The Tackle

I have 8 or 9 nieces and nephews and they are of the age where they want Uncle Yackson, you see they all have a speech impediment which causes them to be unable to correctly enunciate J, something to do with the frenulum needing clipping, and since my sisters all converted to Jehovah's Witness, they have not had the operation necessary to correct the problem, anyway, these little creatures all come over for Thanksgiving dinner, my turn to host, and began to ask what it was like growing up in the 60's? One little tow-head even asked me what I did in the war?

Not to disappoint I decided to relate a version in my duel with a returned VietNam era veteran of combat while a freshman football player at a Smaller Southern Baptist College in Greenville, S.C.

The year was 1971. I was a formidable football player, peaking in my junior year of high school. I had good quickness skills and better than average balance and was known as a hard player to tackle. I walked onto the team in S.C. and they already had a running back on scholarship so I was placed as a defensive back for the season. I came to camp in August of 1971 weighing in at a porky 184 lbs. In three weeks I was at 165 lbs, lean and mean.

Back in those days, the freshman team was used as meat to scrimmage against the varsity. These older players were of course larger and stronger due to the training and weight programs and they routinely beat us up pretty badly during practice. I am not going to say it was looked forward to by us but when the season opened after a month of hard knocks many of us on the freshman team were happy the contact days of practice were limited to only 2 of 4 days. The two days before the game were limited to no contact and helmets and shoulder pads only.

This encounter involved a no contact practice day. It was a balmy September day after a hard night rainfall and the practice field had a large low spot with standing water in its center. The varsity offense was running plays that day against our freshman defensive squad and I was, at safety, in our formation positioned about 20 feet in front of the low spot in the field. The offense was going over its plays and on no contact days people on both sides reacted but did not hit each other.

A play was called which involved a pitch back to a full back with a planned run around the right end. I reacted by moving to my left and I noticed "Pops", a 260 lb tackle bulling full speed towards me head down. Now Pops was a Viet Nam veteran, 26 yrs old, bald in the middle with long Bozo colored bright red hair on both sides and was said to have a collection of Gook ears in his dorm room. Nobody crossed Pops. I was perplexed by his action and had but a moment to react as I was going to be struck and perhaps injured if I did not take evasive action.

I then remembered my proximity to the practice field wading pool and decided my best plan was to avoid Pops' charge. I side stepped his charge with one step to my left and jumped up and grabbed Pops by the shoulder pads and gave him a gentle shove towards the ground to my right side. I turned around to watch the result and my efforts were rewarded by the spectacle of Pops being thrown off balance by my shove and though he made great efforts to right his balance after 5 more steps his forward momentum carried him headlong into the wading pool, with a large splash. He was top loaded with a huge upper torso and spindly legs.

The laughter from the squad was deafening. Pops quickly picked himself up and slung the mud and water off as best he could and turned his attention towards me.

"I am going to kill you you little fucker!" He charged out of the wading pool towards me and I ran to my only safe area with him cursing and screaming all the way. Coach Brundy was the defensive back coach for the freshman team and I ran behind him and Pops tried to get to me but I would keep Brundy strategically placed between myself and the killer VietNam vet. Brundy was very helpful when he said:

"Now Pops, Pops, you got exactly what you deserved because you were trying to knock him into the water. Just calm down."

Pops backed off but promised to kill me sometime in the future.

The rest of the story is not important, but I still have both of my ears.

That is my war story. Some of it is true.

I am Jackson Delano Maybolt, President Urban Poverty Law Center