Mark St. Amant - Just Kick It: Tales of an Underdog, Over-Age, Out-Of-Place Semi-Pro Football Player
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- Book:Just Kick It: Tales of an Underdog, Over-Age, Out-Of-Place Semi-Pro Football Player
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Just Kick It: Tales of an Underdog, Over-Age, Out-Of-Place Semi-Pro Football Player: summary, description and annotation
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From couch potato to field goal kicker, Mark lived out a real-life football fantasy, discovering true teamwork, staring his lifelong fear of athletic failure in the face, witnessing testosterone-fueled hilarity both on and off the field, and achieving gridiron glory in ways he d never imagined.
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FIRST OF ALL, thanks to my readers. I urge you to email me if you have any comments about the book: mark@mark stamant.com. I always try my damndest to respond quickly and semi-coherently. Also, visit www.markstamant.com for updates and information on book signings and appearances, press coverage, and/or horrendous kicking-related injuries I have sustained during the 2006 football season.
As with any good team, there are countless people, all playing separate but vital roles, who I need to sincerely thank for getting me into the end zone (and thus begins repeated overuse of the clunky football metaphor):
Reggie Murphy, for first convincing me to strap on a helmet, Delaney Roberts, Donnie Williams, Cliff Braithwaite, Darrell Insano Jones, Aaron Ace Smith, Elvis Figueroa, Mike ONeal, Mike Pittman, Prince Woodberry, Leon Fink Finklea, Jeff Julius, Kelly Walsh, Mohammad Butahi, and all my Panther teammates and coaches. Without your honesty and good humor, this book would have been a lot worse, and about four pages long.
My editor, Brant Rumble, for knowing when to be touchy-feely like Dick Vermeil and when to drop the hammer like Vince Lombardi. This book is several football fields better thanks to your tough love. Well done, Coach.
My agent, Bob Mecoy, for constantly coming up with new formations and schemes for the Mark St. Amant-as-Author playbook. If agents are in charge of designing potent new offenses, youre a bizarre hybrid of Paul Brown, Bill Walsh, and Don Coryell.
Everyone who has enthusiastically supported both my first book and this one on the publicity end and helped get the word out: Kathy Bickimer and everyone at Chronicle for your terrific piece on the Panthers; Morning TV personality and radio host extraordinaire Doug VB Goudie and everyone at FOX 25 Morning News; J. Dubs, El Jefe, Bateman, and all the guys in The Hideout in Florida for the amusing Friday night fantasy football chats; ESPN The Magazine s Eddie Matz and all the other talented ESPN writers and producers who have kindly allowed me to appear on their shows, be in their articles, and babble incoherently about fantasy football and other sundry football topics; speaking of, I must thank everyone at Classic Now it was a helluva lot of fun while it lasted.
All my F&M and Westy friends.
All my friends and coworkers at Arnold in Boston, whose good humor, encouragement, and patience helps me balance my ad guy life and my author life as best I can.
Doug Blevins, for sharing his infinite knowledge of kicking with a random semi-pro kicker, and for being one of the most unique people Ive ever met. (I dont, however, thank him for making me sprint under the hot Tennessee sun until I almost vomited.)
My family and in-laws for your continued support of my insane writing endeavors and for bringing the kids to Panther games. Their hilarious, shrill little cheers added at least five yards to every field goal attempt.
Holly and Ben Raynes, and all our other friends who always cheered on the Panthers at English and elsewhere.
Kruds, I didnt mention this in the book, but sometimes before games Id ask you to help guide the ball through the uprights if you werent busy. Hell, you were an even bigger football fan than I am; I knew youd be watching.
And, finally, my wife, Celia, for her always-honest and spot-on creative input, for putting up with an absent husband on many nights and weekends for most of these past two football-filled springs and summers, and for not being insulted when I refuse to look up into the stands and wave like a complete geek during games. By the time this book is out our daughter will be born, but I already cant wait to meet herand buy her some tiny little cleats.
*Thats not to say that Wellesley was, or is, a white separatist colony populated by bigotsit was a wonderful place to grow upbut it, like countless other American suburbs, right or wrong, just had its own way of doing things.
*Some details on the Gonzalez shooting are from Silence by Neil Swidey, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, February 26, 2006.
Committed: Confessions of a Fantasy Football Junkie
IN JUNE OF 2004, I joined a semi-professional football team. This was strange for three reasons.
First, I was nearly 40 years old.
Second, I stood about five feet eight and weighed 160 pounds. After a full meal.
Third, I had never played a single down of real footballhelmets, pads, referees, possible pain, humiliation, and broken bonesin my life.
Pray for me.
While I wasnt exactly hooked up to an iron lung when I decided to start playing football, I was still too old to be picking up new hobbies that involved physical violence. In the 15 years since playing soccer in college, aside from the occasional jog along the Charles, I had morphed into a primarily couchbound mammalan advertising copywriter turned author who was better suited to noncontact activity. Something, say, from a continuing-education catalog. Like origami. Far as I knew, no one had ever gotten a concussion while folding little paper swans.
Instead, not only had I chosen to play football, I also set my sights on the most make-or-break position there was: placekicker. A curious choice if you knew that in my earlier life the only skill Id mastered in sports seemed to be choking when it counted most: clanking last-second free throws, striking out with the bases loaded, missing easy breakaways. I had always been fairly talented, but I wouldnt have ever called myself a money player.
Take Pomfret Soccer Camp. I was 12, and it was my first real sleep-away camp. On the final two days of the week, they held the campwide championship, only the most important event of my young life. My team, the Purple team, mostly made up of kids from the burbs of Boston, had advanced to the finals against the Gold team, which consisted of some tough-talking, elbow-throwing, under-13s from somewhere in the Mafia burial ground swamps of Jersey. Compared to my skinny, prepubescent self, these kids looked like full-grown adults. Gold chains. Deep baritone voices. One of them had a five-oclock shadow, I kid you not. I think another one wore a wedding band.
Anyway, we were losing a chippy, penalty-filled game 21 with only a few seconds left when my best friend at the time, Kenny Keyes, and I executed a perfect give-and-go around the lone remaining defender who stood between us at the top of the goalie box. I passed the ball to Kenny and sprinted to the right of the hairy, muscle-bound defender, who now turned to take on Kenny; Kenny, meanwhile, just as Rocky Balboa Jr. reached him, reared back for a shot, which drew the goalie out toward him to cut down the angleKenny was the best player in camp and had a blistering left-footed shot that all goalies fearedbut instead, skillfully deflected the ball back to me. I was now all alone, with the goalie hopelessly out of position, staring into a completely open net.
Now, most kids with any sort of athletic composure and/or internal fortitude would have relished an open net, grinned confidently, and tapped the ball in for the heroic, game-tying goal. But me? As I wound up for my shot, images of failure flashed before me: shots going wide; shots hitting the posts; balls smashing through windows, knocking over flowerpots, flying out into highways, and being run over by 18-wheel trucks; shots that never were; words Id misspelled in spelling bees; you name it. As I wound up, I felt like a golf ball had been jammed into my trachea. My mouth went Mojave Desertdry, my salivary glands reduced to sandpaper. The net, which should have looked massive and welcoming, appeared to have shrunken down to the size of your average loaf of bread. Worst of all, I suddenly felt the urge to vomit, or black out, or both. I may have indeed blacked out, because to this day I cant even remember kicking the ball. The next thing I do remember was an audible groan from my sideline (and surprised, jubilant, mocking cheers from the opposing sideline) as my would-be hero-making goal fluttered clumsily high over the crossbar by a good 10 feet. The ref blew his whistle. We had lost.
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