'I Never Saw Him'

The team has just kicked a field goal to take a one-point lead early in the fourth quarter. The team has the ball on its own 43, third down with five yards to go. The quarterback of the team takes the snap, looks downfield, sees pursuit coming from the left, dodges right, but is dumped for a nine-yard loss. The punting unit trots on the field.

"All I was thinking about was just to get it off quickly. Our kicking coach and I had just been talking about it: we're deep in our own territory, so let's just get it out of there. It doesn't matter if it's a good punt or a bad punt or what."

The punter is standing on his own 24-yd. line waiting for the snap. It comes and it is a good one, and the punter catches the ball and rotates it once so the laces are on top. But as he is dropping the ball out in front of his foot, a player breaks through the line of bodies protecting the punter and sprints toward him, arms extended. The punter drops the ball and kicks it. The player in white dives. It is clear that the ball and the player in white are going to collide.

"The snap was perfect. I didn't look up because all I could think about was getting it off quickly. I kicked it, and I knew it was blocked right away--I mean, I heard the thud. I couldn't believe it because I've never had one blocked before."

The ball hits the turf and careens toward the end zone. It bounces at the ten or so, then the eight, and then starts rolling--in that bumpy, head over heels way that only footballs roll--closer and closer to the goal line.

"As soon as he blocked it I turned and ran toward the end zone, but that guy--McMahon, I guess his name is--had already gotten to the ball. I tried to catch him, but he was in the end zone, he just kind of rolled in for the score...I don't know how the whole thing happened, I never saw the guy coming. But it was the turning point of the game; I mean, we had all the momentum, and then it was gone."

Somebody in the press box called it justice. Earlier, he said, we had blocked one of their punts and recovered the ball for a touchdown. Now, they had done it to us. That made it even. Fair and square.

But it wasn' justice. The team never came back from the blocked punt, and soon it was down by two touchdowns and the game was almost over. One team had three quarters to recover from the misfortune, the other had three minutes. Needless to say, it didn't happen.

"I had seen Joe Azelby's block in the first quarter and I couldn't believe it. You could see it was going to happen, he just shot right through. I guess this one must have looked like that one a little."