Killer Kane Audio Memoir; Chapter 7: The Final Three Plays

Chapter 7: The Final Three Plays

With the 1985 season nearly over, Sam Fischer finally gets one last chance against Elkhorn. Three plays. A tackle for loss. His name over the stadium speakers. And a few words from a teammate that mean more than anyone could have known.

After a season spent waiting, quitting inside, and going through the motions, Sam’s high school football career comes down to a handful of snaps—and a moment he would still be thinking about nearly forty years later.

Transcript

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Welcome to Cowboys Not Eggheads. This is Killer Kane, a special twelve part audio memoir about my nineteen eighty-five senior football season at Mount Michael and the coach whose influence stayed with me for the next forty years. Thanks for listening. Chapter seven The Final Three Plays The final game of my high school football career was against Elkhorn on october twenty fifth, nineteen eighty-five. The sky was clear with noticeable breeze and the temperature was around sixty six degrees a kickoff. Mount Michael lost 23 to 7. By late in the game, the outcome had been decided, and Caine began sending senior reserves onto the field. Tom Lewis stayed near him. That was a smart thing to do. When the time came for Caine to empty the bench, Tom was visible and available. Caine called for him and Tom went in immediately. Tom received four plays. I received three. The difference was my fault. I had placed myself as far away from Caine as I reasonably could. I was not accidentally lost in the crowd of players. I was hiding from him. My attitude was essentially fuck you. If you want to put me into the game now, you're going to have to work to find me. It was childish, it was also deliberate. I'd spent most of the season waiting for Kane to call my name. Now he was finally looking for seniors at the end of the game we had already lost, and I was not going to make it easy for him. Tom handled it correctly. I was still trying to win an argument that existed only in my own head. From a time from my place further down the sideline, I watched Tom enter the game. Caine continued moving players in and out. The clock kept running. I knew Caine was eventually going to look for me. I also knew I was making myself just difficult enough to find. Then I heard my name. Sam Fisher. There was noise from the crowd and the players in the field. I could have responded immediately. I did not. I pretended I was not certain Kane had called me. Then his voice came again. Fisher. This time there was no pretending. I moved toward him. By then Kane was asking George Shone where I was. Caine looked at me and told me I was going in for John McCarthy. He didn't need to tell me the position. John McCarthy played left defensive guard. We were in our 6'2 defense. I knew the assignment. I said yes, sir, and ran onto the field. John came off as I went in. There was no ceremony between us. He left, I entered. Three years under Kane had come down to this. Ted Michaels, our defensive captain, gave me the call. Six two regular. I lined up at left defensive guard and put my hands into the grass. The first play was ordinary. Elkhorn ran the ball inside. I fired into the lineman across me, there was contact, a pile, and a short gain. The whistle blew. I got up. I had not made a mistake. I had not made a great play. I had simply played one snap of a varsity football game. Then we lined up again. On the second play, I remember looking into the Elkhorn backfield. The fullback was wearing wreck specs beneath his face mask. The ball was snapped. The guard in front of me pulled away or opened the gap just enough. Whatever his assignment was, he gave me a path into the backfield. I went through it. There was no hesitation. The fullback took the handoff and had time for only a step or two before I hit him. I tackled him approximately five yards behind the line of scrimmage. It was a clean, solid tackle. I hit him squarely and drove through him. The pads cracked and he went down underneath me. Then I heard the announcer over the public address system. A fine tackle on the play by Sam Fisher. My name carried across the field. That was the moment Jeff Malone heard. Jeff had been my senior year roommate. He was sitting on the Elkhorn side where he had wandered off to talk to girls and be Jeff. When the announcer said my name, Jeff stood and cheered. I couldn't hear exactly what he yelled from across the field, but I saw the reaction. For one late tackle in a game Mount Michael was losing, Jeff celebrated as though something much larger had happened. To most of the people in the stands, it was a tackle by a reserve near the end of a decided game. Jeff knew it was not a routine play to me. I got off the ground and started back toward the defensive huddle. Then I began to quasi hyperventilate. The tackle itself had not physically exhausted me. I had done harder things in practice. I had made tackles before. This was different. My breathing became hard and ragged inside the helmet. My chest was rising and falling far too quickly for one football play. The crowd lights and fields seemed distant for several seconds. The moment had overwhelmed me. I'd spent the entire season waiting to be used. Now I had gone into a game, made a tackle for a five yard loss, and heard my name and out across the stadium. My body reacted before I had time to make sense of it. I returned to the huddle trying to control my breathing and act as nothing unusual had happened. Ted and Michaels came near me. Ted was a senior starter and the captain of the defense. He didn't make a speech or turn the moment into something sentimental. He simply said, Good job, Fish. That acknowledgement mattered. Ted knew football. He'd played the entire season in the middle of Kane's defense. When he told me I'd done a good job, I knew the tackle had been legitimate. I remember Flag being thrown away from the play. The game was not over. Because of the penalty, Elkhorn received one more snap. That was how the play I remembered as the final play of my football life became the second of my final three. I was still breathing hard when we lined up again. On the third play, Elkhorn ran wide away from me. I engaged the linemen, separated, and pursued the play toward the sideline. The whistle blew, then the game ended. Three plays. The first was ordinary, the second was the tackle, the third went away from me. That was the entire visible conclusion of my high school football career. The tackle didn't prove the cane should have made me a starter. It didn't prove that I was one of the best eleven players on the roster. But it did prove that I could enter a varsity game and contribute. I was never needed the offense rebuild around me. I had never needed the offense rebuild around me. I had been requiring a starting role. I wanted a place kickoff coverage, kick return, extra point coverage. A few plays of guard, several snaps on defense, something useful. Kane finally gave me my three plays and I made one of them count. Afterward I went through the handshake line with the rest of the team. I don't remember Kane saying anything to me about the tackle. I didn't expect him to. That was business with Kane. The game was over, there were players to organize, equipment to collect, and a season to close. As I left the field, I still had a little grass on my uniform. John Puente was there. John had been my roommate during my sophomore year. Matt Jamber had been my roommate as a junior and Jeff Malone as a senior. John was one of the people who understood how badly I wanted to play. Our eyes met. He gave me a quiet nod. That was all. He didn't need to say I saw the tackle. He did not need to tell me he understood what it meant. The nod said enough. I looked back. Later I removed my pads and jersey for the final time. The equipment no longer belonged to a season that was still unfolding. It was simply equipment to be turned in. I remember looking at the jersey and thinking that it was mine, and that I would never have it again. There would be no next Monday practice. No next opponent. No next chance for Cain to call my name. The season was finished. For many years that was the ending of the story. Caine had waited until the final minutes of the final game to use me. I acted like a stubborn teenager and forced him to work to find me. Tom stayed visible and received four plays. I hid and received three. On the second one I'd made a tackle for a five yard loss. The announcer called a define tackle. Jeff Malone stood and cheered. I hyperventilated a little inside my helmet. Ted Michaels said, Good job, Fish. John Puente gave me a nod. Caine said nothing. And my football career was over. Thanks for listening. Follow Cowboys Not Eggheads on Instagram and visit cowboysnot eggheads dot com to join the conversation. If you played for Coach Kane, I'm sure you have your own stories. And you may think I've gotten some of this wrong. Weigh in. I'm open and I'm all ears.