Both Sides of the Line

by Kelly, Kevin

While waiting in line for his pit-drill time, every football player checks to see who they’ll go up against. On my first trip through the pit-drill that morning, I looked down the line and my heart skipped a beat. Bruce McDonald, two hundred and forty pounds and just over six feet tall, jumped in as the defensive lineman. I was in the backfield running with the ball. Even I knew that the kid blocking for me was going to get killed. I’m sure I looked pretty desperate as I anticipated being face-planted in the turf.

  Coach Currier must have noticed, too. He came over to me and whispered in my ear: “Kelly, I want you to imagine that we’re on the two-yard line with no time left on the clock and I’m going to give you the ball to win the game for us!” My mind went blank and I blasted through a tiny seam that, by some miracle, opened up for me. To my surprise, I didn’t even get bumped, let alone killed. Truth be told, no one knew I ran the drill with my eyes closed!

  On defense, it was critical to be quick off the ball, stand the offensive lineman up, shed the block, and make a perfect tackle. Dempsey would lose his mind when a defensive player did well against one lineman, only to then have the running back break a tackle due to another player’s poor technique or, worse, lack of courage.

  “Kelly, get back in there and do it again!” Dempsey shouted. “You have to be willing to drive your helmet right through his numbers! Wrap him up with your arms, and then punish him—drive him right into the ground! If you’re not tough enough to do that on every single play, then go play a pansy sport like hockey!”

  Dempsey had something to say with almost every hit; his intensity was contagious. After the session, when Currier brought us in, we were sky-high.

  “Okay, boys,” Currier said, “take a knee. Great effort today. This is the type of intensity we need to see on Saturday when we scrimmage Watertown. We have two more days of hard work left. Enjoy your afternoon. Spend some time at the lake. Good work!”

  The first two days, I could barely walk off the field I was so exhausted, but that day I was still so pumped up that I ran off the field. I had held my own. I’d had a few successful hits on defense, and believed that this upcoming season was going to be different for me, and for our team.

  The next two days were a nonstop blur of hitting, running, and yelling. My body was battered and bruised. Each morning I looked like Frankenstein getting out of bed. My muscles were torn, stiff, and sore. I had bloody blisters on both my heels (the price I paid for not breaking in new cleats before camp). Trying to get dressed was painful. Bending over to slip on my socks and tie my running shoes was difficult. But the moment the coaches told us to line up, the pain simply didn’t exist any more and I ran. After ten minutes, my body would loosen up, and I was good for another day. Although football camp was brutal, the routine strangely started to feel normal. I knew what was coming and I learned to adjust.

  At the end of the week, we were to scrimmage Watertown, a team with a hundred players (mostly big Italian and Armenian kids). Many of the Watertown kids had mustaches and beards and looked like college players. Every year, it was a tradition to play Watertown at the end of camp. Their football camp was held at a college campus on beautiful Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Their players lived in actual dorms, had access to actual locker rooms, and cleaned up in actual shower rooms that could hold forty kids at a time—basically the opposite of our accommodations, where cabins served simultaneously as dorm, shower, and locker room.

  When we pulled into Watertown (what we called Watertown’s Resort), their players stopped to look us over as they headed back to their dorms. From the bus, we all stared right back, assessing.

  Eyes never wavering from out the window, Cemate leaned over and sneered, “Shit, nice to be rich, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I shot back.

  During scrimmages, coaches are allowed in the huddle. In our case at least, that was the last thing our morale needed—Currier and Dempsey were not happy. Watertown was teeing off on us pretty good and we just couldn’t get it together.

  “Kelly, your head’s on the wrong side of the linebacker. That’s why your man made the tackle!”

  “MacGregor, why are you picking a side? You have both gaps when playing a 5-2 defense!”

  “Line it up and run it again! I don’t care if Watertown can hear me—RUN THE PLAY!”

