It was a hot August day in 1955, and a lone football player was working out alone, setting a good example even then. The season was only a few weeks away, a season that held considerable promise. My friends and I were playing a pickup game of touch football. The tall young man had a football in his grasp.

“Throw me one,” I said impulsively.

“Go long,” he said.

The football arched high in the air, reached its highest point and gained speed as gravity asserted itself and the ball reentered the earth's atmosphere. It hit against my outstretched arms and I was just barely able to trap it against my chest before I lost my balance and the ground quickly rose up to smack me. No one ever taught me to catch the ball with my hands, which at the time were too small for the task in any case. We were all self taught football players, and this included some hazy jurisprudence concerning the rules.

I picked myself off of the wet, freshly cut grass and ran quickly back to the small group of little ten year olds surrounding the best football player at the local high school and tossed him the ball.

“Nice catch,” he said, words that would last a lifetime for a kid who had no dad around to throw him long passes.

“Who is that guy?” asked Chuck.

“That’s Jim Sheffer,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“I live next door to Bob Linville,” I replied.

“Oh wow,” said Chuck.

Almost at once, another kid took off, and the high arching ball hit him perfectly in the chest, but his hands weren’t quick enough to trap the ball, earning him the forever nickname of “Rubberchest.”

The passer stood tall, seemingly unaware that to the small boys surrounding him he was more than just a big guy who could throw long passes. He was the star football player they all wanted to be. Most of the guys his age wouldn’t have been bothered to throw passes to the little kids, fifth graders from Marengo School.

We were thrilled to be playing our pickup game on the vast expanse of South Pasadena High School’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Field. Seeing the star player was a bonus, some days are like that. We all hoped to someday don the orange jerseys of the Tiger team. Some of us even did, but by then the jerseys were black with orange numbers etched in white.

The young man threw passes to the little kids until they were too tired to run the patterns, not that they knew what a pattern even was, beyond “go long.” One by one the kids ran fewer repetitions, except for me. I had a sense [correctly], that this was a special moment that might not come again, so I ran until finally even the star’s arm was tired.

He threw one last pass to my friend Kent, and then gathered his stuff and said,

“That’s all guys, my arm’s dead,” he said.

Hiding my disappointment over dropping his last pass to me, which was perfectly thrown and was right in my hands, I watched him go. The rest of us gathered up our things and put them on.  Who can’t run faster barefoot and shirtless? We headed for our bikes and a swim at The Plunge. The Marengo crew attended almost all of the varsity home games that year.

"Sheffer’s great,” said one of the older kids, as number 38 scored another TD.

“Yea, he sure is, and he’s a great guy too,” replied Kent.

“You know him? The kid asked.

“We sure do,” we all replied together, stretching the truth only a bit.

“Yea, member that day he threw passes to us?” Chuck said.

“Yea, that was great,” I said. And we would remember it always, even as old men.

And now all these years later I sat across from Jim at a Dennys’ in Irvine. I found him on the SP website, and after some exchange of emails, we were having breakfast. Now in his 70s, he still walks with the carriage of an athlete. We talked about that great season and a bunch of people I was really too young to have known well, but had heard of. Mike and Bill Archer, Dick Weikel, Jimmy Thompson, Ron Bauer, and Bob Clay. Jim gave credit to his line and the coaches, Ray Solari and Jim Brownfield, an example of class and humility still.

Hello, my friend - As I said, you're a gifted writer, in my estimation, anyway. Now, I say you are a very, very gifted writer! Lucky for me that we met up on the football field all those years ago, and to hear from you more recently. I like your stories and this one is very special to me and read with tears in my eyes; good ones!

I know, from Jim Brownfield, what a great coaching record you have. and I reckon that applies to your classroom teaching, too. It's interesting that we both ran the quarter mile, as it was called back then, and had the influence of Jim Brownfield in track and teaching. We are among the many that miss him.

It was a pleasure to meet you and a great pleasure to read your story, here.

Jim Sheffer