Frankie in Mentone, Alabama: "Football"
TEENAGE DIARIES
Produced by: Joe Richman
All Things Considered (NPR)
04/07/97




LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: This is All Things Considered, Iím Linda Wertheimer.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And Iím Robert Siegel. As part of our series, Teenage Diaries, producer Joe Richman has been giving tape recorders to young people around the country to document their lives. Last spring we met 17-year old Frankie Luwchuk. Frankie lives with his parents, his brother and two sisters in Mentone, Alabama. Mentone is a small town on Lookout Mountain, part of the southern Appalachians. Frankie has sent us another audio diary, a record of the past four months playing football with the Valley Head Tigers. This is Frankieís story.


(dog barks)

FRANKIE: It is uh Wednesday at about 6:30. I just got home from football practice. (sighs deeply) Iím tired and best go get me a shower. (person yells, dog barks)
Tell him to call me back and ask who it is. Excuse me, that was the telephone ringing. Sorry about that. (laughs) Girls call my house all the time.

FATHER: You lie like a rug, brother.

FRANKIE: You donít know, Dad. Shut up. (laughs) He come in here and say, boy you lie. He donít know. And anyways, like I was saying. What was I saying to you here. Oh. Our teamís called the Valley Head Tigers. Weíre purple and gold. And hereís some pictures of our team. Thatís me, right in the middle of everybody, number 44. When I first got to Valley Head, in the seventh grade, I was real little, probably weighed 75 pounds. Everybody used to pick on me all the time. You know. They picked on me and beat the crap out of me everyday. People always used to make fun of me and do this and do that. Then one day, my ninth grade year, I decided to play football. Went out and I was good, and theyís like, whoís this boy, where did he come from? Yeah, footballís the main sport in school. You got all these people coming to watch you and cheering your name in the crowd. At school, I canít go out in the hall without somebody touching me and saying, hey Frankie, good luck tonight. I mean itís just crazy. I canít believe everybody likes me as much as they do. Itís like the old me is dead and then I was born again or something.

FATHER: Tigers are gonna knock ëem, rock ëem, sock ëem. (Frankie laughs) Kill ëem! Go get ëem 44.

(laughs)

FRANKIE: Dad, donít embarrass me.

(guitar strums)

FATHER: Are you ready?

(sistersí voices answer, acoustic guitar music begins)

FRANKIE: He's just sitting on the porch, playing his guitar, and we started singing and I was laughing my head off.

FATHER: (sings, while sisters clap and cheer along) Are you ready for some football? Way down in Alabam...

(music fades to soft)

FRANKIE: My dad, he never did anything - you know - that was good in high school. He quitted school and never graduated. His dad quit and his dad before quit, and Iíll be the first Luwchuk on my dadís side of the family to ever graduate from high school. And so heís kind of proud of me.

(music comes up)

FATHER: (sings and plays guitar, while sisters clap along and yell cheers) Singing: And you got Frankie Luwchuk. Heís number 44. If you mess with that man, heís gonna blow you out the door. Well the Tigers, the mighty Tigers, they're from Valley Head.

(Sisters cheering and clapping)

FATHER: Whoo! Thatís good girls.

(single guitar chord, music fades out)

(sound of marching band playing Rocky theme fades in, crowd noises)

FRANKIE: As soon as you step and see that football field it all changes. Itís like I donít know how to explain the feeling, but you ainít nervous no more, you're ready to just go do it.

(crowd screams, announcerís voice over the p.a. system, cowbells ring)

FRANKIE: This year Iím playing tailback, Iím running the football. On defense Iím playing inside linebacker again.

(whistle blows)

WOMAN: Letís go Tigers! Go tigers!

FRANKIE: And I mean Fife was good. I was like, oh gosh. And right about two minutes before half-time in the second quarter, it was still 6 to nothing, and I was like, Hey guys, (whistle blows) yíall keep those heads up, we can play with these guys, we can beat Fife. I mean we were all fired up and thought we could beat ëem. Well, they beat us 34 to nothing. They shut us out.

(Marching band plays Rocky theme)

FRANKIE: I mean, itís just the first game, we got 9 more to go.

