Dear Mr. Malcolm,
It was a few years ago I reconnected with your son on LinkedIn and found out you had written a piece about me in your book Huddle: Fathers, Sons and Football. Up until that point, I only knew you as Spencer’s dad. I ordered the book that night with a good idea of what you had written about during our brief time together. You ended our segment with “I hope he still carries that football memory around, Obviously, I do.” I can assure you, it is one the best memories I have from my childhood. One that still sticks with me.
For the most part, our memories of that fateful day are exactly the same. I was 12 and pre-pre-pubescent. It was that awkward time in middle school where some of the other “boys” were 6’3,” 200+ pounds and had hairy chests (I’m 44 now and still can’t grow a beard). You described the guy I was going against on kick-off as two or three feet taller and from my recollection, you probably weren’t too far off. With each touchdown we scored, I rejoiced and cringed, knowing that I was going to have to go back out there and face “Red #55” (I can still see him standing there in his jersey til this day). The last thing I ever wanted to do was let my team down, but the head-on collisions were starting to take a toll on me.
I was frustrated, dazed and upset when you came over. I remember wanting to ignore you. I was ashamed that you had witnessed my beating, time and time again. However, I knew what I was doing was no longer working for me. I still have a vivid memory of that last kick-off: Running full steam ahead and thinking about what you had instructed me to do. With in seconds of impact, he dove at me, I stepped to the side and then watched him go flying by. I was so excited that it worked I never even looked to see where I was running. By the time I turned my head around, the ball carrier was just about to pass me by. I stuck out my arm and like a scripted WWE PPV event, I clotheslined him. We both went flying into the air and onto our backs. What I remember most about that day is running to the sideline with everyone congratulating me, and trying to find you. It was probably my greatest childhood victory thanks to you. Thank You.
I would go on to start at right guard and a few games at middle linebacker, my senior year of high school. I even played a year in college before transferring to the University of Arizona where I fell in love with the game of rugby. I’m married with two kids now and have made it a priority to attend all their sporting events. I followed you on twitter for a while after finding out who you were and you followed me back. I am neither democrat nor republican. Similar to hiring employees, I don’t judge candidates by their political party but who they are as a person, their qualifications, their intelligence and what I believe their “best interest” is. Our twitter relationship all ended when you retweeted this from one of your followers in December:
I think I responded with “Yeah let’s all do a line off of Bernie’s ass!” Not my proudest moment, but I assumed the (Snort) was referring to snorting coke in the 80’s (something I’ve never tried) and making fun of those who are less fortunate, something I can’t help but take personally.
There is one thing in your book I do disagree with. You described my parents view on football practices and games as “baby-sitting activities” for me since you never saw them. Trust me, there was no babysitting involved. My mom was 19 and my dad was 20 when they had me (I have an older and younger brother btw). I was born in Korea as my dad awaited deployment for Viet Nam. He was the first in his family to graduate college thanks to the GI Bill. Shortly before my parents divorced, my parents bought the worst house in the nicest neighborhood we could afford. When I was 12 (during the time we met), my mom was working weekends as a bank teller and I had a part-time job as a custodian at a local restaurant so I didn’t have to get a school sponsored lunch punch card. If I wanted to attend summer camp for football, I had to pay for it and that’s what I did. I’ve been working nearly non-stop ever since. It’s my work ethic and ability to take a beating and get back up that has propelled me in life. My parents were involved in our lives as much as they could. Although they couldn’t afford to give us everything we wanted, they always gave us what we needed.
America is not “Red vs. Blue” to me and it was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that you are one of the people dividing our great nation. I have no doubt that if Trump was a democrat you’d be writing about what a fraud and awful human being he is. Regardless of your political views, you will always have a special place in my heart Mr. Malcolm and that will never change. I just hope someday you will choose to use your power to unite this country instead of continuing to divide it.