The Champions of Bellaire Street
Nearing the end of a walk on a warm, spring-like April afternoon, I decided to toss routine to the wind, live a bit impulsively, and explore a street rarely traveled. Barely having begun my detour, I came within earshot of youthful clamor and cries of excitement. I continued walking, just in time to see a perfectly thrown football spiral over the shoulder and into the hands of a sweatshirted schoolboy — a play that would have made the red-clad Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill green with envy. The wide receiver stepped into the driveway for a touchdown, while I relived that important moment in my past when I first discovered that if you kept running, without breaking stride, you could easily move under and catch a football that looked as if thrown too high and too long.
Pieces of conversation escaping from the celebration taking place in the concrete end zone told me that the Sweatshirts had rallied from a huge deficit and now tied the game. I crossed the street to get a better view of this unpublicized contest, then dropped to one knee and pretended to tie my Velcro-latch tennis shoes.
The kickoff, which was really a punt, rocketed above the rooftops, followed a flight path that resembled a hair pin, and fell to earth 10 feet from its launch site. The Tee-Shirts’ return specialist fielded the ball but was immediately chased out of bounds, where he tripped and fell over bicycles scattered like fallen dominoes on the street and sidewalk. Unhurt, he returned to the game and, as quarterback, promptly forced a pass into quadruple coverage. A Sweatshirt triumphantly held the intercepted ball high.
A terrifically unbearable excitement rushed through me as I thought of the neighborhood football games of my youth. This was football that mattered; football far better than the organized games of junior high and high school, where fun was drowned in a sea of seriousness and ruined by a preoccupation with winning. No, these neighborhood games were different. With no bench and no second string, everyone played, and played every position; two or three games could be played in the same day, or one game could last all afternoon and into the evening; scores could reach ridiculously high numbers, with players scoring an infinite number of touchdowns; and teams changed continuously in size and personnel, with kids from one elementary playing happily alongside friends and neighbors from another.
With pride I recalled one of my finer performances during the fall of ’72, when I scored seven touchdowns in the first half of a game against the Big Kids one block over. We lost, 98–91, in a thrilling next-touchdown-wins sudden-death overtime.
The game taking place now, though, had nothing at all to do with me; yet I desperately wanted to see if the Sweatshirts could pull-off their miraculous comeback. I moved down the street a bit, took a seat on the curb, and proceeded to play the part of a frustrated walker searching for a rock in his sneaker.
From shotgun formation, the Sweatshirt quarterback took the snap and tossed a short pass to his wide-open halfback. Cutting toward the row of shrubs that separated the front porch and walk from the playing field, the runner ducked around a small cottonwood tree, headed upfield, and ran untouched along the sideline’s dried-up, empty flower beds for the go-ahead score.
Controversy immediately raged, with the Tee-Shirts claiming that the score did not count because of interference. A level-headed Sweatshirt player put the uproar to rest when he pointed out that the Tee-Shirts had also scored on a play involving the tree. Their score had been allowed to stand; this score should stand as well.
Out of the blue, one of the Tee-Shirts’ players remembered that he had to get home. He was already late, he said, and probably in big trouble. Other players, running for their bicycles, suddenly remembered that they also had a chair to fill at the family dinner table each evening. Those who wanted to keep playing were outnumbered by their fleeing teammates and so, just like that, the game was over.
Finding no excuse to hang around any longer, and feeling conspicuous and out of place as the game’s lone spectator, I moved on down the street feeling unusually inspired, vowing to lose some weight, ride my bicycle, and get myself back in shape.
“You guys just got lucky,” I heard the Tee-Shirts’ interception-prone quarterback holler, as I rounded the corner.
“Maybe,” answered a Sweatshirt player, “but we’re the champions.”
They were indeed. And even though their reign would last only 24 hours or so, today they were titleholders. Better than any Super Bowl trophy or ring, they were Champions of Bellaire Street.
