Football is Bond-Lines

Argo, Beasely, and Clark.

Frank, Hall, and Koelling.

Lyons, Neyer, and Ross.

Roth, VanTyle, and West.

These names repeated, two times most often but sometimes three, as brother and then younger brother joined the Taylor High School football team. Families like the Koelings and the Roths saw three brothers, one after the other, wear a gold and brown jersey.

I had been organizing a Reunion for my high school coach and building out a database of names when I noticed this pattern. For most of his former players, including myself, our last names only appeared once. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t related. That we weren’t family. We were.

It wasn’t blood-lines coursing through the branches of a genealogical tree that connected us: it was bond-lines—the transmission of traits, values, and playing style from one generation to the next, creating a lineage that unites players across time.

Before my high school was torn down, a railing once ran along the driveway overlooking our football field. One day, after practice, I was hanging out with JB Bowman by that railing. It was late in the season—he was a senior, and I was a junior. We were not talking, just watching the daylight fade over the field. Then JB broke the silence: “Hump, you and I must be related because we play this game the same.”

Hands down, that’s one of the proudest moments in my football life.

I had been watching JB play this game since I was in sixth grade, maybe even as early as fourth. He was ferocious. He played middle linebacker and routinely knocked the snot out of people twice his size (sometimes three times). I loved how he played the game—he left everything on that field. Everything. I aspired to play the game the way he played it. And, there he was giving me a nod that said “I see you. I approve.”

It was more than that.

JB was telling me his time was almost up and it was my turn to lead.

The pattern of repeating names happened again when I was organizing a reunion for my college football coach: Carr, Franz, Hawkins, Johnson, and McGowan.

A moment reminiscent of my time with JB also happened at Earlham College.

It was the end of my freshman season, and we were at Do Ri Me Bowl (now Legends Lanes), where you could, back in the day, bring in your own case of beer and bowl.

With chairs leaned back, Natural Lights in hand, and our feet propped up on the banister, Stephen Specht—our senior captain and middle linebacker—and I watched our teammates bowl, albeit badly. Then Specht turned to me and said, “Hump, you’re taking over for me.”

With a raise of my beer, I let him know I got this.

It was my time to carry the mantle forward.

Like JB, Specht was undersized at his position, just as I was at strong safety. Also, like JB, Specht played the game as if he had given his body over to the football gods to be thrown like a lightning bolt into targeted gaps in the offensive line.

JB and Specht weren’t just recognizing our shared style of play; they were acknowledging the bond we had forged through my earning the honor of lining up alongside them.

It was an honor I earned by grinding it out in the weight room, refining my technique, sprinting hills, studying film, and adapting their style of play into my own.

I listened to how they called out plays and watched how they carried themselves—on and off the field, in the locker room before and after games, during halftime, and in every practice.

While I had my own distinct approach to the game, I was also the understudy, observing every detail. As the understudy, I began to integrate my emotional intensity with their attitude and mindset, creating a blended style of play that honored my individuality, as well as their styles, and the players who came before them. Just like me, JB and Specht had participated in the same blending of styles when they were my age.

Through this process, generations of teams are shaped—expectations, standards, and tacit knowledge, right down to the pace and intensity of pre-game warmups, are inherited, passed down from player to player.

Players carry pieces of those who came before them, even if they never directly interacted—bond-lines link everyone along a common understanding of how we, at Taylor, at Earlham, at any school, play this game.

I don’t remember having this talk at Earlham College, but, near the end of my senior season at Taylor High School, I found myself by that same railing, having a similar talk with Ed Beasley that JB had with me. And, perhaps Ed, near the end of his senior season, did the same when his time came. Perhaps JB received a similar talk from a senior when he was a junior—maybe from Kevin Bennett. Maybe David Beall, who was just a kid when I was at Earlham and played football at Taylor long after me, played with a bit of JB in him too.

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This post is part of my latest book project titled: “Football is _______”

Every two weeks, I’ll fill in the above blank with a word or phrase and tell a story. I’ll do that for 52 weeks and then compile the posts into a book of essays.

I’d love for you to join me on this journey and share your thoughts or stories along the way. If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others who might appreciate it as well.

Stay tuned for future updates on instagram (@blucollarprof).

Read previous posts in this series.

Thanks for reading! – shawn