Rubber turf, state-of-the-art helmets and pads, and high-tech water machines on the field! What ever happened to grass, mud, leather helmets, and the good ole fashioned garden hose for water breaks?

Times have changed I guess, and for the better. I watched the Memorial Crusaders and Trinity High School football teams last night on their first day of skills and conditioning camp. It brought back the memories of my playing days and a little jealousy.

I watched as kickers, quarterbacks, runningbacks, punters, linemen, and receivers ran drills on the beautiful artificial turf at Memorial’s football field. I looked at my son, Brandon and his friends when they came off the field. There were no dirt and grass stains. Where’s the fun here?

They showed me their nice $175 helmets. Boy, have those shot up in 30 years. Then Brandon mentioned the thousand-dollar water distribution machine. My eyes bugged out.

I can remember having five-minute water breaks during our two-a-day practices. We would all run to one garden hose faucet on the side of an outbuilding and fill our helmets with water. Only the seniors and juniors had time to get a helmet full, then chug down along with the grass, dirt and sweat. It didn’t matter how it tasted. We just chugged it as fast as we could before it ran out the holes on the top of our helmets. Oh the good ole days. Or so we thought at that time.

Back then we were never encouraged to hydrate ourselves before practice. We didn’t bring water jugs to the field either.

The kids don’t know how well they have it now. And we didn’t know how well we had it, compared to the generation before us. I can’t imagine wearing only a leather cap on my head like they did in the mid-1900’s before plastic helmets with face masks came out.

I wonder what will change for the next generation of football players. Will they all have radio receivers in their helmets like the pro quarterbacks? Will instant replay cameras around the field determine the outcome of the games? What do you think?

-Bob Hammerstrom

Tags: artificial turf, football equipment, hydrating, instant replay