  Even during Tom’s time there, Watertown seemed to have our number. Bosco never had much success, and losing has an interesting impact on your psyche as an athlete—the more we lost to Watertown, the more it stood to reason that we’d simply keep on losing. When you lose to a team year after year, you just start to believe you can’t win, even when you know it’s a new season with different players. Of course, winning has the same effect: Keep winning year after year, and you start to believe you can win every game.

  “Winning breeds winning, but most importantly, winning breeds winners.” That was part of Vince Lombardi’s opening day speech to the Green Bay Packers in 1957, after he took over the worst team in the NFL as head coach. If you think his message has little meaning, just consider the fact that Green Bay then went on to win five championships and were the victors of the first and second Super Bowls.

  But a lot has to come together to obtain a victory, even a small one, and, after one week of brutal football camp, no one was overly concerned about our poor performance against Watertown. We still had three scrimmages and two weeks of practice to go before our opening game. I don’t have many clear memories of the Watertown scrimmage, but I know I didn’t play well. In fact, I was just thankful to have survived at all, let alone my first football camp with Dempsey.

  By the end of it, all I wanted to do was go home, sleep in my own bed, and be held by my mother.

  Tragedy

  “Don’t ever let me catch you just standing around.”

  —Coach Dempsey

  Anyone who has ever played football knows that the helmet can be a tremendous weapon—one that can be used to deliver outrageous hits.

  Dempsey believed that hitting properly with your head was far safer than trying to hit with your shoulder, which requires you to turn your head slightly to one side, making it all the harder to actually see who you’re hitting. Driving your forehead into the opponent while simultaneously dipping and exploding with your legs maximizes the impact of a hit while also protecting your neck. If a player ducks his head, looks down, and makes contact with the crown of the helmet, serious injury can occur.

  Keeping your head up and hitting with your forehead is generally a safe way to hit. Hitting with your head, especially if it is a great hit, actually feels good physically. It can give you a rush or a high. Add speed to the equation and hitting can become lethal. How wide receivers can stand up after some of the hits they receive is amazing. What’s even more impressive is their willingness to go back out and do it again, knowing what awaits them.

  In my junior year, Bosco would field another football team with a lot of large bodies. We had players who weighed between two hundred and ten pounds and two hundred and forty-five pounds. The team had high hopes for the ’73 season. After camp and returning from our traditional scrimmage against Watertown, we had great energy and high spirits. I was playing tight end on offense and linebacker on defense, but I was playing behind two captains, which meant I was on the second team on both squads. Dempsey and Currier seemed pleased after our next two scrimmage performances, and a change seemed to be in the air for the Bosco Bears. Everyone was looking forward to a great year!

  However, we came out of the blocks slower than we anticipated. After four weeks, we were 1-3. We would have a great week in practice, only to come up short during the game. Once again, we were struggling as a team. The week leading up to the Xaverian game, Currier brought the team together and informed us that winning was crucial if we wanted to turn the season around. Our practices were intense, with live hitting every day. The coaches felt they had an excellent gam
e plan in place. The mood on the team was one of enthusiasm and optimism.

  The first half of game five was a disaster. Our offense, which had looked great during practice all week, couldn’t establish a running game, and was just as ineffective throwing the ball. On defense, players were arm tackling, and we seemed sluggish on pass coverage. Currier and Dempsey were so upset with our performance that they refused to join us in the locker room at halftime. As the team sat in silence, a former coach, Bill Campbell, spoke to the team. He looked at Bruce McDonald, my old pit-drill partner, and said, “McDonald, I’ve coached you since you were a freshman, and all you turned out to be is a two hundred and forty pound pussy!”

  With that, Campbell turned and walked out. When the coaches told us to take the field, Chris Staub, a new sophomore who was starting varsity at defensive back, stood up and said, “Hey fellas, I’m ready for the second half. How about you?”

  Bruce McDonald stood up, didn’t say a word, and smacked Chris on the side of his head. It was a telltale moment for us, showing just how disconnected we were as a team. The majority of us were pissed with Bruce, knowing that taking out his frustration on a teammate for his own poor performance was chickenshit, pure and simple.

