Six feet tall and 150 pounds of confused muscle and rock hard brains, I crouched down into my three point stance opposite six foot two, 230 pound left tackle Dennis Brouhard in our first full contact reserve scrimmage. In what I now recognize as a combination of manic homicide and a profoundly funny joke, Coach Pesavento had judged me to be a perfect specimen of a defensive end. And here came the punch line, in the form of "27 offtackle, FB lead".

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I'd never played organized football in my life to that point. Other than the previous ten days of three-a-day practices, I'd never worn pads, had never experienced the raunch of a team locker room, ... had never been so profoundly tired in my life.

Throughout latter elementary school and junior high school, the old neighborhood buddies would play tackle football, usually on Mr. Munshower's huge front lawn, for hours at a time. Some were strong athletes, many of us weren't. One went on to start for two years as a cornerback for the Wisconsin Badgers. Strong athlete or not, in the neighborhood, you played hard yet stopped short of cleaning a guys clock - no one wanted to hurt or scare off anyone. We needed the dudes.

I wasn't a total loser; ... I was FAST. I could outrun anybody. I was the fastest guy in the neighborhood and, now, the fastest guy on the team. Yet I was a pathetically lanky lightweight, clueless as to proper blocking & tackling (or any other football related) techniques. All I was, was fast.

Add to that the fact my family had changed school districts in the summer prior to my freshman year. These guys on the football team were the first people I'd met in our new location. None of them seemed terribly interested in tolerating a new glasses wearing splinter who didn't know where to put his hip pads. But I was terribly desperate to learn to play the game, to be a part of a real football team, to show that I had the ability to play the game. I just needed some serious learning. It's amazing what kids can tolerate when motivated; in retrospect, I now realize it was painfully, painfully lonely. But I also know that loneliness didn't seem to matter much to me - it was never hard to climb into the car to go to another practice. I loved the idea of playing football that much.

Coach Pesavento ("Pez" of course, but never ... NEVER within earshot, as Brouhard found out later that season) was not much into teaching. What he was, was into yelling. And almost never by a persons proper name. Early on, he adopted for me the proud name "Stooge" - after a particularly badly blown play during an early practice where the quarterback saw fit to throw the ball so it got stuck in my facemask. Pez used language not much recognized these days for its educational potential. "G*d d@mn it, Stooge, what the f#ck kinda joker are you, ... you ever hit a sled before?" NO, ... I had never hit a blocking sled before. Despite the fact I had exceptionally strong legs, it was only after a week of three-a-days flopping myself against the sled that our starting halfback kindly showed me how to properly hit the sled - with my shoulder, lowering my back and butt, and driving forward with my legs - that what had become the comic interlude in sled drills stopped. The road to acceptance on the team was going to be longer than I'd hoped. But I was going to do whatever I could to make it.

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So, ... it's "27 offtackle, FB lead"; but I don't know it yet. "Ready, ... set, ... B1, ... B2" and the ball was snapped. I did my best to drive into the massive offensive tackle and then move around him to my right to seal off the left side of the line. Dennis had other ideas. At least that's what I gathered after about ten seconds. I remember a blur, a bunch of greyness, grass, a loud rumbling sound, a louder whistle, and then quiet. ... nothing.

It was only about four seconds, maybe five, but it seemed to be a much longer period of time. I had no sensation of playing football, of being anywhere, I just WAS. Then the unmistakable shrill shriek of Pez cut partially through the greyness: "Moose (Brouhard), what the f#ck are you doing?" Then arms under my shoulders - they were Dave Palmer's, our best halfback - he pulled me up, looked at me and asked "alright?".

I just stared, at the time, I couldn't comprehend what he'd said; he clearly took this blank stare as "yep, I'm fine, let's go" as he turned and trotted to his offensive huddle. Brouhard was walking back to the huddle too, just shaking his head. Pez was staring at the Stooge, no look of sympathy, just staring at me. I learned only in the locker room after practice that Moose had hit me so hard I'd flown backwards a couple of yards and landed on my head. It was so violent that some players had stopped mid-play, prior to the whistle. Yet somehow, Palmer, the ball carrier, had tripped over the tangle of arms and legs that was me on the ground. I'D GOTTEN THE TACKLE, despite my semi-conscious and inanimate state. All thanks to Brouhard. Fortunately, they ran plays to the other side of the line for the next several plays, and then put another tackle in place of Brouhard. While at the time I didn't know exactly what had happened, I knew from the laughs and looks of disdain that it couldn't have been flattering.

