First Day of Practice -- Nasty!

Oh, God.

For some reason, I knew it was a good day to keep the cell phone on me this morning.

Today, during this cold and wet morning, our 8th graders finally took the field for the first time this season. They were all anxious as usual, strapping up and running all over the place.

After the other coach and I finally settled them down, we were set to go.

Again, I'm in charge of the backs, offensive and defensive, so after running a few drills, I decided to do a little route-running.

After running 7-yard outs and slants, I wanted to test our quarterbacks out. We went for a post pattern ... things were well until one of our best players dove for a ball across the middle.

Crunch.

That's all I heard, then came the immediate yelping. The kid's arm broke at the wrist at such an angle that I couldn't comprehend what I was looking at.

It just looked like the hand and wrist was shoved back straight off the arm bone. The bone itselt was close to sticking out the skin. He was naturally hollering, so I did my best to calm him down. My instincts kicked in like automatic -- I yelled at the other coach and told him to call an ambulance (because there was no way that we could have done anything for this) so he ran back to the school.

I forgot that I actually had my cell phone on me, so I quickly called this player's mother. All I had to do was keep the kid breathing deep breaths, settle him down, and just talk to the kid. I felt so bad -- not only was he a great player, but his season is over with from Day One.

The ambulance arrived, along with a police escort, and they stabilized his arm. It was painful for him as they were doing it, so painful in fact that he could not sit up on his own power. They put him on a body-board and hauled him off on a stretcher.

All the rest of the players were bummed, because they all knew how good this kid was. But since we've got such as great turnout for this year, we've got a lot of great players. Things will go on and we'll pick up the pieces and kick some ass -- hopefully in time for the first game on the 7th.