third down back

my brother, who is in all ways the wiser and more together of the two of us, has a habit of coining truly exceptional metaphors for his experiences. i, inevitably, steal these and pawn them off as my own in an attempt to seem erudite and clever. sometimes it even works...i'm a great liar.

anyway, my brother is also a teacher. his circumstances are a bit different: teaches elementary school, lives in arizona, got there by way of teach for america. regardless, he and i enjoy slinging stories back and forth about our respective students and schools.

in one such conversation, he casually mentioned that what he is is a "third down back."

for those of you unfamiliar with football, the third down back is a running back whose job it is to gain whatever yardage necessary, by whatever means, so that the team does not have to punt the ball away on fourth down and lose possession of the ball.

this is a clutch job, often one in which the odds, yardage, size of the opposing team's defensive line, and a history of injuries can make covering those remaining yards seem nearly impossible. if the back does his job, he might make it. if he's great he might pull it off 6/10 times he tries. even then, it's not likely to be pretty.

this is what my brother was saying about what we do every day.

we are third down backs.

the odds and yards are long, the defensive lineup makes us look like leprechauns, and we are all playing injured...but we need to cross the first down marker, otherwise we have to punt.

punting is unacceptable.

the metaphor seems pretty clear, so i'll not waste your time with my indelicate explanation, but i really find the image powerful.

stakes are high, and just being "great" is not good enough.

time to start running suicide sprints and working on my speed off the line, there's a lot of yardage to gain before the end of june.

--mr. november