Cy's Top Five Embarrasing Football Moments

[Cy the Cyclone]

Talk to anybody who has played football at any level and they will be able to come up with at least a few amusing and embarrassing stories about their time on and off the field. For your amusement and amazement I have, with the help of a couple of friends and a 12 pack of Miller Light, compiled a list of Cy’s Top 5 Career Embarrassing Football Highlights.

 

#5 – 1981 Iowa State vs Iowa – After suffering through a freshman year of being run over by the 1’s and 2’s for an entire season in practice, I got my big break as a sophomore and was put on the kick return team. Though I convinced myself I was there because my great hands made me the perfect defense against squib and onside kicks, I’m pretty sure it was because we had a shortage of expendable big, dumb guys that didn’t mind getting plowed into the ground on a frequent basis. Since I was a little faster than the other big, dumb guys and, let’s face it, maybe even a wee bit dumber, I ended up being the #2 man in the wedge. For those of you not familiar with how the wedge works on a kick return, let me give you an overview...you stand on the field until the ball is kicked. Once it’s kicked, you and the other three or four other suicidal bozos that comprise the wedge, immediately begin to converge to a location approximately 10 yards forward of where the ball will be caught. In theory, this means you run laterally and backwards while all the time trying to keep your eye on where the ball is in the air until you come to the correct spot to form a protective wall in front of the kick returner. In real life, as soon as the ball was kicked, everybody just turned and ran back to about the 10 yard line and then looked up to see where the return guy was…and if he was way to the left or the right, he was pretty much screwed unless he managed to get over to where we were forming his “protective wall” because we sure as hell weren’t running over there... Once the ball is caught, the guys in the wedge have enough time to turn and maybe take two steps forward before being hit at full speed by every psychopathic member of the other team that their coaches deemed as dangerous to themselves and others but perfectly fine for kick coverage. I believe Charles Manson was once a “wedge buster” If you want to get an idea of what being a part of the wedge is like, go out to I-80 with three of your closest friends and jump in front of the next Toyota that comes down the road…it’s like trying to stop a bullet with a 2x4.

 

1981 started out just fine for Cy. We won our first game against Texas something or other (yes…the schedules were just as difficult back then as they are now) and then we took the field against the mighty Iowa Hawkeyes. We didn’t know it at the time but this was going to be their Rose Bowl year. All I knew then was that the Hawkeyes sucked (some things never change) and all their players were scum…and stupid and they smelled bad…and Hayden Fry was an idiot who talked funny Ah…good old football mental conditioning. Anyway, it was THE big game for ISU and for Cy…it was Cy’s first chance to show off his athletic prowess on TV! Opening kickoff was pretty normal…got plowed into the ground by some maniac…as usual. After the one Iowa touchdown me and my fellow expendable idiots went in to receive the kick. Their guy kicks it. We run to our usual place, turn and become…the formidable ISU wedge! We turn as one and…right in front of us, about 10 yards down field, is the idiot back judge. What he was doing there and how he got there…didn’t matter. Group hysteria overcame us. Our sole purpose at that moment in time was no longer to block for Tommy Davis but, instead, to kill the hapless back judge who had sadly found himself between us and a plethora of wedge busting sociopaths (in other words, your typical Iowa Hawkeye player). We ran that poor old guy down like a possum in the road. The guy was literally flattened. After the play, the guy laid there like he was dead and our trainers all came out to scrape him off the turf. Me and a couple of other guys walked over to take a closer look, having never seen a corpse before…guy looked kind of out-of-shape and chubby but at least he sat up before they shoed us away so I didn’t have to worry about any criminal charges or nothing. I saw his hat laying about twenty yards downfield (where his head had apparently stopped rolling) so I went and picked it up and brought it over to the group of people trying to get him going again. He was on his feet by then so I gave him his hat.

 

“Here’s your hat…it was way over there” I said, pointing toward the horizon

 

“Thanks you f*cking A-hole. …and thanks for trying to kill me you stupid sh*t! Takes a pretty tough f*cker to run over an old man don’t it? What’s your number? I’ll remember your number you A-hole…you can count on that!”

 

All the time he’s yelling at me, he’s poking me in the chest with his finger…in front of everybody, including the TV audience (where are those erectile dysfunction commercials when you need them!). Of course everybody on the sidelines was just rolling. Even Coach Duncan was laughing, that’s how loud the guy was yelling…They might have thought it was funny but I pretty embarrassed about running over the old timer. I kind of steered clear of him the rest of the game and, since he was a Big 10 guy, I don’t think I ever saw him again. Worst part was my mother calling on Sunday and leaving a message with my roommate that she was very disappointed in my behavior and I wasn’t so big that my dad couldn’t put me over his knee and beat my butt with a board if I didn’t show more respect for the officials. Took about two seconds for that one to get around the locker room….

 

Was one of the best hits I had all season though...

[topekahusker]

Cy, love your writing style and the ranking you did on the Big XII venues

[DJR313]

 

Charles Manson as a wedge buster, gad that was hilarious. Great story Cy!

[CENTEXHUSKER]

I believe Charles Manson was once a “wedge buster” If you want to get an idea of what being a part of the wedge is like, go out to I-80 with three of your closest friends and jump in front of the next Toyota that comes down the road…it’s like trying to stop a bullet with a 2x4.

 

ROFLMAO, seriously

[SkullandBones]

HI f*&$king larious Cy. I met a guy who was a former 'clone DE working as a bar tender/bouncer/don't do anything f*&$king stupid here at a place in KC called the quaf, he was a bit of a comedian too.