Killer Kane Audio Memoir; Chapter 4: We'll Find You a Place

Chapter Four: We’ll Find You a Place

By the summer before his senior year, Sam Fischer is no longer trying merely to survive Jim “Killer” Kane’s football program. After long days working in the hayfield and months of strength training alongside his younger brother, Will, he returns to Mount Michael heavier, stronger and convinced that he is finally ready to contribute.

Moved from tight end to offensive guard, Sam attacks the opening practices determined to make himself impossible to ignore. After failing on his first attempt against the team’s largest lineman, Eric Swanson, he immediately resets and delivers the collision the drill demands. Assistant coach George Roshone notices. Soon, Kane does too.

During another practice, Sam drives a defender several yards backward on a double-team block. Kane responds with the words Sam has waited years to hear:

“If you keep that up, we’ll find a place for you to play.”

It is not a guarantee of a starting position. It is something more important: recognition from the man whose judgment matters most. Later that day, Kane calls Sam over to work briefly with the first-string offense.

In Chapter Four of Killer Kane, years of waiting appear to be leading somewhere. Sam enters his final season believing he has earned an open door—and trusting that when the games begin, Kane will call his name.

Transcript

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Welcome to Cowboys Not Eggheads. This is Killer Kane, a special 12 part audio memoir about my 1985 senior football season at Mount Michael, and the coach whose influence stayed with me for the next 40 years. Thanks for listening. Chapter 4 will find you a place. By the summer before my senior year, I was no longer trying merely to survive Jim Kane's football program. I believed I was ready to contribute to it. The belief had not come from Kane. He had not promised me a position, named me a starter, or given me any reason to assume that seniority alone would help move me up the depth chart. It came from the work that I had done and the way I felt physically. I'd spent much of the summer working long days in the hayfield. The days could last more than 10 hours. It was repetitive, physical work, performed in heat and dust, and it did not stop because the football season was approaching. The ranch work was not designed as athletic training, but it served some of the same purposes. It built endurance, it strengthened my hands, back, and legs. It taught me to continue working after the novelty of the task disappeared. When the job lasted 10 hours, enthusiasm was irrelevant. You kept going because the work was not finished. I also trained with my younger brother Will at the ranch. We used Boyd Epley's University of Nebraska weightlifting program. Will and I understood strength training, and working out with them exposed me to an environment beyond anything available at a small high school. The University of Nebraska represented serious football and serious physical preparation. The athletes were larger, stronger, and more developed than the boys I practiced against at Mount Michael. I was not pretending that lifting there made me a Nebraska football player, but it changed the standard I saw around me. I gained weight that summer. More importantly, I gained confidence. For most of my football life, I've been trying to determine whether I belong, whether my senior year I believed I had developed enough physicality to stop asking the question. I belonged. The remaining question was whether Kane would see it. I played tight end during my junior season. I was not a receiving threat, and Mount Michael's offense did not require the tight end to become a featured pass catcher. The position was primarily another part of the blocking scheme. Entering my senior year, I was moved to guard. A younger player had moved ahead at tight end, and guard appeared to fit what I could do better. I liked the position. I understood the assignments, and I especially liked pulling across the formation. Guard gave me a chance to use timing, movement, and aggression rather than depend entirely on size. I was never going to become the largest lineman on the team. Eric Swanson held that distinction. Eric was a large, powerful player, the kind of lineman who created an immediate physical problem for anyone lined up across from him. He was not someone a player could move casually. If I was going to compete with players like Eric, I had to arrive with leverage, technique, and complete commitment. There was no room for hesitation. One of the drills we performed was a one-on-one tackling drill. The purpose was to get up quickly from the ground, lying on the ground, turn around and tackle the other player. It required quickness and force. A player could not timid play timidly and hope the technique worked. He had to deliver the blow. During my senior year practice, it was my first senior year practice, I was matched against Eric. My first effort was not good enough. The drill had to be repeated. That mattered because the second attempt under Kane's observation carried a different kind of pressure. The mistake had already been exposed. Everybody knew why the repetition was happening. There was no opportunity to disappear into the next drill. I had to do it again. On the second attempt, I struck Eric with everything I had. The collision was different immediately. I delivered the kind of hit the drill demanded, and George Roshon reacted. Roshon was one of Kane's only assistant coaches. As a matter of fact, he was the only assistant coach, and his praise carried weight because praise anywhere in that program was limited. I do not remember every word he used, and I will not manufacture dialogue 40 years later. I remember the meeting. That was the way the drill was supposed to be done. The moment gave me confirmation that the strength and confidence I had developed during the summer had transferred to the football field. I had not simply gained weight. I could use it. That practice also produced one of the most important days of my senior season, even though it occurred before any game was played. We were working on offense and I was involved on a double team block. The center and guard were responsible for driving the defensive lineman away from the play. The advantage of the double team was that neither blocker had to win the collision alone. But the block was still required both players to work together, maintain leverage, and continue driving until the defender was displaced. We struck the defender and moved him. We kept moving him. I cannot provide an exact measurement, but we drove him approximately five or six yards down the field and into the ground. I knew Kane was watching. That awareness mattered. A player in Kane's program always knew that one strong practice rep could become evidence. Kane might not praise it. He might not say anything at all. But if he saw the play, it entered his evaluation. This time he said something. His words were approximately if you keep