offensive lineman Archives | Candy A. Westbrook

Dear Football Mom,

We are about fed-up with the favoritism our head coach lavishes on a few certain players. Our son is an offensive lineman and not only does coach snub him, but most of the boys who are playing on the OL. He is always with the quarterback, wide receivers, and running backs, or helping the defense during practice and never checks on or spends time with the offensive line. We are about ready to go talk to the athletic director or the principal, but are afraid it will make matters worse.

What is your advice?

Dear Reader,

So, you feel that your son and the offensive line is being treated like a second fiddle by your head coach. I hear ya. Let’s see if we can get this little thing in perspective and look at the difference between the pickin’ and a grinnin’.

You may not know of the famous conductor Leonard Bernstein, but he was once a purty big deal in Hollywood. He wrote the scores for West Side Story, Rear Window, and On the Town staring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, to name a few. A reporter once asked him, in regards to his orchestra, “What’s the most difficult instrument to play?”

“Second fiddle,” he replied, and added, “if no one plays second, there’s no harmony.”

The same goes for the offensive linemen on a football team. If there is no protection for the quarterback, or holes made for running backs, then there is dang-sure no harmony on that football team! Without the offensive line, the quarterback and his accompaniments are useless. No way can he get his job done by pitching the ball, or getting his balls airborne or in the hands of any running backs. Without the second fiddle (the OL) there is no harmony, no rhythm, no tune, and no way to move the ball forward, much less hurling it to wide receivers for touchdowns before the quarterback’s backside meets grass by a brood of defensive guys out for blood.

Offensive linemen are a peculiar bunch. The dream of an OL coach would be to have a group of guys up front who are tightly woven like a string of pearls. Then add a perfectly performed precision ballet by moving in sync with one another, creating a barrier that no defense could break. These guys spill their guts every time the ball is snapped, only to receive little glory for the battle. Have you ever heard an announcer praise and call out an offensive lineman’s name for that marvelous pancake blocking? Maybe ever so often, but it’s gotta be a mighty-darn special block and usually down field, not off the line of scrimmage. The neutral zones are the most physical blocks—the more athletic blocks are down field. Either way, blocking is a rough fiddle to strum. These dudes are the most unselfish players on the team.

I do a lot of reading between the lines within the questions we receive, and this question is no different. If I had to guess, I suppose head coach has a lot of notes he’s trying to make into melodies, and his time is already split coaching and drilling the quarterback and wide receivers, making sure they know how to run his routes and understand his game plans. Checking on his defense to get them ready to stop the next opponent and execute his game plan for that to happen, is probably second nature to him. He’s checking his song sheet so his team ends up on the same page of music. I do believe that’s kinda what you’d want in a coach.

He’s not a babysitter—he’s orchestrating a perfect harmony for his team, and that requires focus where the trouble spots are to hit the keys just right. I suspect you are a winning team this season, and he’s doing all he can to keep it that way.

Your coach may be from the offensive side of the ball, meaning he played quarterback in college or whatever, and he’s teaching what he knows. He also may have a lot of trust in his offensive line coach. Maybe they worked together to craft their offense strategy over the summer, and coach has complete confidence in this position coach. If I had to bet, I would bet the offensive line is looking great in games, on film, or in practice, and y’all are headed for a crescendo season. Coach feels his time is better spent honing drills with the ball carriers. He’s not needed on the OL. That’s a good thing. That means your son and his teammates are nailing their assignments.

Hear me on this. Whether or not he is from the offensive side of the ball, he is well aware of how valuable his second fiddle, the OL, really is. I don’t believe for a second he’s playing favorites; he’s just one guy trying to make the most out of the time and the talent he’s got, and he’s not about to micro manage the OL, because there are no flat notes being played out there.

If you do decide to go to the AD or the principal, you may end up with nothing more than the cat and the fiddle. Wouldn’t that put a knot in the cow’s tail as he jumped over the moon?

There’s No “I” in Teamwork!

With heavy heartfelt thoughts and prayers concerning the disaster of Isaac, I figured now is as good a time as any to discuss “teamwork.” After messy Isaac rip roars its nasty head through land, it will take hours of teamwork to clean and repair the clutter. It will also take a team of folks to roll out at a moment’s notice to help others to safety. From first responders to firefighters, medics, police, 911 operators, sheriffs, national guard, neighbors, family and friends to nurses, doctors, hospital staff and all those in between, good people along the gulf coast have geared up for action and are in the thick of it right now.

However, I see no I’s in that crowd. What I see are teams of folks who are willing to put their lives on the line to save the lives of others. No glory, name in lights or headlines, just a lot of guts from those people who aren’t afraid to plunge into perilous situations for the good of others. I believe our military personnel, here and abroad epitomize the word, “teamwork.”

Dictionary.com defines teamwork this way:

team-work [teem-wurk]
noun
1. cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause.
2. work done with a team.

In other words, a joint effort to obtain, capture, create or achieve a common goal or purpose with no one individual, but a group of individuals working together.

As a football mama, I can only name a hand full of sports that truly define teamwork in unequal but remarkably similar ways to public service personnel or military folks. Football, of course, is one of them. Can you name any others? In football it takes all 11 men executing the game plan. But think for a minute about the entire concept of an offensive linemen’s job.

O-Lineman takes the majority of pounding and the brunt of contact hits on every down in order to protect his quarterback, thus moving the ball out of the pocket to increase yardage. Hopefully, that yardage is in the right direction, if the OL does his job! But, it doesn’t stop there. The QB has to be doing his job too and then so do the guys who carry the ball. Execution = Effectiveness of a team. Teamwork.

Yet, can you name one OL in the NFL, or on the college level? But, I bet we can all name at least one quarterback on either level. The sportscasters will mention the five guys up front usually during action. And they might call their names out in the lineup for offense before a commercial break. Still, these guys personify the teamwork message, taking the hits so the other guys get the glory. Ask any offensive linemen if he cares that he is not singled out the way running backs or wide receivers are and his answer may shock you. He doesn’t. He isn’t out to seek glory or hot-dog. The psyche of an O-Lineman strikes me as the essences of a man’s unselfish heart and character. Teamwork.

Alec Baldwin’s character as Lt. Colonel J. Doolittle in the movie “Pearl Harbor” said, “There’s nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer.” How true! It took men and women in uniform who volunteered with an unselfish heart to achieve unimaginable triumphs in WWII or in other conflicts and wars that we as a country have endured. I see no It’s in any of their stories. Teamwork.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong is another example of a “no I” guy. What a great American! He took no credit for what he did. The man was the first to step on the moon and he gave all the credit to his fellow teammates, including the folks on the ground in the space program. That’s the very heart of teamwork.

So, maybe at the end of the day, teamwork is best described as an unselfish act or action taken by individuals for the greater good. That sounds like some purdy amazing men and women and yes, football’s offensive linemen! But one more group of people that cannot be over looked in the teamwork category is Mom’s. Most moms know a thing or two about sacrifice, unselfishness and teamwork. Yes, we could learn a lot about teamwork, with no I-formation, from these America’s heroes and football and moms!

Football is Like An Orchestra

There’s No “I” in Teamwork!

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