My second to last high school football game was the single best half of football I played in my high school or college career. We were playing one of our more heated rivals on their field.
As a defensive back, one of my favorite plays called for a corner blitz – we ran it three times. Two quarterback sacks, and a tackle for a loss left our rivals in a pretty deep hole. Of the eight passes the QB was able to throw, I intercepted two and my teammates grabbed two more. On his way to the locker room for halftime, he blew a kiss to his girlfriend… I’m pretty sure we picked that off too.
The starters sat most of the second half. We didn’t blitz on defense, or pass the ball on offense, but the final score was still 57 – 6. Did I mention that it was their Homecoming Weekend? Yeah, it was a pretty severe beatdown.
I hadn’t thought about that day or that quarterback in a very long time. When I walked into what I hoped would be the last meeting to ink a potential client, I still hadn’t thought about that day. When I was introduced to their attorney, neither his name nor face rang any bells for me.
I went through my entire presentation, explained the myriad ways that I could help them launch a more successful restaurant. As the attorney asked what my hometown was, I assumed it was just a question about my local ties to the restaurant community. When he asked about my high school, I assumed that our paths must have crossed somewhere.
When he asked me if I played football, I was still unclear about where the conversation was headed. He finally told me about that day, told me that we “beat [them] like a drum.” When he concluded with “we’ll call you,” I was pretty sure that call would be incomplete.
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