Embarrassment is a powerful motivator. The Stooge kept rushing with reckless, underpowered, and unskilled abandon. Within a couple of plays they called a screen pass in my direction. Of course, they let the less-than-massive defensive end into the backfield, and then the starting QB tossed a screen pass high over my head towards Dave Palmer, who had streaked by me to the left flat. Wait a second! This is right up my alley, and UP I jumped. I know I mentioned I was fast. But I could jump too. I was dunking a volleyball (couldn't yet palm a basketball) in eighth grade, ... anyways ... Up I went ... please Lord, ... I can get this. SMACK! I hit the ball up ... it's sailing straight in front of me ... I can get this, ... I GOT this! I catch the ball and NO ONE was gonna catch me, ... 25 yards to paydirt and six points. I'm nearly as numb as I was after Brouhard's hit. I just turned and stood in the end zone for a moment, and waited - for what I wasn't sure.

Nobody was rushing towards me, other than the QB who seemed intent on hitting me despite the fact I was in the end zone and the whistle had blown (he ran past me, in a show of some discipline, as I was sure he was horribly embarrassed to have been intercepted by such a joke of a player). So I just trotted back to where the players were. They were looking at me much the same way they did after Brouhard's shotput of me just a half a dozen plays earlier.

Pez finally broke the ice, "Nice play, Stooge". ... thanks, coach.

I didn't play the next series, and when I finally played again, it was as wide receiver. I didn't have any balls thrown my way, but it was a statement that registered with me and my teammates. Guys started talking to me a little, more like they were including me in conversations rather than talking directly to me. And I'm getting called by my real name, not Stooge. I got more advice from teammates regarding blocking and tackling. The coach moved me from back-up defensive end to safety. I liked the position, although I had a lot to learn about coverages - and I learned from my teammates and from the various yellings of Pez ("Stooge, what the f#ck are you doing covering the wideout on that play?, your man was either the wingback or doubling up on the f#cking halfback out of the backfield - get your f#cking head outta your @ss!", ... yep, he likes me).

I was never good enough to start a game at wide receiver or safety that season. And he stuck me in at defensive end every once in awhile just for giggles I guess. But I got better, and played more and more as the season progressed. I learned that you gain some measure of respect when others see you trying hard, working through obstacles and persevering. I never became a good HS football player, and I never ran around with many of the strong players on that team - although my best friend to this day was a guy I met that first summer of organized football. But I had the respect of most of those guys. It felt great to be included, to laugh as one of them after coach lifted Moose up by his neck with one hand when he called Pez "Pez" to his face (instead of "hey coach", ... to Moose's terror, out came "hey Pez").

This is the point where the author is supposed to say "these were the life lessons of sports that propelled me to become U.S. Senator" or "CEO of Boeing" or "Ambassador to France" or whatever ... Nahhh. Just Dave in Indy, writing in a sports blog to a handful of readers. Nonetheless, I came to love football even more as a result of this experience. And I DID gain great life lessons that I suspect I never would have otherwise picked-up, at least not so early in my life.

Nothing profound, ... just a memory I thought I'd share.

The Nextel Cup has drivers and cars out the ying-yang, fans galore, 193 races per year, television outlets haggling for rights to broadcast each seven hour race, and a championship formula - The Chase - that's been modified, tweaked, and retro-fitted to produce a championship race that is as artificially close & exciting as their superspeedway races. It'll take the twelve best, and hopefully most popular drivers/car combinations, and over the final forty or so races of the season pit them in a heated, almost-from-scratch (see aforementioned tweaking & retro-fitting) race to the season championship. It was unacceptable to get to the last couple dozen races and already have the championship decided. So NASCAR stuck its fat little fingers into its racing once again, in an effort to manufacture greater suspense, and came up with the aforementioned Chase. Now NO ONE can run away with the race to the championship. Superiority throughout the regular season is barely acknowledged, and the top twelve racers are lumped together and considered nearly equal (I know, ... the bonus points ...). It didn't QUITE work perfectly last year - as Tony Stewart didn't make the Chase. So a little tweaking here, a little tweaking there, ... THERE, now we have it. Surely THIS time we'll get it right, and not exclude a fan favorite ...

