Sunday Read: The football game that changed my life

Warren Way in a California suburb was once the home of a Filipino American enclave.

IN THE MIDST of the NFL playoffs, where the players bash in each other's heads for exhorbitant sums of money, I remind myself that once -- as little boys -- they played simply for the love of the sport. 

I'm reminded of a life-altering moment that occurred in a pick-up football game played in the streets of a small, suburban California town.

For University of California, Berkeley football fans, The Play has special significance and recalls a crazy game-ending play against rival Stanford band.

But for me, "The Play," occurred when I was 12 during the decade of the 50s. "The Play"  changed me forever.

Warren Way today is — and has always been — a working-class street, a string of neat one-story, three-bedroom, single-bathroom, non-descript tract homes set back on tiny lots with green lawns. But to the Filipino soldiers who bought homes there in the 1950s, it was their toehold on America. After fighting for the U.S.A. in WWII and the Korean War and then being stationed at Pittsburg’s Camp Stoneman, Oakland Army Base or the Presidio in San Francisco, they finally overcame the racial covenants common in those days and allowed to own a piece of the dream.

Coming from Roman Catholic backgrounds and a country that valued large clans, my family was unusual because we only had three children. We were the smallest family on Warren Way, our street of Filipino families. Therefore, there were kids everywhere:  working on the yard, working on their low-rider cars, on swing sets, practicing the latest dances seen on American Bandstand, sitting in the shade and playing in the streets.

TV was in black and white and hadn’t captured America’s spare time, Buicks still had holes on their sides, Annette was my favorite Mouseketeer and my older brother, with an Elvis-like pompadour falling down his forehead, was the lead singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

The one block on Warren Way south of the railroad tracks wasn’t 100 percent Filipino. It just seemed that way. There were other kids, however, kids from Mexican, Chinese and white families who seasoned our group with their own foods and traditions. But they quickly learned the No. 1 rule of survival: The dominant group made up the rules.

There were perhaps 15 boys around my age living on that block. More than 20 if you count the Valenzuela brothers a block up the street. They had 12 kids in their family — large, even for a Filipino family. With that many kids, it was easy to drum up a football, basketball or baseball team to play against other streets in our neighborhood, literally -- on the other side of the tracks.

In today's environment, some people would mistake us for a gang. We went to school and played together but perhaps more distinctively, we were easy to identify as a group because most of us were Filipino. Although most of us couldn't speak a Filipino dialect, our skin color, black hair and almond-shaped eyes united us but, at the same time, also marked us as "different." But we were far from being a “gang.” We were just the neighborhood kids.

There was a school with its basketball courts and playing fields just two blocks away but like most kids, we preferred the street that ran in front of our houses. Warren Way connected us to each other, as our all-purpose, private playground. It was our's.

It was easy to get games started. Hide and seek was a favorite in the warm summer evenings. We played a marble game that was like a golf game squeezed into a side yard and using marbles instead of a golf ball. We invented a vicious game of kick-the-can using fist-sized rocks to knock the can over and bruised many an ankle. The sound of a basketball bouncing on a driveway, the slap of a baseball into a leather mitt and the soft sound of a football being tossed back and forth would draw kids away from TV sets and chores.

It was a California fall day. A slight Delta breeze but still warm enough to wear T-shirts. The leaves couldn’t make up their mind to fall or hang on. It was football weather.

The rules were simple. The telephone poles were the goal lines, the parked cars were the sidelines. Three passes got you a first down. Two-hand touch. One rusher. Everybody was eligible for a pass. 

Once there was enough of us for a game, the dreaded moment arrived — choosing sides.

It didn’t matter what sport, I was always picked last, unless I was lucky and one of my close friends was a captain and then I’d be spared the humiliation and picked next to last.

On this particular day, I was picked last.

But it didn’t matter. I was on the best team. The captain, Adam, was a year older than most of us, bigger, stronger and better coordinated. Naturally, he was our quarterback, the most coveted position.

We also had  Benjie, the speediest guy on the street. His strategy was simple: Go long, go fast.

Being overweight and slow, I was  their handicap.

I played the unglamorous positions no one else wanted. On defense, I was the rusher, on offense the pass protector.

Sometime during the course of the game, we needed one more completed pass for a new set of downs.