that up, we'll find you a place to play. I've repeated that line many times over the years. Memory can polish language, especially when a sentence becomes important to the person remembering it. I cannot swear that every word is exact, but I'm certain of the meaning. Cain and seed something he could use. I did not hear the statement as a guarantee. I did not say I would, he did not say I'd start. He did not name a position. He did not promise a certain number of plays. He told me if I continued performing at that level, the coaches would find me a place to play. It was an opportunity, an open door. In Kane's program, that was enormous. The line mattered partly because of who delivered it. Had another coach given me general encouragement, I might have appreciated it and moved on. Kane did not casually reassure reserves that everything would work out. He did not distribute hope to improve morale. When Kane said that he'd find a place for a player, I believe he meant that he saw it as a possible role. Later that day, I was called to the first string offense. In fact, I was called twice. The movement was temporary. I did not suddenly become a permanent starter, and the death chart did not reorganize itself around me. But Kane's actions supported what he had said. He had watched the block, he had acknowledged it. Then I received work with the first team. For a reserve, that sequence was difficult to interpret as anything other than progress. I had spent years looking for signs that Kane believed I could play. Now I had one. The senior year photograph provided another moment that captured the difficulty of interpreting anything Kane did. I intentionally placed myself in the back row. Kane moved me to the second row. I did not know why. It may have been nothing more than arranging the photograph properly. Perhaps he once wanted the rows balanced. Perhaps he was sending me a message about where I belonged. I couldn't sign a motive to him, but I noticed it. Players noticed everything Kane did involving them because it exceed he explained so little. A movement from one row to another could become evidence, at least what a player hoped was evidence of how Kane saw him. Then the photograph was taken. Afterward, the photographer asked Kane whether he wanted individual pictures of the seniors. As I remember it, Kane replied, Nah, we ain't got nobody who can play. That was Kane. He could move a senior into a less prominent role in the team photograph and then moments later dismissed the entire senior class with one sentence. I do not know whether he meant the statement literally. It may have been sarcasm, a challenge, or simply Kane's way of making certain nobody became too satisfied with himself before the season began. Whatever his intention, there was no senior affirmation ceremony, no declaration that this was our team, no sentimental acknowledgement that we had returned for our final year. We had not proven anything yet. The photographer recorded who we were. Kane's comment reminded us that in his judgment, the picture did not prove that we could play football. I was entering my final season at Mount Michael stronger, heavier, and more confident than I'd ever been. I'd found a position I liked. I'd perform well enough in practice for shown to praise me. I'd execute a s executed a block that caused Kane to say the coaches would find a place for me. I had been called to the first string offense. I had not been handed a starting job, but the f but for the first time I had reason to believe I had moved merely I had moved beyond merely surviving the program. I believed I was close. That brief that belief matters because memory can distort the past once the ending is known. Knowing what eventually happened, it would be easy to describe myself as a neglected reserve who entered the season already certain Cain would not use him. That was that was not be true. I entered the season hopeful, more than hopeful. I was confident. I believe I had done what Kane required. I worked through the summer, I had become stronger, I had gained useful size, I'd improved at guard, I had performed physically against one of the larger players on the team. I had delivered a block Kane could not ignore, and I had received the closest thing Kane gave to a promise. Keep doing that and we'll find a place for you. The statement also fit the code I had learned from both my father and Kane. Work produced opportunity. A player did not demand a role. He earned one. I believe I was earning mine. That did not mean that I expected to replace one of the established starters. I understood that Kane trusted a small group of players. I knew that his top players would remain on the field for most of the important minutes. But football created many possible roles. I could serve as a reserve guard. I could block from a tight end position, I could contribute on a kickoff coverage or kick return. I could protect on extra points, I could enter a game for a limited number of offensive plays. A player did not need to become one of the stars to help the team. Kanan told me he would find a place. I trusted him to do it. The atmosphere surrounding a senior season is different than any other. A sophomore assumes that there'll be more time. A junior can tell himself that next year will bring another opportunity. A senior knows the calendar is closing. Every August practice is part of the final August. Every team photograph is the last one. Every game removes another week from the season. I had completed two years under Kane and I had entered the third believing it would finally produce something visible. This was supposed to be the year when persistence became participation. I was not asking to become the center of the team. I wanted evidence that all the work had led somewhere. I wanted to take the field knowing Kane had decided I could help him. There was no there was also pride involved. I had returned to Mount Michael from the ranch physically changed. I had trained in a serious college program with my brother. I had done hard work before the preseason practice began. I did not review myself as the same player who entered the program two years earlier. I wanted the coaches and my teammates to see the difference. The practice field suggested that they had. The first string repetitions suggested that Kane had. His words suggested that the opportunity remained alive. The season opener would be against Bennington. I didn't know exactly when my chance would come. I did not know whether Kane would use me in offense, defense, or special teams. I only knew what he had told me. If I kept it up, they'd find a place. As the opener approached, I believed that place existed. I believe Kane had seen enough to know where it was, and I believe when the game began, he would call my name. Thanks for listening. Follow Cowboys Not Eggheads on Instagram and visit cowboysnotegggheads.com to join the conversation. If you played for Coach Kane, I'm sure you have your own stories, and you may even think that I've gotten some of this wrong. Weigh in, I'm all ears.