... whoops ...

Meanwhile, the IndyCar series motors along uncomfortably. They typically field only 18 cars per race, and week in and week out there are three race teams competing for the win (the two Penske drivers , two Ganassi/Target drivers, and the four Andretti/Green drivers). But the finishes between them are very close week-in and week-out. Their season championship formula is the old fashioned one - win a race and you get more points (50) than the second place driver (40), who gets more points than the third place driver (35) & so on down to 10 "participation points" for all bottom finishers. They throw in 3 points for leading the most laps. The driver with the most points at the conclusion of the final race of the season IS THE CHAMPION. My DOG understands that formula.

Guess which series has boiled down to having the most exciting season ending? and guess which series has once again seen one of its most popular drivers excluded from a championship run?

There are three drivers with a chance to win the IndyCar season championship this coming weekend in Chicago: Scott Dixon, Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti, and Tony Kanaan. Last weekend the series leader crashed near the conclusion of the race and in the process (intentionally?) took out his closest competitor for the championship, giving Tony Kanaan the win and enough points to also have a chance to win the championship this coming weekend. The points lead has ebbed and flowed throughout the season. The drama producing the ebbs and flows has been significant - points leaders getting crashed or crashing themselves out of races, different drivers/cars have seemed unbeatably superior at different times during the season - and you never know who Danica Patrick will take out in a given race, OR who Michael Andretti will be ranting about after the conclusion of another race during which his son DNF'd.

You can try all you want to engineer an exciting conclusion to a race or a championship season. You can add restrictor plates to cars, you can create body and engine formulas so tight that it takes half a day to complete inspection, you can throw yellows every time a spotter sees a dandelion spew dangerous seeds onto the track, and you can create a complex championship points systems that will befuddle a chess master - but such controls don't guarantee superior racing. To excess, they can (and DO) actually DETRACT from superior racing.

Human skill, bravado, and luck produce superior racing.

Whether by hook or by crook, IndyCar produced and FEATURED superior racing this season.

The superior racing (which was abundant once again) in NASCAR was BURIED underneath all of the pulleys, cogs, and filters by which and through which it attempts to produce tight finishes.

I enjoy the flash and spectacle that surround Cup races. But give me the good ol' fashioned racing of IndyCar, or late model stock car racing, or any of the formulas which feature RACING, and not the fabulously popular but highly processed Cheese Whiz that is Nextel Cup racing.

It's being reported this morning (by WGCL TV out of Atlanta, GA) "federal prosecutors are offering Falcons quarterback Michael Vick a plea deal on dogfighting charges that would require Vick to serve at least one year in prison. Sources have told CBS 46 that Vick has until 9 a.m. Friday to accept a deal or face new charges in a superseding indictment".

What is our fascination with sending people to prison? In what way has that been shown to be the best method of preventing a person from repeating their crime, or to discourage others to not engage in such behavior?

Per capita crime in the U.S. has increased only marginally over the past several decades. Yet our incarceration rates have skyrocketed over the same period, putting us in the ugly position of leading the world in per capita incarcerations. We have five to ten times as many inmates per citizen as most other developed countries around the world.

WTF?

The greatest nation on the face of the earth? We incarcerate more than 5.6 million of our citizens (# of citizens who have been incarcerated at some point during a given year)? That's an incarceration rate of one in thirty-seven (about 3% of our adult population). And this rate has been streaking upwards for several decades. Our prisons are estimated to be constructed to handle just over one-half of that number. The over-crowding conditions are making prisons no better than the gulags of the old Soviet Union, where basic human standards of care are not being met - let alone efforts to genuinely rehabilitate offenders.

THIS IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE, one that we the people perpetuate.

Prosecutors get elected to lucrative local offices based largely upon their ability to market their "toughness on crime" - which almost always means their conviction rate and their ability to boast of long sentences for cases they've prosecuted. Judges, in many locales, are elected in much the same way. That's what the electorate want to hear, that criminals are being put into jail, and often.

