One year ago on Round and Square (9 September 2011)—Styling Culture: Chicago Style Citation
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"
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| [a] Centered RF |
We're heading into the final stretch in this miniseries on punting and the brain. Imagine that it is the beginning of the fourth quarter, and it's all starting to come together. It is time to bring in one key performer who has been silent up until now. He is big and smart, and the entire sequence of neural synapses within and between our head coach and punter depends on him. He is central to the entire operation.
He is the center, and I mean that in at least two significant senses.
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| [b] Exchange RF |
He* holds one of the most important work portfolios in all of football (there are twenty-two starting positions—half on offense and half on defense—plus a smattering of high-resolution types who can swing a game just as formidably as a leg or foot). If you follow the game you already know this, but even if your only introduction to American tackle football comes through the world of Chinese cosmology, you will have guessed that center (中) is a pretty important position. Heck, he's probably the Mt. Song (嵩山) of the sacred O-line, and the pivot of the four quarters for all who stand to his side or to his rear. If he is talented and experienced, players and coaches revere him...even if they forget his name from time-to-time and don't pay him very much (linemen are like kickers in their combined importance-and-marginality).
*Organized American tackle football remains a distinctly male preoccupation in terms of position players. There have been a few intriguing alterations to the gendered landscape lately, but (so far) none at the position of center.
One way of understanding this attitude is to hear the affection with which many stars who speak of the centers who played with them during their careers. Famous figures in football history played with some of the most talented players never to be known to almost anyone but other centers and a few crafty fans.There are so many examples of positive sentiments out there that it is hard to choose just one. That is what I would have written before 1989, when Terry Bradshaw, the quarterback of the four-time Super Bowl winning Pittsburgh Steelers joined the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You see, his center introduced him, and Bradshaw became as emotional as any honoree has been in a situation that is prone to bring back floods of memories from many seasons of youth and early adulthood. Many quarterbacks have thanked their centers, and countless running backs have bought luscious steak dinners at Ruth's Chris for their offensive lines—this as an expression of overflowing gratitude for protecting them from danger and affording opportunities (holes in the defense) for advancement.
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| [c] Under center RF |
No one had ever thanked a center quite like this, though. At his acceptance speech in Canton, Ohio. An emotional Bradshaw, referring to one of history's greatest centers, said precisely this:
Oh, what I would give to put my hands
under Mike Webster’s butt one more time.
Eight years later, at Webster's own Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Canton, the two did just that, and fans cheered as Bradshaw lined up under center one last time.
For people who don't know a great deal about American football, Bradshaw was referring to "the snap" or "the snap from center" that quarterbacks in Bradshaw's day went through sixty or seventy times a game (the world of "snapping" is even more complicated today). Here is what it looks like.
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| [d] Target RF |
Bad snaps are not always (some would say not even often) the center's fault. Quarterbacks share a great deal of responsibility in the exchange, after all. Sometimes they get "the count" wrong, and other times they have slippery fingers. For all of that, this basic back-and-forth between centers and quarterbacks is...the easy part. There is more.
There is nothing—nothing— more brutal than the long snap.
This is where the center, facing a defense just itching to break through and block the kick, must prepare to be pushed, jarred, and head-smashed, even as he propels the ball fifteen yards back to a precise target about "number-high" in front of the punter's chest. Just try it sometime. Take a tennis ball, just to be sure of your grip, and see if you can place it backwards, between your legs, against a target (say, the garage or a backyard fence) even ten yards away. Just try. This ain't easy, people.
The center, in short, is the vital link between the head coach's decision to punt and the punter's execution of the command. Everything depends on the way that he propels the ball backward toward the guy with the powerful leg. Heaven, earth, and man hang in the balance for those brief and breathless seconds. Just think about that. Everything depends on the ability of the center to make a successful long snap.
There is only one more thing missing.
He is going to be pummeled by the D-line as soon as he lets go of the ball. What you have missed in the practice videos so far is any sense of what happens to the center once he releases that ball and sends it flying backwards toward his target. Imagine the little example above—you with a tennis ball and a target ten or so yards away. Now imagine that the moment it leaves your hands...your playing partner whacks you hard on the head with a tennis racket. Your aim must be perfect, you will surely suffer, and after the game no one will remember anything about you...unless you are off-target. They remember that.
That is the life of the center.
That is life at the center.
And you can't spell (neural) synapse without s-n-a-p.
See you tomorrow.
Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:
1a—Punting and Strategy 1b—Punting and Downs 1c—Punting and Trolleys
1d—Punting and Thinking 1e—Long Synapses Punts 1f—Contrapuntal
1d—Punting and Thinking 1e—Long Synapses Punts 1f—Contrapuntal
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| [f] Butts-eye view RF |
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