Page 11 - LIfesOuttakes2

Lloyd’s head and hung the whistle around his neck, then the head coach stepped forward to address us. “Gentlemen,” he said, grinning, “we are placing Lloyd in charge of conditioning.” Then, turning to Lloyd, he continued. “Lloyd, run them through up-downs.” I don’t know anyone but a masochist that enjoys conditioning, but up-downs is the worst drill of all. The coach blows two blasts on his whistle, and we start running in place. With each subsequent whistle we have to hit the ground with our chest and pop right back up running, continuing on until two quick signals are sounded. Running in place was tiring, but hitting the ground and coming back up was absolutely grueling. A dozen times in any session was more than enough, but Lloyd loved his whistle, and he especially loved to blow it. He ran us equivalent to the distance from New York to Los Angeles, making us hit the ground at every whistle stop in between. He kept it up until most of the team was imbedded too far into the grass to rise again. He enjoyed his position of authority, and would yell what he had heard from the coaches. “You bunch of wimps. My grandmother could do better, and she’s dead!” We didn’t hate Lloyd, for it was impossible not to 6