(cue song and read)
Continuing the series on games from my childhood, I bring to you the grand daddy of them all. I wanted to wait and save this game for the last post but I kept getting blinded with stories from it. We were a huge football family and our group of friends loved playing any form of the game we could think of. The actual origination of around the house football is a little foggy to me, maybe brad can help clear up how it started.
Most football games are played in a straight line, wide open grass, not this one. At our house we had a pretty decent sized yard all the way around. We had a few trees, bushes, basketball pole, and a pool. Instead of torn up turf marks, we had dog droppings. Instead of first down markers, we had consecutive completions. Instead of out of bounds lines, we had sidewalks, fences, and brick siding.
The game went like this, you started on our driveway and going counter clockwise you had ten plays to get around the house and back to the driveway for a touchdown. I'll pause and let your mind wonder..........We had receivers dart around our yard like the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Guys would use the trees as a pick to get open as long as the 8 steamboat didn't run out and the quarterback was being rushed. I must say though the classic move of the game was the bomb over the house. If you had the arm for it you could send your receiver on a dead sprint around the corner where he vanishes out of sight. Using your best guess you let the ball fly overtop the roof and wait......everything goes silent until you hear one of two things...if it was a catch you would hear the defender "get him on the other side" and the rest of his buddies would take off to try and head the receiver off going clockwise. If he dropped it, you typically heard something like "AAAHHHHH I almost had it" or a splash...because you didn't throw it far enough and the pool monster just ate your hail mary.
We once had an all day tournament my senior year of high school. We had 8 teams of 4. It was everything that was right in this world.
I hope brad or martin share their personal accounts of this fine game. Or even our dad, to give us some insight on seeing his crazy kids playing football in a giant circle. To everyone, if you have kids, teach them around the house football. It's the greatest game ever invented by the Tecumseh trail crew. Snow or summer, catching a football that bounces off of a roof a few times and coming down on the driveway never felt better.
5 comments:
Sounds like a lot of fun.....wish we knew about growing up....definitly would like to try it with my boys!
Childhood games are some of my best memories both as a parent and as a child. Wiffle Ball was one of my favorite games too. We would imitate each individual player of our favorite pro team imitating their batting stance and swing. Home run derby using tennis balls was great, along with indoor basketball on a hoop in the garage. We even had big time wrestling meets in my backyard. But watching the Tecumseh crew play the unique games they created was a greater joy. Knowing that everyone enjoyed coming over to the house was special and around the house football was great fun to watch. The only complaint was too much dog doo in the yard. But no doubt that added to the lore. But I also know that there are many untold stories about the pool and other things that were kept from me that are best left that way. What I didn't know then and don't know now was and is a good thing. Really enjoying these stories.
i forgot about the "calm before the storm." my favorite part was the constant fine-tuning. i don't know if we ever had all the rules fleshed out.
and why didn't i get an invite to come home from college for the tournament? that'd be like having a peach basket tournament and not inviting Naismith.
Perfect. Lesson plan complete for tomorrow. thanks again.
Ahhhh....Around the House.....I can remember a few effects of around the house
1) I sometimes got clipped by a tree or bush because I was more worried about catching a ball overtop of a roof instead of paralyzing myself
2) I was like 5'8" and 140 at the time. Ouch
3) I had secret communication with Maverick from inside the house and he told me where the ball was going to land
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