Look, I don’t care who gets the credit as long as we do the right thing.

Looking at the calendar, the thing says we are in the 21st Century. We’re getting close to Buck Rogers here. It is time we acted like it and rebranded the special teams moniker with something it deserves: URGENT TEAMS. The game deserves it. Guys playing will make more sense of it when they are in the huddle and the BIG play on a punt or a kick needs to be made NOW…right now because it is an urgent situation.

I am the punter in 1985. We were playing Corydon Central that night.

Below: Thirty years later on the same field.

When there is a head full of angst, a bag of balls and an empty field can be a cathartic experience. I wish my leg still had the same pop in it.

Back to our point. I’ll just say it. It is 2026 and it is about time we changed the moniker “special teams” as it applies to that phase of the game that involves kicking, punting, returning, blocking kicks and punts, et al.

I say it every year. Birthdays are special. Graduation is special. Weddings are special.

There is NOTHING SPECIAL about being a punter in a fourth and twelve situation when your team has the ball on their own half yard line and you are checking your feet one last time before the snap to make sure you are standing inside the endline and not about to cost your team a safety. If you have been there, you just relived part of it and a nervous tension just fell upon you, if for only a few fleeting moments. It’s a real thing.

Your team just held the other team to a punting situation and you are down 6 points with 3:13 to go in the game. A punt block will help you out. If your returner gets loose, it could save the ballgame for you. All the while, before this play happens, there is no coach on the sideline hopping up and down spreading their arms out like a they are wearing a tutu saying, “Oh, this is sooooo SPECIAL!” Hell no. Coach has a wide base. Hands on his knees. Watching each and every part of this play literally play out. Coach is feeling anything but special.

None of these things are special. These things are URGENT. Show of hands. Remember what it feels like when your team is lining up for a game-winning field goal with three seconds to go. Hit it you win. Miss it you lose. That’s not special. That moment brings with it an urgency like no other scene you will experience on a football field. It can be a beautiful thing. It can haunt you for the rest of your life. That, my friends, is URGENT.

I wrote about a these things last fall and I am going to revisit one small part of this story now:

When the 1992 high school football season came around, I was on the sidelines again. This time I was a Corydon Central Panther. I distinctly remember playing the North Harrison Cougars that year. It was 0-0 at halftime on a beautiful autumn night. I was the Urgent teams coach and had a ball showing youngsters how to swing their legs to the fullest. When the second half got under way, Billy Powell intercepted a pass from his linebacker spot and returned it for a TD. Our sideline erupted. During that week of practice, though it was not about me, players came up to me to stick a finger in my chest and tell me they were going to win this one for me. I told them to just go win it. Of course, I appreciated the gesture. When Billy hit the end zone, our sideline went berserk. Guys were on the field rolling around like Curly of the Three Stooges. I was celebrating. Our whole team was on the field soaking up the moment. When revelry went on longer than the ref thought it should, he threw a flag. 15 more yards! Hooooo-ray! That means a 35 yard extra point and that will be an even nicer exclamation point. I was good with it. I was great with it. Reminded me of the night in 1985 when I was kicking PATs with a square-toed shoe that I had to change into while I was playing center. One night this endeavor was taking a while. The ref came over to me. “Hustle up 56, you’re short on time.” I looked over at him and said, “Just go ahead and throw it.” He did and moved us five yards back. I suppose he could have moved us 15 yards back had he wanted. Was the kick good? Yes. It hit the track. I looked at the ref and gave him a thumbs up. He just shook his head and chuckled.

Now, that back and forth between me and the ref was special and yes, the only plea for urgency on that play seemed to be at the behest of the ref himself. The 17-year-old version of me had yet to learn that we need to rebrand “special teams” into “URGENT TEAMS”. The 24 year-old version of me as coach brought such a confidence in our high school leg swingers and holders and snappers and blockers because they understood the urgency. That’s why we called it Urgent Teams and worked it as hard as they did. That is today’s lesson. Urgent teams from now on. Pick it up and run with and call it your own. It won’t be the first time. We can debate the origin of The Run and Shoot for days, but that’s another story.

And to the Kirk Herbstreit’s and the Tim Brando’s and the Brad Nessler’s of the world, please don’t use the term “chip shot” when you are calling a game and there is a short field goal coming. There is a snap. There is a hold. There is an urgency to keep 11 guys with a different colored shirt on their side of the field. Then there is a kick. Nothing routine about any of this. A great deal has to go as planned. It is an URGENT TEAMS play.