The Game by George Howe Colt

Author:George Howe Colt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

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IX

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Most Determined Guy Out There

On the rare occasions he was mentioned in the sports pages, Joseph Philip “J.P.” Goldsmith was invariably described as “studious-looking.” That was how sportswriters described any athlete who wore glasses, but, in fact, Yale’s starting safety wasn’t the likeliest of football players. He lacked the easy grace of a Dowling or a Hill. (In one of his “action” publicity photos, he looked as if he were attempting an original and painful midair version of the twist.) He wasn’t a punishing hitter. (“I would negotiate the runner to the ground,” Goldsmith recalled.) But the six-foot, 185-pound defensive back was a sure open-field tackler who was rarely fooled. He was almost always in the right place at the right time. He recognized his limits. He knew it wasn’t his job to make the big play that won the game; it was his job not to give up the big play that lost the game, his job not to embarrass himself. In practice, he worked as hard as or harder than anyone else. He knew he had to, just to keep his place on the team. That’s the way he went through life, on the field and in the classroom. (The studious-looking Goldsmith was studious.) “Most Determined Guy Out There” was the headline on his Yale Daily News profile. Goldsmith had always been the most determined guy out there, ever since he’d gone out for the Bellevue Park Pee Wee football team in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a skinny little kid with thick black glasses, desperate to prove he was one of the guys.

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Goldsmith’s maternal grandparents had met halfway across the Atlantic, on the boat that brought them from Minsk to Ellis Island. His paternal grandmother had emigrated from Germany; five older siblings who stayed behind died in the Holocaust. J.P. was the only Jew in his high school graduating class of 370. “If anyone gives you any trouble because you’re Jewish, let me know,” his well-meaning Little League coach told him. No one ever did, but like most skinny little kids with glasses, Goldsmith had always felt different. He longed to have a flat top—the kind of crew cut the cool kids had, in which, with the aid of butch wax, the hair on top stood up straight—but no matter what he did to encourage it, his hair reverted to an unruly curl. He longed to hold his own in playground fights, but once his glasses got knocked off he could hardly see. He longed to be less nervous around girls, but in their presence he couldn’t think of anything to say. Deep down, he worried that he wasn’t brave enough, tough enough, man enough.

When Goldsmith started playing football, in the sixth grade, he was terrified. But he found out that when he got hit, he didn’t die. He learned how to tackle. He learned how to get knocked down and then stand up and get knocked down again. Football was a way of proving himself to himself, and to everyone else.

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