“Time waits for no one at all. No, not even you.”

From The Moody Blues song Driftwood written by Justin Hayward.

You’re so right Jus. You’re so right.

The 2025 season means two things. 40 years on, in 1985, was the last season I played high school football, and it was also the last season Indiana High School Football players on the line often looked like they were submarines along the turf of the football field.

This was the last season lineman were not allowed to extend their arms and “push” to block. We were made to keep our arms in, lead with our forearms and shoulder pads. It looked nothing like the dance moves that play out on high school fields today. Hope that your dancers are stronger and more agile than the other team’s.

That photo up there shows a pad that went around me above the waist to protect my back. I only played one full honest to goodness REAL season of high school football. That was my 9th grade season in 1982. And it was a good one to be a part of. That winter, in 1983, I injured my back in a weight room mishap. Don’t ever go under a squat rack after you just ran three miles on the cross-country course when the temperature is 20 degrees out. Your back will be cold. Mine was. The weight on my shoulders came down. We did not come up. The disc between my L-4 and L-5 vertebrae made an unkind gesture. I have been mindful of it ever since.

I played, really played, as in starting at center and doing my punting and kicking, the last five games of my senior year. That was fun.

All I have left is to shake the hand of the kid who kicks a longer field goal for North Harrison than I did. I thought I would carry him or her off the field when that happened; that is not going to happen.

That is all behind me now.