The Lambeau Hop

It all comes down to this:

The ball sits on the left hash at the one yard line. Smoky River gets one more try to go one yard. Smoky River makes it, Smoky River beats archenemy Tendleville; Smoky River doesn’t make it, Smoky River doesn’t beat archenemy Tendleville. Smoky River chokes.

As usual.

People in the stands are the sounds in a seashell, magnified a hundredfold. Crazy Larry’s on the sideline, banging his helmet against his grass stained game pants, hair soaked with sweat and smeared on his face, screaming inspirational obscenities at the offense. Grunter brings in a play with none other than Homer’s name on it.

A couple of the guys groan.

“We never even practice that play,” another grouses.

But Grunter slaps Homer’s butt anyway and says, “Lotta grunt’n’ goin’ on up there?” managing his patented Grunter look, even with the oversized mouth guard bulging through his lips.

So Homer lines up behind fullback Bucky Grimes, who’s supposed to barrel straight ahead over tackle Leonard Lecky, leading the way for Homer, who’s fumbled twice already. But never mind about that, because Homer’s planning to launch high into the air, like Gale Sayers, and swan dive into paydirt, leaving the spectators thunderstruck.

At least, that’s the plan.

Dante “Buzz” Buzzelli, the quarterback with a plume of black hair cascading out the back of his helmet, bobbles the snap as he turns to locate Homer, who’s right behind Bucky, who’s steaming toward Leonard, who’s getting reverse pancaked by the Tendleville tackle. Homer keeps his eyes locked squarely on Bucky’s maroon 33. Buzz somehow gets control and somehow slops the ball into Homer’s breast pad.

It’s a massive pileup at the goal line. But Homer leaves his feet as planned, goes straight up, up into the Tendleville tackle’s corpulent, clammy arms, which slam around Homer’s head, twisting his neck to the snapping point, as Homer’s right hip spears a linebacker’s helmet, and his stomach nails the shoulder of a blitzing corner, coming like a cannonball, which sucks the momentum right out of his swan dive, and all that’s left for him to do is squirm and wriggle and wither like a crippled worm.

It’s all a blur as Homer crinkles to the ground and a mountain of thigh pads, shoulder pads and forearm shiver pads topples onto him, grinding his facemask so far into the soil he can see where the white yard marker paint (applied by Smoky River Hall of Fame nose tackle, Alex Arnold, grandson of Nettie Arnold, long-time operator of the concession stand on wheels) missed spots on individual blades of grass ... Wait a minute—that’s white, as in goal line, as in Homer’s practically kissing the goal line! C’mon, please ... c’mon ... He writhes and slithers, endeavoring to inch his interred facemask just beyond the white ... Oh, please ... Oh, please ...

But it’s no use. The whistles shriek from all corners. Homer senses the refs trying to break up the melee, peeling bodies away. He hears another whistle, manages to pry his head around and, through pinpoints of light in the maze of body parts and helmets, glimpses a ref with arms extended toward the firmament, signaling a touchdown.

And the crowd goes Horton Hanover wild.

Homer’s teammates pounce on him. Grunter rams facemasks with him, grunting enormously. Crazy Larry runs onto the field and whacks his helmet on Homer’s shoulder pad, spewing four letter words of congratulations until one of the refs advises him to shut his mouth.

“Why don’t you shut your ears?” Crazy Larry retorts.

“Open your eyes,” the ref says in a sing-song voice, his own eyes bugged as he tosses his flag in the air.

At practice Monday, Crazy Larry, once again, can count on running until Coach Rookie gets tired.

It’s really something, Homer thinks, like a dream, like the Super Bowl, everybody mauling him on the sidelines, as Tendleville takes over with 1:33 left in the game, fifty-six yards to go (would’ve been more, if not for Crazy Larry’s fifteen-yard unsportsmanlike penalty assessed on the kickoff) and no timeouts. Homer screams encouraging words at Crazy Larry, who talked Coach Rookie into keeping him in the game because he’s been a beast at left defensive end. Crazy Larry blitzes, all elbows and knees, swinging his heavily padded forearms at the quarterback’s head, and gets penalized again.

Homer laughs. He can. Smoky River’s going to win this one. The defense is too pumped. The defense has Crazy Larry. Tendleville’s looking desperate, maybe even a bit lame.

It’s fourth-and-four for Tendleville from the Smoky River thirty-five, fourteen seconds on the clock. The Tigers are down to their proverbial last gasp, as Coach Rookie, hyperventilating, jaws pulverizing his Beechnut gum, schools Buzz on how to sit on the football when Smoky River regains possession. Rookie seizes Homer by the shoulder pads, shoves his face into Homer’s, eyes crazed, says Homer is to line up ten yards, “Ten yards! Ten! Not seven! Not eight! Ten yards!” behind Buzz, “who’s just gonna take a knee and let the clock run out, and we’re gonna get the heck …”

“Great Scott!” Assistant Coach Lundquist cries, and everybody looks up to behold cornerback Grunter backpedaling blunderingly through the mud, getting twisted around on a juke and falling face down into it, as a pristine spiral sails through the sky in the direction of number 84, Tendleville’s all world wide receiver.

And there’s not another human being within ten yards of him.

The ball keeps sailing, the receiver keeps gaining on it, and nobody can believe it. A month later, the ball floats softly into his outstretched hands and he’s gone, straight down the right hash, running smooth, running clean, with a mud-caked Grunter grunting after him. Number 84 strides into the end zone, raising the ball to the sky like a trophy, then does a little impromptu victory dance in Grunter’s face.

Crazy Larry’s on his knees, socking the ground. Rookie’s mouth is a mile wide. The Tendleville players point a bunch of we’re-number-one fingers at the thunderstruck Modeltowners’ crowd.

And the enemy crowd sends up an evil roar.

And to put the cherry on top of it all, next week, as the team analyzes a super-eight color film of the game, Homer notices something about his almost winning touchdown dive. He notices as he charges the line that in fact he’s barely moving, that his pants appear to be slightly baggy and there happens to be a veritable rolling meadow of running room to the right, though he elects to do his famous NFL leap over the clogged-up middle. He also notices, while shrinking in his chair, it isn’t really the leap it felt like at all; it’s more like a little hop, and the big collision actually amounts to a bear hug, and worse, it blows him a little backwards. And the pile of bodies he could’ve sworn lay on top of him amounts to two, though maybe an argument could be made for three.

Homer’s face turns red. It all comes down to this.