  Xaverian, which didn’t get the chance to hear our halftime pep talk, demolished us in the second half. Dissension grew and, gradually, the coaches displayed their frustration. The key players were simply not delivering during games. Practices began to look and feel like those during my sophomore year. Once again, yelling, running plays over and over, making mistakes, forgetting plays, and losing were part of our weekly routine.

  One of Dempsey’s rules had been made clear to all linemen at the beginning of the year: “If you’re on the field, practice has officially begun, and you need to be working on something: stance, blocking, pass rush, coming off the ball, blocking assignments—something that will help you improve as a football player. Don’t ever let me catch you just standing around.”

  Well, on one fall day, that is exactly what happened.

  A group of us were standing around with our helmets off, shooting the breeze and enjoying the beautiful sights. It was warm and sunny, and a light wind was coming off the Charles. It was mesmerizing—the type of day that begged you to lie down and take a nap under a tree with your best girl by your side. But when Dempsey came onto the field and saw us, he blew a gasket. He was so upset he decided that he wanted to make an example out of his linemen to the rest of the team.

  He had the backs and receivers sit on the sidelines while his linemen formed three lines facing each other, fifteen yards apart. When the whistle blew, we were to run full speed, head on, at each other. I was second in my line, and just one thought went through my head: This drill is insane.

  Running full speed and head on, at that distance, was suicide.

  The player in front of me was Michael Monahan. Michael was a big kid for his age but he was still only a sophomore. He ran at three-fourths speed and straight up. Jeff Harris, also a sophomore, ran full speed and delivered a textbook hit. Jeff dipped, exploded, and drove his helmet straight through Michael’s face mask. Michael fell to the ground. When Michael didn’t get up, the coaches picked him up and tossed him to one side. Currier took a closer look at Michael, and discovered that his helmet had been split wide open, an extremely uncommon event in football. It had been a devastating hit. Even so, we moved the drill over, not thinking too much about the hit. We were all too worried about ourselves.

  After about fifteen minutes, though, Michael was still on the ground, and some of us started to wonder about him. A shoulder injury was most likely the worst outcome. After a half hour, an ambulance came onto the field, and Currier went into the ambulance with him. We didn’t see Currier again until after practice. Although it’s been forty years now, I still vividly remember how pale Currier looked when he returned.

  He asked all of us to gather ’round and take a knee.

  “Boys, Michael Monahan broke his neck. He is paralyzed from the neck down. Tonight he is fighting for his life.”

  The locker room was deadly silent; no one could so much as exchange a glance. That night, I tossed and turned as I replayed the hit over and over in my head. Why am I playing this game? I wondered. Am I playing for acceptance? For status at school? It certainly wasn’t for the love of the game anymore. Practices were relentless and miserable, and yet we still weren’t winning. The “togetherness” that Dempsey had wanted to establish between us hadn’t happened yet, and now, perhaps, he’d made achieving that togetherness next to impossible.

  The next day at school, we had a school prayer assembly. Over one thousand boys entered the gym in total silence. The only noise you could hear was the ventilation system blowing cool air— it’s the same sound one might hear while sitting on a plane right before takeoff in bad weather. The entire Bosco community was confounded. That afternoon at football practice, no one said much. If there was a speech—and I’m sure there was—I have no memory of it. I was in a fog.

  I do remember feeling as if I had no desire to be on the field, and no desire to hit or be hit by anyone. Dempsey could certainly see this taking place among us. No one knew what to say or do. None of us, including the coaches, had ever experienced anything close to this level of injury to a player before. Everyone seemed to be on autopilot. During one play, Dempsey ran up behind me and told me to get my head out of my ass. I knew he was trying to snap me out of my funk, but it didn’t work.

  Michael pulled through but remained paralyzed from the neck down. All of us players had mixed emotions, but mainly we were angry. Not only did I have serious doubts about continuing to play football but, for the first time, I had serious doubts about my coaches. For the first time, I began to question the purpose of football as a whole. Why isn’t there any joy in the experience? Why do we tolerate being chewed-out and feeling miserable? Why don’t we have the courage to quit?