We huddled. Adam drew out the strategy on the asphalt leaving imaginary lines on the road. Everybody would execute intricate patterns, curliques, zigzags or delay-then-run. Benjie, naturally, would go long, go fast.

“Ed,” said Adam. I looked up, “Hike, then block.” What I always did.

“The Play” began like most other plays. Little did I know the magnitude of the moment that was about to happen.

We broke the huddle and I lumbered to the middle of the street where the ball sat, waiting for me.  I hiked it to Adam, who caught it from the shotgun position, a few steps back from the line.

Benjie was off and running. Everybody else was doing their thing. Me, I did what I was supposed to do, look for their rusher, a 10-year-old picked before me. I blocked him a number of times, but then, he got around me.

I looked back and saw him chasing Adam.

In front of me, the other team had everyone covered, even  Benjie, who was cleverly double-covered by someone playing way back.

As I remember it now, “The Play” unfolded in slow motion. The sounds of the street were muffled., I recall being able to hear my heartbeat.

Benjie was still going long, going fast.

By now, the ball should have been sailing downfield to one of my teammates. But this time was different.

Adam and I made eye-contact. Looking downfield, he faked a long pass to Benjie. The 10-year-old fell  for the fake and grabbed  air. Adam ran to the side and lofted  the ball in my direction.

Oh no!, I thought. He’s throwing to me! Me, who never got a pass thrown my way. Me, who couldn’t outrun anybody on either team, including the 10-year-old.

The ball was a perfect spiral, slowly spinning through the air.

But the pass was high and I had to compensate by … jumping. 

Oh no! I had misjudged. The pass was perfect and now I had to catch the ball against my chest instead of in my hands.

A phrase, a single phrase, ripped through my brain. “I’m going to drop the ball. I’m going to drop the ball. I’m going to drop the ball.”

But a miracle occured that day. The sun broke  through the clouds and music swelled  in the background. Somehow I was  able to keep the ball from bouncing off my chest and onto the street. I wrapped my hands around the brown leather ball, cradled it to my bosom.

After recovering from the surprise of catching the ball, it dawned on me that I should run with it. Nobody was near me and I broke  for the goal line. But the angels stopped singing, and reality slammed down as the game returned to normal speed.

The goal line now seemed miles away. I did my best to imitate 49ers running legend Hugh McElhenny. Football tucked under one arm, the other arm extended, highstepping to avoid getting touched. The opposing players, after they got over the shock of seeing me catch the ball, easily closed in and touched me. I gained only a few yards.

Though I hadn’t scored, we did get a new set of downs. Everybody on my team gathered around me and patted me on the back. Adam, always cool, stood apart from the crowd and smiled. Back from the next block, Benjie said, “Way to go.”

Still flushed with excitement and wearing a silly grin on my face, I was at my customary position for the next play. I hiked the ball and did my usual 2-block dance with the 10-year-old rusher. When he got past me, I noticed another guy from the opposing team standing next to me. They were guarding me. Me! They were guarding slow, overweight me! They thought  I was a threat, someone who could catch another pass.

And in my mind, I too thought I could catch another pass. And possibly score a touchdown. And I could do more than just block.

That pass Adam threw to me was not the last one. I caught several more that day. And the next, and the next.

I don’t remember the final score or even if we won the game. I was in a realm I had never experienced before.

“The Play” is now embedded into my psyche. In one of those crossroads of life, my own path made a sharp turn. I dread to think of what might have happened if I had dropped the ball.

“Bahala na.” A Filipino expression of a philosophy of life. It translates loosely to “God’s will.” Or in more contemporary terms, “So it goes.”

Bahala na. Eventually, I grew taller than the rest of the kids, started to lose weight. Jokes about my pudginess faded away. I gained some self-confidence.

I wish I could say I became the star on the high school football team or that I hit a home run for the baseball team, or the cheerleader had a crush on me. But no, none of those things happened. That only happens in the movies.

Instead, I found a love of art, writing and reading. I am happy with that.

The natural course of adolescence may explain much of the metamorphosis that happened to me, but in my heart and memory, the wonderful change that was the beginning of a new me, that helped turn me into the man I am today, began with an innocent game of street football and a single, simple pass that I will always remember as “The Play.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: A shorter version of this post was published in the Contra Costa Times.
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