(music fades out)

FRANKIE: In English class thereís this poster of a kid running the football, and it says, the power to win must come from within. And every day I walk in class and read that over and over. And every day I walk in there and look at it and think, thatís me running the ball and Iíll drift off into football land, like Iím watching a movie in my head of the football game. I mean Iím failing that class right now cause Iím in football land every day. And sheíll walk over and go: "Frankie! Get out of football land." In front of everybody. We got our first report card, and Iím not a good grade student, but this six weeks, I only had two Dís, I had a 65 and a 67, which, a 67ís a high D, which Iím gonna do better, Iím gonna try not to have any Dís. Just that when during football season, itís hard to concentrate on your grades when you practice til dark, and get home tired, sweaty, donít feel like doing your homework.

(school bell rings)

COACH BROWN: Letís go. Get in here, weíre gonna work today.

(some groans)

FRANKIE: Itís already been a few weeks since I talked to you. I been real real busy. I donít know, itís just been rough rough week, you know. (sighs) Itís just been a rough season. Four games in a row we got shut out. The second game we got killed 30-somethiní to nothiní. Third game 28 to nothiní against Sand Rock. Fourth game we got Cedar Bluff, they beat us 35 to nothing. I mean, I hate losin, I mean I hate losin, but it builds you up in character and it makes you a better person. Our coach told us that. So I donít know, I guess heís talking about even if we get beat and weíre still playing it makes us a better person. I donít know what he meant by that, heís the one that said that.

COACH BROWN: Anybody, can beat anybody else in a given game, when you believe you got a chance to win and you donít give up, youíre right.

FRANKIE: Coach Brown, well he, heís a monster. (chuckles) I donít mean fat or anything, heís just really muscular and tall. Got blond hair, heís kind of red complected. He talks with a loud voice cause I think he canít hear in one ear, and when he talks to you itís loud.

COACH BROWN: You get up there and you got to have your heads up tightends. And their corners are not as good as ours, their safetyís not as good as ours. Theyíre not, theyíre not, Iím telling you right now.

FRANKIE: Coach Brown said, everybody can be beaten on a certain day. And at the end he wrote, No more excuses, and everybody read that. No more excuses.

FOOTBALL TEAM: (prays) Our father who art in heaven, hallow be thy name, thy kingdom come, (fades) thy work be done on earth as it is in heaven.

FRANKIE: We get in our circle, hold hands and say a prayer. And we go out and we play.

COACH BROWN: Letís go!

(whistle blows, crowd sounds)

JOHNNY: Itís a cold, cold night over here in Section Alabama. (announcer voice, some cheers) Letís go Valley Head. And here we go. The ball goes to number 24, shakes and he picks it up. Heís got blockers. Oh, and he gets smothered at about 30.

(girls cheer)

FRANKIE: My brother Johnny, he did one game play by play, talked just like on the radio.

JOHNNY: Section goes for a pass, oh and itís deflected by the Tigers. (cheers) So the Tigers have forced Section to punt.

FRANKIE: Last four minutes in the game, and the ball got kicked to me and I picked it up, I busted outside and I ran back up, an 83-yard touchdown.

(cheers and screams)

FRANKIE: And thatís my first touchdown I ever scored. And the crowd was hollerin like we just won the national championship, and we were too. We won our first game.

(cheers, claps, some marching band in distance)

FRANKIE: On the way back home on the bus, we was going through the middle of town, and then me and my friend Josh Shelton, heís a preacherís son too, he stuck his behind out the window and mooned somebody. And then I did it with him. And little did we know the next day we got called to the office to talk to the principal, the principal was sitting through the Crystalís Drive-thru there and seen us with our butts out the window.

MOTHER: You want to see the video.

FRANKIE: Yeah, put it in mama.

MOTHER: Youíve watched it about 20 times, the football games.

(some voices, high-pitched sound of video tape machine)

FRANKIE: Every game my mom brings our camcorder, every game she does. That way even when I get home I can watch it. And I betcha I watched it for two hours. I just kept rewinding it and watching it, kept rewinding it and watching it, like yeah, there I am mama, look.

(high-pitched sound from video)

FRANKIE: I stop and cut up right here. One man to beat. Touchdown.

(hear screams from video, mother laughs)

MOTHER: Sounds like I was ready to cry, I was so happy.

FRANKIE: Man I love that play, I could watch it a thousand times.

