Memos from the Middle

Flag Mom

His chubby fingers gripped the ball, anticipating some command I could not hear. The sun, stretching its rays over the field, did little to warm us-the moms, dads, and littler brothers and sisters-but his face, like those of the other boys out there, was streaked with sweat and the thrill of newfound athleticism.

I never wanted him to play football. The thought of some bigger boy plowing into my son or his head crashing into the turf terrified me, but I had conceded under the longing in his big brown eyes and the preceding adjective “flag” on the school permission slip.

“You coming today, Mom?” he had asked in a way that was equal parts clarification and subtle pleading. I had tried to see him in action the week before, but the rainy, cool October air kept the other team home, forfeiting the game.

“Yep!” I replied, trying to sound chipper.

I grabbed my over the ear headphones to multitask during the game. I would listen to a couple more chapters of Morrison’s Song of Solomon while I watched him play.

SNAP! The quarterback, an eighth grader at his school, handed the ball off to another kid larger than mine, and he raced toward the end zone. Thwarted just a few yards before scoring, our team repositioned themselves for another attempt. My son, the center, knelt down again ready to snap the ball. A few moments later, our running back was sitting criss-cross applesauce in the end zone, simulating meditation in celebration of his touchdown.

My black cotton, gloved hands clapped in reserved celebration as Toni Morrison’s late-in-life halting, breathy voice relayed something about the teenaged Milkman, and I realized I had heard nothing of her tale. I grabbed my phone quickly from my pocket to drag back the progress bar to listen again to all I had missed.

Now, playing defense, my son chased down the running back. The first lineman grabbed at but did not secure a flag. My son, the same one who just five minutes ago was sitting on my lap singing some PBS Kids song and sharing his chips and juice box with me, ran between that barreling running back and unfettered access to the end zone. Instinctively, my body stiffened to attention, and I watched my baby take a hit no kid should take sans helmet and pads. His cuddly body plummeted to the turf under the weight of a boy I was convinced was a high school ringer.

I looked over at my husband, coaching from the sideline, knowing that this was enough to yank our baby off the team. But he was smiling and clapping and yelling for the team to “get a man.” I looked back at the field. Our son was lined up again ready for the next play, not quitting after that ferocious hit.

Something was happening in my ears about Pilate and a knife. Realizing that Morrison’s voice was yet again the white noise in the background of a middle school flag football game, I decided to switch to a bluesy instrumental, something that did not require my attention as I questioned my parenting choices.

A yellow flag landed on the field. There was lots of hand gesturing from the two refs who marched the ball back toward the spectators. One mom, much bolder than me, paraded onto the field. Her son had obviously been running the ball during the offending play. I shook my head judgmentally and hoped that she would not cause a scene. Thankfully, something took hold of her, and she turned around at the twenty yard line and walked back to the bleachers where the rest of us breathed a collective sigh of relief that she had come to her senses.

“They’re not running the ball enough,” I noted to myself. “And they need to build up their stamina.” I vowed to give the coach, my husband, my two cents on the car ride home.

Our kids held the lead until the last two minutes of the game, but sheer exhaustion and not enough players to sub in and out allowed for a late touchdown that cinched the win for the other team.

The parading mom whipped out two boxes of gourmet donuts for the opposing team, and I questioned why I had not thought of that. They ran excitedly to the treats as our kids, tired and dejected, slowly took off their borrowed jerseys and flag belts. For the first time, I noticed the coordinated uniforms of the other team and wondered what it would take for our kids to have that, too.

The scene was a bit too heavy for me, so I got up and walked to the car under the guise of warming it up. My son’s ruddied cheeks and sad eyes gutted me as he approached the car.

“Hey, Buddy! You all played an awesome game!”

“Yeah, that was our best game all season,” Coach Dad echoed. “When we first played that team, they crushed us,” he explained.

“Yeah, 28 to 6,” my son replied in his dry way from the backseat.

“Listen,” I began in the way I often dictate rather than converse. “At practice this week, I need you to run some conditioning drills. We gotta get our boys’ stamina up since they don’t have the same number of players as the other team. And we need to make sure they practice running to catch the ball, not just throwing and catching standing in place. We have to simulate game play in practice.”

When he didn’t respond, I looked over at my husband. He was grinning a big smile that was both amused and offended by my sudden coaching prowess. I laughed, and he invited me to coach alongside him after school, which was his way of shutting me up.

It did not work.

“Yes! I’ll be the assistant coach! Coach Mommy!” He laughed now, too, and two of us chatted lightly as our son stewed behind us, still reeling from his team’s loss.