Off The Cuff

Tuesday afternoon five sports writers and a human being went over to Soldiers Field to watch football practice. The five of them go every day, but it was the first time for me. I thought it would be good to write a piece telling exactly what happens down there at the practice sessions, so for three successive days I peered into the dusk along with the sports writers. The following exclusive article, entitled "I Couldn't See A Goddam Thing," is the depressing result of this project.

The six of us get to the field about 4:30, show our passes to the vigilant Keeper of the Gate, and pass into the fenced practice area. Inside there are two football fields. On one the Jayvee is working out. On the other the Varsity is running its offense against the Freshmen.

We all sit down on some miniature wooden stands and observe critically. The Varsity starts a play. "One, two, three, four, SHIFT, five, six, seven. . ." and the ball is centered. I don't see it again until everybody stops running. "How to go Hal!" mutters one of the sports writers. "Noonan missed his block," says another.

I'm puzzled a little about losing the ball. But what really gets me is how the sports writers can tell one helmeted man from another when they're running like hell fifty feet away in seventeen different directions with no numbers on their backs. "It's easy," one of the writers tells me. "See that prance? Well, whenever you see that, it's Nick Athans."

This goes' on for awhile--the Varsity running plays from west to east between the thirty-yard-lines and then turning and running them back the other way, the coaches choosing substitutions from players standing on the field, Art Valpey talking to the quarterbacks, and a sports writer saying to me "See those skinny legs? That's Kenny O'Donnell."

Then about 5:15 Valpey grunts and everybody runs out of the fenced area to the field next to the Stadium and the lights are turned on. For about ten minutes he talks to the entire squad--about defense, the sports writers say. Then the Jayvees, all wearing white pullovers to prove they are Jayvees, run Dartmouth plays against the Varsity.

The sports writers stand on the sidelines, noting precisely who does exactly what on each play. But the lights are so dim that a human being's naked eye can barely see the helmets, let alone the play, let even more alone who made the tackle, and the hell with who should have made the tackle but didn't.

That's all I didn't see this week. Next week I'll finish the story, and maybe it will be less sullen, because I'm going down there with a telescope, and so help me God, if I don't see something then, I'll become a sports writer.