TO GAIN WEIGHT

"Three eggs, a banana, four tablespoons of protein powder, a quart of milk, and six scoops of ice cream every night" I listed when Donnie Etz asked for my milkshake recipe.


"Make that four times a day" countered the lanky defensive end.

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We were vying for starting spots on the Randolph-Macon College football team. Size hadn't mattered much in high school where determination and hard work could make the difference. Now we were up against the best of the former high schoolers, and they were bigger, faster, and stronger even at Division III schools. 

So after a rough first season on the scout team getting trampled by the starters, it was either shit or get off the pot. It would take an off-season commitment to getting bigger and stronger to be able to keep playing. Steroids hadn't yet hit the small college sports scene in the late 1970s, leaving us to our own twisted logic. Three times a week in the weight room and seconds in the college cafeteria were our standard fare that winter, and five pounds each was all we had to show for it.  

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"Sure, four times the weight gain is even better" I replied. 

After a week on this draconian regime, the reality of a dozen eggs a day on a college budget hit home, not to mention it's interference with the study and party schedule.

"Back to once a day" concluded Donnie. "We'll get the rest of the pounds at Happy Hour."

GETTING IN YOUR REPS

"Check the windows" commanded Dave Geren as we waited at the locked fieldhouse door.





"Here's an open one" I called, spotting an unlatched grate over a back window.

"I'm your ladder" offered the tough noseguard, bending against the wall for me to step up onto his back.

I pulled open the creaky grate, wedged the window up, and squeezed through. Leaping down onto the black and white tiles of the shower room, I marched to the front and unlatched the door.

"Better lock it in case he comes" advised my intrepid weight lifting companion.

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The decaying building in a corner of LaMonte Field was painted in Bound Brook High School colors with white wooden shingles accented by red shudders and roof just like our home uniforms. Inside, the chipped concrete floors and dented lockers surrounding the Universal Gym were also Crusader red. 

The school had just moved the new weight machine into the fieldhouse for summer football training. Coach Eutsler had invited prospective players to use the equipment, promising to have the building opened three evenings a week. A dozen guys showed up the first Monday of July and shuffled through the stations in the stifling central Jersey humidity. 

"Move it, you pussies" laughed Coach Steffner, turning on a huge upright fan that drowned out the clangs and moans but provided a cooling breeze. 

By the second week it was down to two or three of us. On the third Monday the coach didn't show so we ran a couple of laps and went home. Wednesday night came and we waited a half hour before taking matters into our own hands.

_________________

"Kill that propeller" directed Dave. "We need to hear if he drives up."

After a couple of sweaty sets alternating bench and leg presses, we looked up at each other.

"Was that a car door?" I whispered.

"The back window" he laughed, running for the shower room.

We scrambled out, climbed over the tall back fence, and went around to the gate, arriving back at the front door as Coach Steffner came out.

"It's about time you loafers got here" he greeted, missing that we were both already drenched with sweat. "Now get to work!"

THE BEST LAID PLANS

I fumbled the ball three times in my first high school football game. Never mind that I was the quarterback handling the ball on every snap from center, that the game was played in the muck of a torrential downpour from the tail end of tropical storm Elaine, or that I was one of the smallest and youngest guys on the field facing their biggest and meanest middle linebacker. I was aghast, blaming myself for a 6-6 tie in front of the home fans against our perennial whipping boy Bernardsville.







So that night I embarked on a plan to prevent such future horrors. I inflated my brother's old regulation ball to full resistance, retreated to the upstairs bedroom, and tucked it into my right arm. Then I proceeded to pound the ball with my left hand a hundred times from the top and a hundred from the bottom. 

"Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack..."

"Everything all right up there?" yelled my sister Karla, a year ahead of me at Bound Brook High School.

"Just practicing" I shouted back, continuing the pounding.

"Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack..."

"What is that?" she asked, her steps up the stairs in time to the hits.

"Don't come up here!" I screamed, pausing to switch the ball to my left arm. 

"OK, but don't hurt yourself" she warned, retreating back down the stairs.

"Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack..." I resumed, launching a second set of four hundred punches.


This scene was repeated every night for the next week. I'd pop on J. Geils Band's Bloodshot album, dial it up full blast, and proceed to pound my hands into swollen red lumps.



Then the next game came at Kenilworth High School on a bright September afternoon perfect for football. And my plan worked - no fumbles in six offensive series. Too bad my right arm and hand were so sore that I couldn't hit speedy Mike Fogarty wide-open thirty yards downfield. We lost 3-0 and I was moved to flanker for the next game.