The Price of Gassers is High
Jeff Foley
Sunday July 9, 2000
Coach Mike Dailey blows his whistle, which has a Pavlovian effect on the Albany squad. The players involved in an eight-on-eight drill stop in mid-route or mid-block and head toward the shrill sound. Those on the sideline, many of whom are kneeling or sitting, leap to their feet and join the crowd on the field. Coach Dailey makes his way to the end zone nearest Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his troops following like he’s a modern-day Pied Piper. Offensive coordinator Ed Hodgkiss walks in the other direction, stopping at midfield.
“Gassers,” Coach Dailey calls out. “Big players first.”
Gassers are 100-yard sprints – fifty yards out, fifty yards back. The big players have sixteen seconds to run each one. Quarterbacks, fullback/linebackers and kickers have fifteen seconds. And offensive specialists, defensive specialists and wide receiver/defensive backs have fourteen seconds.
Coach Dailey blows his whistle again and the big men take off. Joe Jacobs bolts out to the front, his 280-pound frame blasting across the turf. The second group steps up to the line as the big guys reach midfield. “Thirteen … Fourteen … Fifteen,” Coach Dailey says. As he reaches sixteen, the big men rumble into the end zone, huffing and puffing, and group number two takes off.
I follow defensive specialist Evan Hlavacek to the line. The smaller players lean over and bend their arms like Olympic sprinters. “Thirteen ... Fourteen … Fifteen.”
The whistle does not sound again; each group automatically begins to run when the previous group’s time limit is up. But having never run gassers before, I didn’t know that. My group is five yards downfield before I get out of my starting stance. I struggle to catch up, watching Evan’s feet barely touch the turf. He reaches the fifty-yard line – where Hodgkiss is supervising, making sure nobody cheats – and turns around before I get to the forty-five.
It was not wise to line up next to the team’s Speedy Gonzalez. During testing, Evan clocked a 4.42 forty-yard dash on a slow, slippery surface. I clocked 5.9 seconds.
Now, I’m in trouble. It doesn’t take a genius to see that my teammates are striding, not running as hard as they can, but they’re still pulling away from me. I stumble toward the line, listening to Coach Dailey yell, “Twelve … Thirteen … Fourteen.” I’m still fifteen yards from the finish when the big men charge toward me. I feel like a quarterback under a serious pass rush. They’re four seconds downfield when I finish. I hunch over and try to catch my breath. Evan pats my shoulder pads.
“Hang in there.”
What I’d love to do is hang it up. Or at least run with the lineman. I have no business being with other wide receivers. I’d venture a guess that I’m the slowest offensive specialist to ever play in the Arena Football League. Several of my teammates have taken to calling me a secret weapon, saying that perhaps my lack of speed will be deceptive come gametime. Maybe I’m so slow, they say, that it will help me get open.
“Touch the line, Foley!” Hodgkiss screams when I turn around a few yards shy of the halfway point on the second gasser.
He sounds pissed, but I don’t care. I’m hurting. I want to rip my helmet and shoulder pads off – I’m sick of wearing them for every drill – and lay down on the turf until I die. I don’t ever want to run again. But the cheating helps. I finish in sixteen seconds, gaining a few ticks over the first rep. The worst part is seeing the big men lumber off the line again, knowing that gassers are not over until they stop running.
“How many are we doing?” I ask Evan.
“Who knows? I think we did ten once last year.”
What? Maybe I should grab my notebook and look like I’m writing stuff down. I mean, I am a writer.
One look at Coach Dailey puts that thought out of mind. I remember him saying before the start of training camp that he was going to treat me the same as every other player. No preferential treatment. He warned me that he could lose his temper and rip a notepad out of my hands, tearing it in half and tossing scraps of paper all over the field. That’s not a pleasant image.
Finally, as I hit the homestretch on the fifth gasser, I see that the big men are not lined up, not ready to go again. Instead, they’re hunched over in the rear of the end zone, breathing hard. This is it, I’m almost finished. I pump my knees as hard as I can and block out the pain that rules every joint in my body.
“Let’s go, Foley. Suck it up,” Coach Dailey yells. “Sixteen … Seventeen.”
I fall across the finish line and sprawl out in the end zone. “You almost cost us more gassers,” says one of my teammates. “Coach was gonna make us run more if you ran any slower.” I can’t tell who’s talking, but I don’t have the energy to open my eyes.
When I can breath again, I get up and limp toward the locker room. Even though I’ve been sitting on the turf for at least ten minutes, I’m not alone. Most of the skill players are in getting changed, but a few big guys join me on the walk. The locker room has never seemed so far away.
“I can’t believe I almost made us run more,” I mumble. “My teammates would have killed me.”
Apparently, I’m not talking as softly as I think. Mark Valvo pats me on the back and laughs. I almost fall over.
“So, what were you -- a second or two behind them?” the eighth-year lineman says. “They’re professional athletes. You’re doing fine. Just remember, it’s all mental. Your mind will quit long before your body will.”
I appreciate the pep talk from Valvo, but that’s not necessarily true. The next time Coach Dailey calls for gassers, my mind and body may quit at the exact same time.
Jeff Foley was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2001.