And now folks are likely feeling good that Michael Vick faces more than a trivial stint in jail.

What is this INCREDIBLE investment in one method of punishment/rehab buying us? Little if anything that I can see. From 1987 to 1995, state government expenditures on prisons increased by 30% while spending on higher education decreased by 18%. Worse, it may well be hardening criminals - moving them to a point where a life of crime is all that seems feasible for them. Even WORSE, it may be moving us further from a nation deserving of respect, and to a nation characterized by shallowness, impulsiveness, a convenient blindness to the suffering of others.

Just one more thing deserving of your increased attention and action (at the very least, pay attention to who you elect to the offices of Prosecutor and Judge - typically Superior Court Judge, although ANY elected judge - and see what your mayoral and gubernatorial candidates track records are on this issue too).

How will sending Vick to prison help society? How will it impact Vick? How does sentencing marijuana smokers, or vandals, etc. to stout prison terms help society or impact the violators? Is yours a gut reaction to those questions, or a decently well thought out response, based on a review of available literature?

Start scratching the surface:

An Admittedly Left Leaning Article by Human Rights Watch

Bi-Partisan Report, including other interesting links

Well, the 14th has come and gone. Anyone have an idea why we don't yet know who's made it through to the next round? I can't imagine an easier process: whichever writer in a pairing scored the highest moves on.

Let's go guys, tell us who moves on!

NASCAR has found well-rounded success in the most unlikely of places - a ROAD COURSE. This weekends Cup race at Watkins Glen was everything a race should be. You had the close racing NASCAR and its fans prefer, many "quality passes" (in this case, they were TRULY quality passes), and as much drama as I can remember in an auto race.

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Just the sequence in the last 20 laps with Stewart, Hamlin, and Edwards deliberately taking their cars across the grass in a complex series of turns in order to preserve their side by side positions was absolutely INCREDIBLE. That was racing in the old world meaning of the word. The 'shiners would have been most proud.

On top of that, the track was clearly a significant challenge to drive. The best drivers in NASCAR (some of the best drivers in the world) had trouble negotiating the course at speed without losing control of their massively heavy machines - both Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon totally lost control while leading the race. And you had strong road racers trying to bring their substandard rides up through the field, and largely succeeding (Fellows and Gordon), including an incredible sequence where Robby Gordon GAVE WAY to the faster Ron Fellows - probation clearly has produced its intended result. Both of these great road racers were spectacular, gaining nearly 20 positions (well, Gordon did this twice) during the race.

Of course, you had the Montoya vs. Harvick drama which, accentuated by a long red flag period to clean up the fluids left on the track after their wreck, added even more emotion to an already intense race. As funny as it was to see two guys in giant helmets, colorful driving shoes, and funny looking jumpsuits pushing, slapping, and dancing with one another, it definitely added another dimension to the event. Would the young bully engage the less-than-svelte former CART champion and Monaco G.P. winner in a one round full blown street fight? Thankfully, we were spared that excitement. Save something for the next race, I always say ...

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3M PERFORMANCE/MICHIGAN 400 CAGED DEATH MATCH

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----------===---"J.P. Libre" Montoya----------------------------Kevin "Mr. Furious" Harvick

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And then, the most unlikely drama of all: while leading with just two laps to go, NASCAR's finest driver spins out with a sure victory in his sights. Jeff Gordon will see that one in his sleep for a few weeks. Such an event would NEVER have happened on the relatively easy to navigate, repetitive oval courses they typically run, but a complex road course - another story altogether. Amazing stuff! Absolutely GREAT racing.

I would LOVE to see a road race added to The Chase (as already mentioned in these blogs by other contributors). The best racing so far this year has occurred on road courses, and as Tez has already pointed out, the road courses have let the truly superior drivers separate themselves from the pack (vs. the randomization that seems to occur on the ovals, particularly the restrictor plate tracks).

As you get more and more drivers becoming accustomed to driving on road courses, these races will get better and better. It's hard to imagine how much better a race could be than this weekends race at The Glen, but I'm betting we'll see it happen over the coming years. Great stuff NASCAR!