Two A Days | Hit And Be Hit

It’s the middle of August and my guess is that Two A Days started this week.  Maybe they start earlier now, seeing as school starts about a week before it lets out.  But for those systems who still start classes the first week in September, high school Two A Days are probably cranking up.  For those of you who might not know, Two A Days are just that, two practices a day.  Two full, two hour practices.  One starting at 8 o’clock in the morning, the other at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.  Right slap in the middle of the Dog Days.  Two A Days go on right up to the start of school.  If you play or have played high school football, you know that by about halfway through the second week you are praying for school to hurry up and start so that Two A Days will be over.

I never had the honor of serving in the military, and would in no way compare high school football to boot camp, but I would guess that Two A Days are the closest I ever came.  It was four weeks of sheer hell.  The first week started off in gym shorts, t-shirts and helmets.  A lot of calisthenics.  And a lot of running.  Hitting the ground for pushups on fresh rye grass covered with dew at 8 a.m. is something you can only appreciate if you have experienced it.  The coaches would allow us to lay there for a minute or so to allow the dew and the itch to soak into our legs and bellies.  Then we got to do ten pushups.  Or run in place, then hit the ground when the whistle blew and stay there until it blew again.  Then we got to jump up and do it again.  After calisthenics we would run a lap.  Walker High School was on three levels of Georgia clay.  The top level was the school itself and at the back, the tennis courts.  The level below the school and tennis courts was the baseball field and a dirt access road from the parking lot.  The third level, below the baseball field, was the football field.  A lap was around the football field, up The Hill, down the access road, around the baseball field, back down the steps and out to the 50 yard line.  The Hill was a drainage ditch from the access road to the football field, complete with ruts, holes and rocks.  Imagine forty guys running up this thing in cleats and full pads.  If you fell, you would get trampled.  We would run at least three laps per practice, once at the beginning, once somewhere in the middle and once at the end.  The lap at the end of each practice would be followed by ten 20-yard wind sprints.  If you weren’t in shape by the the time Two A Days started, you got in shape in a hurry.  The laps were not just confined to practice in shorts and shirts, either.  They continued on into the second week and beyond when we were in full pads, although they did occur less frequently as we began to get into full contact drills and scrimmages.  Sometimes the coaches would feel compassion for us and allow us to run at least three laps of only The Hill, the access road and back down the steps.

This was a time when it was thought that too much water coupled with hard physical workouts would give you stomach cramps.  So, we were allowed two water breaks per practice and the coaches stood by monitoring our intake.  One year one of the guys read that a healthy dose of Vitamin C was good before a workout, so he drank a quart of orange juice right before the first practice of the year.  Halfway through the first lap he was spewing orange liquid and making roars that would have attracted more than a few dinosaurs, had any been in existence and nearby.  

Then, there were the drills.  The drills were just that, agility and contact drills.  They were usually set up between two or four tires and consisting of two, four or six players.  In the two player drill, each player laid on their back inside the tires, headgear to headgear.  One player had the ball.  When the whistle blew, both players would jump to their feet, turn, and the player with the ball would attempt to run over the other player.  The other player would try and prevent him from doing such.  In the four and six player drill, there would be either two or four down linemen, a linebacker and a ball carrier, again all inside the tires.  When the whistle blew, the down linemen would attempt to open a hole and the ball carrier would then hit the linebacker.  All inside the tires.  No fancy moves allowed.  The premise was to teach agility, blocking and tackling.  There was The Monkey Roll, an agility drill that was a lot of fun and involved no contact.  Then there was Bull In The Ring.  Everyone would get in a circle and be given a number.  One lucky player would be put in the middle.  The coaches would then call a number, and the player with that number would rush the player in the middle and hit him.  The numbers came from all around the ring, quickly.  About every fifth or sixth hit, the players rotated out.  The premise was to teach a player to feel and be aware of incoming contact and to keep his feet moving.  It worked, but the drill, like dodgeball, Red Rover and most everything else, has since been banned.

Somewhere around the end of the second week, the team split up into the varsity and the B-team.  The B-team consisted of ninth and tenth graders, and would play a six game schedule as opposed to a full ten.  During Two A Days, the B-Team would practice separately for an hour and then go up and scrimmage the varsity.  I say scrimmage.  It was more like just being live tackling dummies.

I played football for five years in school, and the hardest I ever got hit was the first scrimmage of my first year of Two A Days.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  They put me out on the left corner and on the very first play ran a sweep right at me.  Terry Ennis was the fullback.  He and the Ricky Bennett were leading the ball carrier.  I squared up to meet them, and Ricky yelled “Watch the corner!”  Terry yelled, “I got him,” and hit me so hard my chinstrap and one shoe flew off.  I literally flew backwards and, I swear, in mid-air I was laughing.  I hit the ground on my butt and skidded along before coming to a stop.  I  found my shoe and knelt down and put it back on.  On his way back to the huddle Terry grabbed my arm and pulled me up just as I finished tying my shoe.  “All right, little man,” he said, “good hit, good hit!”  I was sure he was talking about his hit on me, but he slapped the top of my helmet and my shoulder pad.  I found my chinstrap, buckled back up and took my place at left corner, ready to go again.

And in my opinion, that is the essence of football.  Hit and be hit.  I played with some guys that didn’t want to get hit.  If you don’t want to get hit then you shouldn’t be playing football.  It’s part of the game.  I can’t tell you the number of times guys would come out for football and last one practice.  Some wouldn’t even make it through a whole practice.  Coach would start yelling, “Where’s So and So?”  “Don’t know, Coach.”  So and So had split.  He got hit one good time and decided that was that.  Then at school the next day you’d ask So and So, “What happened to you yesterday?”  “Oh, I’ve got asthma,” So and So would reply.  Yeah, I had noticed that about So and So when he was smoking in the bathroom.  

I believe if a kid wants to play football, he should be allowed to play.  A guy I once knew said, “I wanted to play football, but my mom wouldn’t let me.”  To me, that is just wrong.  My nephew wanted to play in middle school.  His mother wouldn’t let him.  I told her, “You’ve got to give him the opportunity to get knocked on his ass.  Then one of two things will happen.  He’ll either love it or decide it’s not for him.  But he’ll get to decide for himself.  He won’t go through life knowing that he wanted to play but his mother wouldn’t let him.”  She gave in and let him play.  He played one season and said, “I don’t think I’m going to play football next year, Uncle Jimmy,” he said, “Baseball’s more my sport.”  The following spring he went out and made the All Star team as a pitcher.  Have a great week, keep your head up and your feet moving! –J.