One Brief Shining Moment, by Eric Smith

In the ninth grade intramural football championship, our quarterback counted signals in an idiosyncratic way. He shouted a list of pie flavors. He always told the center to hike the ball on the second “co” in coconut pie. Usually he threw only to the good players. But toward game’s end, he lobbed the ball to me in the flat. I had short legs so could immediately reach full speed. Two major studs gave pursuit, but I outran them the length of the field to score a touchdown. That was in 1962. I never scored in a major football game again.