I was seven years old back in 1969, and even after all these years, I can still remember going to high school football games with my Dad. We would park away from the stadium to avoid the traffic, and while holding his hand would cross the side roads and back streets, past the front of a building with a sign that read Central Bucks High School WEST.
We would arrive early so that we could watch the team come up the steps from their locker room; single file, looking straight ahead, no smiles, totally focused, headed from the shadows into the stadium filled with cheering people. I heard only two sounds: cleats marching across the cement walk and the band playing. Inside the stadium, as the players trotted onto the field under the lights, their black jerseys and Pittsburgh Steeler maize trousers fit tight on their pads and their helmets glistened. The players looked like royalty to me. I would run ahead of Dad so I could walk alongside the marching band as they paraded around the track. My soul was drawn to the syncopation of the drums and the xylophone bells. Whatever this environment was, all I knew was that I would commit my life to being part of it one day.
Unfortunately, when it was my time for high school, we did not live in the WEST school district. I was districted to attend the newly built school on the other side of town, Central Bucks High School EAST. My dad never took me to see them play. They only won a few games during the first seven years of the program. EAST football was the butt of many a joke, especially compared to the WEST program which was a perennial state champion with legendary Coach Mike Pettine. In fact, the families of several kids from the EAST district moved, just so their sons could attend WEST in an effort to better their chance at a football scholarship. East had not had any players receive a Division One scholarship in football up to that point.
Fast forward 40 years. A few Saturdays ago, CB EAST celebrated a homecoming weekend against CB SOUTH (another new school). It was a gorgeous fall day recognizing a few milestones: the 50th anniversary of the opening of the school, the 40thanniversary of the school’s first victory over CB WEST, CB EAST’s first football championship, and the retirement of the number 14, worn by the quarterback of that team. That was me.
“Glory Days” is a popular Bruce Springsteen song and the opening lyrics say, “I had a friend who was a big [football] player, back in high school…” and so whenever I go back to Pennsylvania, our high school accomplishments always come up and I get serenaded with that song a lot. Those are great memories, not because of the accomplishments, but because of the friendships that are still in place.
The celebration weekend included a Friday night cocktail hour in downtown Doylestown that was attended by almost 100 alumni and several coaches. The room was loud with everyone telling stories of ‘hey, remember when…’ followed by bellowing laughter and back slaps. Some of my teammates recited our old team prayer which went something along these lines:
This is the beginning of a new day… God has given me this day to do as I will. I can waste it or use it for good… I want it to be gain not loss, good not evil, success not failure, …. So that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it… because the future is just a whole string of NOWS.
Perhaps my teammate, Dr. Elgart, said it best in a Facebook post, “[We] said it a thousand times, but not in 40 years, chills!”
The current CBE head football coach asked me to say a few words to the team, which is quite an honor to address fifty young men. I told them that this weekend was about the numbers 50, 40 and 14. And I shared some other important numbers to me: 7 for the number of children I have, 6 as the number of years since I was told there was bone marrow cancer in my body that was without a cure, 3 being the number of my youngest kiddos yet to go to high school or college, 2 as the number of grandsons I love, and then I said, “But the most important number is 1!”
I think most everyone in the room expected #1 to be a reference to self, discipline, and focus on your dreams. But that is not the interpretation I wanted to share. I told the team and coaches that at age 57, and with all I have been through in life, the most important number is one. As I said those words, I pointed and glanced upward with my finger. I shared that the men I have come to respect the most in this world all exhibit three distinct qualities: humility, radical generosity, and a submission to the highest authority. I closed by encouraging each of them to evaluate what is #1 in their lives, because it affects everything they will do going forward.
The EAST team played hard and defeated SOUTH that day and it was a memorable weekend for many. Flying home, I was tired, but I was proud. I was proud to be a graduate of Central Bucks High School EAST forty years ago. And I thought to myself, maybe, just maybe, there’s another little 7-year-old boy that will run through the parking lot at an EAST football game and the tradition that we were able to start back in 1979 will inspire him towards greatness. And maybe they will retire his number next to #14. That would be an honor.