Two One O -or- Why the NFL Network Makes Me Cry

It's no secret that I miss the lockeroom days. I have a ridiculous affinity for the number fifty two and for telling stories and even for sharing some lockeroom humor in places that are not lockerooms. Some people label this as "inappropriate" but I think they are just jelous for not having thought of it.

A topic of discussion has been running around certain circles I run in; the question of wether or not "place" matters, and I think it does.

At the very the least, it is a launching point for memory.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a overnight trip with Eric Weiss to San Antonio. I'd been invited to speak at a journalism conference again that was taking place on my old high school campus. After arriving in town, taking in pure culinary ecstasy at one of the thousand culinary giants within the city limits (this time at Henry's Puffy Taco (a name you might recgonize as you associate it with the mascot of the minor league AA baseball team in San Antonio, the Missions, the very same mascot chosen as the best mascot in sports not too long ago!) we drove around and took in some of the sights.

Then it happened. I walked on the old high school campus and magic happened. Goosebumps; and not the popular young adult thriller novels either, I mean real, live, hair-on-end goosebumps... my story happened here. My myth and my epic.

Place has power. I pushed open the only unlocked doors to the gym and mens lockeroom areas and walked through the rough, wood-floored gym that smelled like only gyms can. This was the same gym and the same smell in which myself along with our enitre Freshman football team decided to try out for the basketball team. We were immediately cut and sent out to offseason workouts. They didn't take us seriously, which is good, because we were just trying to get out of offseason workouts. As we left, booing and hurling last minute pleads to the basketball coach, the tryout decreased to about one eigth its original size.

I walked into the training room, now a coaches office, and remebered my pregame ritual. I was a foreigner to the training room except the day of and after a football game. For some, the training room became a haven of retreat from the heat and vigor of our workouts. "Getting treatment" was a cop-out that only the weak, or the superstars, or vain could afford. I have many physical problems as a result. Knees that don't bend well at 22, chronic back spasms, hands that feel, whem folded a certain way, that they will rip, dislocations, tears, pulls, and concussions. But I never escaped to the training room, for that i am obviously proud.

But the gameday ritual, going down to the training room with my mormon friend Matt Montoya to get taped up by my best friend Sal Delgado, who had to sit by and tape us up and help us prepare instead of playing with us, do to a tragic injury endured in practice one day that left him temporarily paralyzed, forever in danger of a worse injury, and always bitching about the pain in his back (sorry Sal).

I moved from the training room to the showers. This shower is the thing of legends. One giant room, six shower stations dropped in from exposed pipes, each with five shower heads in a circle. Who though of this? If you are not friends or comfortable with yourself and the people around you, you must get that way very quickly. Who would have known that the always hilarious and shocking "shower olympics" would one day lead, for some in the room, to the real olympics? Or that Herbert Hardaway, who always took things a step to far and once did the unthinkable in the middle of the shower room (number two) would now be a high-ranking officer in the military? A blog could be written about the tales of the shower room, but it would be very disgusting, slightly questionable, and involve so many nude men that it shouldn't have taken place to begin with. The only thing that seemed more awkward than the shower was the time we had to all go into the equipment cage and wrestle during one rainy day of the off season. Somebody should have called that one in, because it wasn't completely right.

Then, the goosebumps. Taking the slow, steady steps up towards the lockeroom. The two sets of stairs that used to be designated for one for varsity and one for everyone else and was the cause of many near-deaths and many more fights, and the stairs that later became free to any and all in the true democratric fashion under the new coaching era. Tradition floods my memory. Sayings on the wall, inspiration and ritual... sacred in their own way. "GOD... FAMILY... TEAM." No seperation of church and state in here. We said the Lord's Prayer more than Benedictine Monks, strangely always followed by a slew of explitives. "THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK IS THE DOG... THE STRENGTH OF THE DOG IS THE PACK." "PRACTICE LIKE YOU PLAY." Ideas to live by.

And once you reach the peak of the stairs, you look into the faces of those who had gone before. Team photos from 1964 on. NFL stars, College standouts, State Representatives, businessmen, jailbirds, Olympians, family men, failures, heroes, and dead men. Just kids then. Flashes of Dead Poet's and the whispers of "Carpe Diem" are easy to imagine. My face is up there now too. Staring back at high school kids who, as of this year, do not know my name. Faces mixed in with plaques and trophies and victories and losses. I intentionally walk up to the captains plaque to ensure that my name is still carved into the metal for eternity. My name sits mockingly near Robert Quiroga's, Cedric Griffin's, and Darold Williamson's.

Then the doors of the lockeroom. I open them and breathe deep. So much life and story happened in this room. A big, messed up, dysfunctional community lived in here. Fights, tears, sweat, and laughter. Honesty, pain, encouragement, and prayer. We shared life. Guys without homes found them, Guys with no brothers found sixty of them, Guys with no confidence became infused with it, Guys with no hope became champions. We laughed and sang "Don't Take the Girl" after wins (no idea why, it just became tradition... maybe the only country song ever played in that lockeroom and every sang anywhere by that many people of color). You could hear a pin drop after losses. Broken choruses of DMX, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Eminem, Jay Z, Snoop Dog, and the rest would rise and fall in an instant. And everybody sang the chorus to "Under the Bridge." It was hilarious.

That room houses sacred and serious moments. The audio from the speech from Patton still rings off of the walls. And the interview with John Austin Emmonds, a rival runningback, who made promises he couldn't keep (especially from the sideline nursing injuries), Tombstone clips, and NFL films. Coaches yelling, coaches crying, coaches turning every shade of color a face can turn. Quiet prayer and loud yells. Haircuts, meals, and bodily functions. I miss that place. Brothers.

I have every right to be so sentimental. My life happened so much in those walls, with those people. The people who made me who I am, and pushed me to be who I could be, and allowed me to not have to be what I wasn't. This will forever be a highlight of my story. Forever, a place where I found God already to somehow be. Forever a place that can make me laugh and cry all at once. Those are the beautiful places in life.

"Gentlemen," Coach Randall said, "WE KICKED THEIR ASS!" And a chorus of voices boom back and echo "NO ****!"