It is incredible as I look back on it how much the energies of my youth were taken up with football. From the time I was twelve until I was seventeen, I played that game in the fall, went out for sports in other seasons that would help me prepare for it, trained with weights, did roadwork and sprints during the summer; most of all, throughout the year, I thought about it, spent hours staring into space envisioning exploits in various games. A counselor has suggested that I was using football to prove myself to my father. I would generalize a little further and say that it was the means I chose for making myself a man. I did eventually achieve most of what I had dreamed of, but I have often wondered, rather wistfully, how it might have been if I had chosen some other means of achieving manhood.