournament scheduled between several 8th grade classes. The tournament was to last 3 weeks and would be completed before the winter break.
I was in one of the four honors classes at my school in the 8th grade. Needless to say, none of the honors classes were given a chance to win because we were the "nerds" - despite having several athletic guys in our four classes. Of all the honors classes, my class (8-3) had the worst chance of all. You see, each honors class had it's own concentration, a specialty if you will. One class (8-4) was the band class, 8-6 was the art class, and there was the computer class (8-5). My class was the chorus class. Not only did we have the fewest numbers of boys out of all the classes in the 8th grade but we were also seen as inferior due to our status as choir boys. The only honors class not to participate in the tournament was 8-6.
When we put our team together, made up of practically every guy in the class - not all were athletic - I became the de facto leader of the team. My goal was to make sure we didn't get overly embarrassed in our first game and that we had fun playing in, what most expected to be, our one and only game. Yes. I admit I thought we were going to lose, as well. There were 7 others teams/classes in the tournament that we would have a tough time beating even on our best day.
In our first game we faced a solid opponent in 8-17. There were a lot of tall guys in that class and we clearly had our work cut out for us. If things looked bad for us before the tourney, things looked even bleaker when you sized us up in that first match-up. It was probably the worst possible match-up for us. Compared to 8-17, we were under-sized and a bit slower overall.
They got an early lead on us and my focus as the "coach" was to make sure everyone got to play (since we were unlikely to play again). I even took myself off the field to allow my classmates to get in the action. As I managed the game from the sidelines I started noticing two things about our opponents: (1) they were extremely cocky, especially after getting the early lead and (2) on defense, they only focused on our best players. I called in a few basic plays from the sidelines telling our QB to drop short passes to the "scrubs" (though I'm pretty sure I didn't call them that to their faces). The strategy paid off. We started moving the ball down the field very easily on 8-17 and even scored our first touchdown.
This is where their cockiness came into play. They began throwing bombs to the endzone on every play to quickly regain their lead. Our defense managed to keep them from scoring. In their frustration, they started getting upset at each other. With every completed pass by our QB, with each touchdown we scored, they became increasingly frustrated. They didn't have the "mental toughness" to stay in the game and play as well as they did in the start. We took advantage of that, mixing up our passing plays: short/long, sidelines/middle of the field, stars/scrubs.
We managed to pull off the upset in our first game against a solid team. We did it by playing smart and making it a complete team effort. When word got out of our win, everyone considered it a fluke. The other two honors classes won their match-ups so no one considered 8-3 a threat. If anything, it would be an easy win for our next opponent in the semi-finals: the most athletically talented honors class, 8-5.
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What happened to 8-3 in the semis? Will the boys in 8-3 overcome another difficult match-up? What befell our blogging hero that changed the tournament (and his life) forever?
Stay tuned for part 2 of this true story.
Until next time, faithful reader......
