Sidelines
WHAT is he doing here? It's what you want to ask Jared Flint. Why does he need this, holding for extra points (if he's lucky) on a team with a field that's too small, with walls for sidelines and players catching footballs bouncing off nets. Determined Flint not
pau with footballIt seemed like just yesterday he was with the real thing, up with the big boys. He was with Hawaii on that magical run, sprinting into the celebrations at midfield under the lights, dancing in the man-made rain after a magical thrashing of BYU.
But now Flint is here, with the Hawaiian Islanders. Hanging on, grasping as if for dear life, the last of the sands of his football hourglass slipping through his fingers as a backup quarterback in the all-lowercase arenafootball2. And you wonder, does he ever stand there, helmet in hand, watching these games in that hockey-player bench behind the walls and just say to himself, What am I doing here?
But something holds you back when you go to ask the question. Maybe it's the look in his eyes, or the way he appears absolutely at home, back in a football uniform again, like it all feels just right.
But he figures out what you're trying to say, because he has asked himself, too, why he's still playing. He's looked deep into his own heart, and no one knows this answer better than he does.
"From my standpoint," he says, "I need a conclusion."
And so he squeezes his gangly body into airplane seats for trips into football's backwater world. He waits, for his chance to get on the field, to play again, to dodge defenders and throw passes and breathlessly call plays with a huddle of guys in helmets around him.
He needs a conclusion. He didn't want it to end on the bench.
He'd beaten them all out, that spring heading into 2000, he was better than Rolo, more ready than Chang. But his shoulder was shot and it wouldn't get better and he hasn't been the same since.
Flint took it well. On the sidelines, nobody smiled more. He was everybody's friend, a part of every victory. But it was hard, and it still is.
It just couldn't end that way. He didn't want it to end never quite knowing what he could have done.
And you get it now, because football just doesn't let go of you, not even when you think you've left it long behind. It hasn't let go of Flint yet, not the way his career went, and all he wants now is a chance to play, to just play, just a little longer.
He says his arm is better. He says it's 100 percent.
He says the Texans were in touch, the NFL Texans, but it didn't work out, and here he is, savoring the last sands of his football hourglass. He just needs time, he says, time to get his touch back, time to get his game back.
And you watch him, watching them, at home in that football uniform, hungering for his chance to get back in the middle of the action just one more time.
And you get it.
You tell him to keep playing, because when you pau, you pau, and his eyes flash and he nods vigorously, because he knows this. He knows, but he's not pau yet.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com