Tough Guys

To outsiders, though, it is very much not okay. Bissinger spent a year in Permian, Texas researching high school football and writing his book.

"The image of these six- and seven-year-olds doing nutcracker drills just sickens me," he says by phone. "It does, it just sickens me. It's ludicrous and it's dangerous and it's antithetical to every value that sports should have. I mean, if it's not fun at that level, then what is the point. I mean, I saw at the high school level in Permian it wasn't fun. The pressures on these kids were intolerable."

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The game against the Longhorns is close until the second half. The Trojans come into the contest with a 2-1 record while the Longhorns are a dismal 0-3. Lynnard Rose is having a good game. He scores a touchdown, makes the two-point conversion, kicks off, sacks the quarterback and recovers the resulting fumble.

"Go hit #5," shouts a Longhorns coach. "Your only responsibility is to hit #5 whether he's got the ball or not!"

Late in the fourth quarter, about to slide to 0-4, the Longhorns' quarterback is ejected for punching a player in the back while they're down. Coach Skip Cummins, a tightly wound ball of testosterone, explodes:

"Take your jersey off and go home, you're a disgrace to the Longhorns!" he's in the center of the field yelling at the boy, his own son. As the youngster sits crying on the bench, the coach returns again and again to chew him out. Finally, a bystander behind the fence has had enough and shouts at the top of his lungs that the coach is the disgrace.

Bill Hughes used to be a youth coach and he's never seen a coach explode like that.

"These are young kids. They need to be inspired, sure, about the game but they don't need to be chewed out in front of everybody where it makes them cry and feel bad."

Murphy Graham, the football director, was also upset over what happened.

"It's fricking seven- to eight-year-old football," he says with a tone of exasperation. "You know, I mean, do you remember anything from when you were eight years old? Kids don't remember. They may remember if they won the championship but they're not going to remember their record. Some of these kids don't know what offense or defense is.

Graham's fear is that of all youth sports program directors: to be a cliché, to be on the news because some dad freaked out. He saw video of the alleged punch and says it was really weak and should not have been an ejection.

"The thing was, it wasn't even like a good punch, It was almost like a push," he says. "Because they both went down and the kid that got knocked down kinda, you know, looked at the kid and went nnnyyaah. I mean, you know, like they do at the dinner table with their little brother. I was really surprised that he got ejected for that, but you know we have to stand by our officials."

When asked what he thought about six-year-olds doing one-on-one tackling drills, he said, "Look, these kids have so much equipment on and their helmets are so big, they look like little Martians out there. I mean, it is football, they've got equipment on and the object is to knock people down."

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The Trojans' fifth game, another Tuesday night contest, is against the 4-0 Raiders. The field is sopping wet and the smaller, quicker Trojans are stymied. They look tired. They've only had two days since they pummeled the Longhorns and they practiced yesterday. After halftime, Lynnard finally breaks loose with a 50-yard run down the right side of the field. Ten yards before the goal line, he starts some kind of high-kicking antics that smack of hot dogging.

After the game, which the Trojans lose 33-21, thus slipping to 3-2, Lynnard's dad explains that there was a lot of water on that end of the field and he was just trying to tippy toe through the water to keep his shoes dry.

After the customary mad dash to the concession stand for some well deserved candy, the Trojans have 12 days of rest before facing the division rival Cougars.

Unfortunately, in the interim, fullback Burton Schnake accidentally gashes his leg while playing at home.

When game time arrives, the Trojans come prepared with a totally revamped offense. With 25 seconds left in the game, the score is tied 12-12 when the Cougars heave a Hail Mary pass into the end zone and complete the touchdown.

"It was a tough loss," David Hughes said as the Trojans slid to 3-3. "It was a very tight game and a battle from the get-go. It made us realize how important of a piece Schnake is to the team."

That is made even more evident the following week as the Trojans suffer their third straight loss, a 39-19 beating by the Colts.