  When we were cleared to visit Michael, he was in good spirits. I was at the end of the bed just staring at his hands and feet, trying to imagine what it must be like to be able to move only my eyes and lips. I kept saying to myself, If that were me, I’d make my hands move, but I knew that was the emotional side of me fighting the fear, the reality, that what had happened to him could have happened to me. As I looked at Michael, I kept thinking, For the rest of his life, he will feel no pleasure, no pain. He’ll never experience the joy of going to college, the full experience of dating, of having children. He’ll never again feel life! He’d lost everything in a single instant, and for what? A stupid drill? A drill intended as a punishment! To teach us a lesson! What lesson did we learn?

  Michael’s older sister came into the room and stood beside me. While Michael was speaking with us, she pulled back his bed sheet, and without his knowing, she pinched him, deep into the back of his thigh with her long, red fingernails. If she had done that to me, I would have jumped two feet off the ground. Michael didn’t even flinch. A cold chill came over me. I felt lightheaded and stepped into the hallway to catch my breath. She was hoping to get a physical reaction out of Michael. Getting nothing, she was devastated, and couldn’t bring herself to believe that he would never feel or move again.

  Our coaches were devastated too. They were tough on us, but they cared for their kids. Dempsey had been trying to make a point to his players that, to be the best, you have to make a full commitment to the game. It was a horrendous decision to put his players through such a drill, but we knew he never intended to bring injury to a player. Dempsey never made a public comment about Michael, the drill, or the hit, but everyone could see that all of it tormented him. Dempsey wore his emotions on his sleeves, and he’d always been a ball of energy. But after Michael’s hit, you could see the strain in his eyes. He’d lost some piece of himself.

  The weekend after Michael’s accident, Dempsey and Currier went out, got hammered, and drove home drunk. Dempsey was driving the wrong
way through a tunnel in Cambridge and hit a bus head-on. In one week, not only did we have a serious injury to a young player, but two of our coaches ended up in the hospital as well.

  The next few weeks, all of us remained in a daze. Who we played, whether we won or lost, or how I performed, I didn’t know. I began to believe that football wasn’t for me, and I couldn’t wait for the season to end.

  When the season was finally over, my church held a Mass for Michael. I visited him in the hospital to deliver an advent wreath. His entire family was present. Before I left to go home, his parents asked if I would tell them the truth about Michael’s injury. I wasn’t sure exactly what they had heard from the coaches or from the school, and I didn’t care. I felt strongly that, at the very least, the Monahans deserved to be told the entire story about Michael’s devastating hit.

  The family entered the waiting room. Sitting with Michael’s parents, I explained what made Dempsey put us through the drill in the first place, how we lined up to hit, and what had happened to Michael after he was hit. Listening, the family sat in numbed silence. My heart broke for them as I told them a story they could only regard as a nightmare.

  Over the years, I would often think of Michael and wonder how I would have reacted if my son was paralyzed for life because of a punishment drill. Today, any coach would be in front of a judge for jeopardizing the health and well-being of a student athlete, and rightly so.

  Jeff, the player whose hit had left Michael paralyzed, reacted to the incident with anger. “When I look back at that moment,” Jeff later told me, “what made me so upset is that I wasn’t even with the linemen when Dempsey flew off the handle! I was with the quarterbacks and receivers.” Jeff played center and had been hiking the ball to Jimmy Conrad, our quarterback, as he was throwing passes to the receivers on the other side of the field.

  After the Monahan event, there would be no counseling for the team or for Jeff. He never received any reassurances from his coaches, teammates, or even his family. Tragically, he dealt with it totally on his own. He was a sixteen-year-old kid who should never have been put into this situation to begin with. Today, professionals would come out to speak to the team. But no one at Bosco had the tools to address such a tragedy. Not even the priests came to speak to us. It simply wasn’t acknowledged. We moved forward as if nothing had happened. It was “buck up and be tough.”