MOTHER: What did they say to you about me when I was?

FRANKIE: Said you did cartwheels and jumped 10 feet in the air.

MOTHER: I did. I ran up and down the bleachers and was flipping out, I was really happy. That was uh.

FRANKIE: First game that we scored in.

MOTHER: Yeah, thatís what I thought it was.

FRANKIE: All season.

FRANKIE: This year, me and my mom, our relationshipís changed completely. I mean she got liking football, itís brought us closer together.

(video sound fades out)

FRANKIE: That game we won was a area game, and you play three area games a year. We play Cedar Bluff, Galesville and Collinsville. If you win two out of the three you go to the state playoffs. So if you win, you go to the playoffs. Last year we didnít win any of our area games, so I donít know what itís like to go to the playoffs. Weíll get to take a big chartered bus down state in Alabama. You know, one thatís got them reclinable seats and tvís and bathrooms in it. Weíll be in one of those things. So, yeah, this is the most important game of the whole season right here. I mean, itís all on the line.

(Marching band plays National Anthem)

FRANKIE: We had to play Collinsville, and theyíre picked, theyíre picked to beat us by two touchdowns in the paper. So we come out, fired up, ready to play as serious as can be.

(Music ends, cheers, claps)

FRANKIE: We go in and play good with them all the way to the fourth quarter.

(cheers)

FRANKIE: One quarter to go and itís eight to eight. Best game we played all year. The most exciting game. And Collinsvilleís got the ball with three minutes left to go. And we were getting tired.

(cheers)

FRANKIE: And they drove down with like 30 seconds left in the game. Then, Collinsville scores on us.

(Football horn blows, cheers, groans, announcer)

FRANKIE: Thatís it, they beat us. I was crying my eyes out. And Mark was sitting over there, heís bawling. I seen one of the seniors bawling. Josh Shelton was bawling his eyes out. So thatís how close a game we played being in the state playoffs.

COACH BROWN: We did a good job of that. Uh, and, you know, we lost, but you did some real good things. You canít ask for any better than that.

FRANKIE: Coach Brown, he told us we played our hearts out. He said, all this getting down, we shouldnít be getting down, but he understands how we feel cause heís been in our position before. He told us, he just told us that he feels sorry for the guys that ainít gonna be there next year, because next year he said heíll guarantee weíre gonna be in the state playoffs. He tells us that heís proud of all the seniors that came out, and he said that for two hours. (laughs) I mean: 'I want to say one more time that Iím glad the seniors came out', and then heíd say, I want to say one more time the seniors this. Iím like, come on coach, I just want to go home, forget about the season.

(voice of Coach Brown, fades out)

FRANKIE: This football season went by so fast, I canít believe it. Goes by quicker than you think. I mean I donít even want to graduate next year. Iím only in eleventh grade, and Iím already thinking about that last game next year, when I walk out on that field the last game of the season. Them two quarters will be the most hardest Iíve ever played. And after the game, Iíll probably just go out to the 50 yard line, Iíll probably be the last one off the field. Just to sit there and think, well this is it for Valley Head.

(guitar strums)

SISTER: Thereís another verse.

FATHER: Are you ready?

SISTERS: (singing along with guitar)

FRANKIE: Next year Iím gonna play my hardest every game. Maybe turn things around. You know, cause all these years I played basketball when I was little and baseball, and football and never been on a winning team, but all that losingís gonna pay off. Next yearís gonna be the season for Valley Head.

(Guitar music comes in)

FATHER: (sings, with sisters clapping and singing along) Are you ready for some football? Way down in Alabam...

ROBERT SIEGEL: Our story was written and recorded by 17-year old Frankie Lewchuk and produced by Joe Richman for the series Teenage Diaries.

(Music continues)

FATHER: (sings) We gonna rock ëem, shock ëem, knock ëem, kill ëem, thatís what weíre gonna do. We are the Tigers, the mighty Tigers. Woo-hoo. We got Frankie Lewchuk, heís number 44, if you mess with that man, heís gonna blow you out the door, the back door that is, he got Coach Brown, Kyle Freeman, Chad Mosher, woo thatís the Tigers. The only Tigers, the mighty Tigers, from Valley Head, looky hear.



© 1997, Joe Richman