Self-Tackle-I-Zation

Sometimes plain old English just won’t do. Sometimes exaggeration is better. An exaggerated description of a touchdown that never happened many years ago has stuck in my mind ever since.

It was a soft October night and the winking lights of cotton harvesters could be seen in all directions as farmers hustled to finish gathering the crop before the rains came. Parked on the edge of a field, I sat in my pickup, listening to the distant groans of laboring machines, and savoring that unique, sweet fragrance of open cotton, the likes of which there is no other in nature. I flipped on the radio, rotated the dial, and picked up a local football game. The Wildcats were ahead of the Tigers by only three points late in the fourth quarter. It was fierce combat, and the young warriors were battling their hearts out. The winning team would advance to the playoffs. The game was interesting, but what really attracted my attention was the announcer. No doubt he was just an ordinary working stiff like me, volunteering time to call games, but this guy had all the hypnotic charisma of a carnival huckster, used car salesman and tent revivalist rolled into one. The tenseness in his voice, the blare of high school bands and the crowd’s roar combined for a symphony of Deep South Friday night football cacophony.

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Sometimes plain old English just won’t do. Sometimes, as Mark Twain once observed, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. The announcer knew this, and convinced the whole world was listening, he was doing his absolute best to use just the exact right word at just the exact right moment. “Whoo, whee, folks, this is the biggest game of the season. In all the years these two teams have battled each other, the ’Cats have never clawed the Tigers, but unless a miracle happens in the next thirty seconds, you will witness history in the making! “It’s fourth and long, the Tigers are in their final huddle, the ball is on their own forty yard line, and Coach Strong has just sent in the most important play of his career.” The radio grew eerily quiet. No bands, no shouts, just faint static. Taut as a banjo string, I fumbled for the radio knob, praying that I had not lost the station. Then, in a sotto voce whisper, the announcer continued. “Heeeere we go, folks. The moment of truth is at hand. The Tigers are out of the huddle … the clock is running … the quarterback is ready for the snap … the players are head to head and toe to toe in the fight of their lives.”
 Suddenly he shrieked, “It’s a reverse! My God! The ’Cats fell for it! Watson is wide open and streaking down the sidelines. He’s at the fifty, the forty, the thirty, the ten, #-e-e’s g-o-i-n-g to … OH NO! He fell victim to self-tackle-i-zation!”