The Hit

I didn’t see it, but I heard it from the last row of the bleachers at the exact opposite end of the field.

A hit no mother wants to hear.

I was sitting at the far end of the bleachers at Parkway North High School Friday, Aug. 26, near the end of the third quarter in a tight game with St. Louis U. High.

SLUH was lined up to punt, and near the far sideline, No. 45, 6-2, 190-pound Matt McCarthy, jumping up and down on the field ready to get in on the action. The kick, a catch, and then mayhem.

Suddenly that sound. A thwack! or maybe it was a thump! Whatever it was, it was a sound you shouldn’t hear 70 yards away and 20 rows back.

A hit, and then a gasp from the crowd. I looked up and saw a helmet flying.

I looked down and saw two players on the field, including the helmetless SLUH player on his back.

“Oh my God, that’s Matt!”

Many  events over the course of a high school football game will make a mother nervous. But two plays can make her feel it in both her heart and her stomach:  A hit hard enough to make an entire stadium gasp and a hit hard enough to send a helmet flying off a player’s head.

My heart skipped a beat. My stomach turned to mush. Suddenly there was stillness, an aura incongruous with the Friday night pep-band atmosphere so prevalent just moments before.

I  shift into Hail Mary mode, silently whispering the entire prayer without taking a breath.

HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththee..

My husband, Tom, was in front of me so I couldn’t see his face and that was probably a good thing. He was stoic, as usual. What was going through his mind? I wished he’d go over there. He’s a faculty member — he could find a reason.

But we can’t go over there. Not for our sake, for Matt’s sake. Blessedartthouamongwomenblessedisthefruitofthywomb..

We are told as parents that we will get a phone call if we need to be on the sideline. I’m watching him being helped up and walk off the field on his own, wobbly but walking.

The moments that follow are agonizing, trying to focus on the sideline across the field, watching for signs of wooziness or instability, or looking for urgency from the training staff. JesusHolyMaryMotherof Godprayforussinners

Irrational thoughts run through my head as quickly as the Hail Mary. Concussion? Whiplash? Broken bones? This could be the end of his season. This could be so much more. Nowandatthehourofourdeath.Amen.

The phone doesn’t ring. The next special teams opportunity, he’s back out on the field. He runs out there, does his job and runs back.

I’m relieved but still nervous.

The player who hit him ran off the field with his arms raised in triumph. A conquering warrior, but just for a moment. Upon coming to his own sideline he collapses to his knees and, I’m told, did not enter the game again. He was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct, a helmet-to-helmet hit resulting in a 15-yard penalty.

This is the dark undercurrent to the pep bands and the cheerleaders. A hit meant to send a message. A hit meant to hurt, a hit meant to remind everyone that football is, at its core, a violent game. That the hitter apparently ended up missing the rest of the game is poetic justice for me until I realize that somewhere in the stands, quite likely, was his mother too.

Matt would later say that he landed on his stomach, then rolled over on his back and his first thought was, “I hope I don’t have a concussion.” But then he said he was comforted by the fact that if he’s thinking that rationally that soon he probably doesn’t have one. Later, he will watch the game film and see it 11 times before he goes to bed that night, in between answering numerous texts and Facebook queries on his health.

He makes me promise not to ask to see the game film. That’s an easy one. The pictures, provided here by photographer Nancy Winkelmann, are bad enough.

“You were bleeding, too?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, “the helmet must have cut me when it came off.”

Cue the maternal stomach acid.

SLUH would fight back in the game and tie the score with under 3 minutes remaining, his teammates perhaps inspired by Matt’s toughness. I’d like to think so anyway. Matt’s team would lose the game on a last-second field goal but there are many games left. Matt will be out there again.

HailMaryfullofgrace…