The Myth of the Golden Domes

                               A SHORT STORY

                                 The Myth of the Golden Domes

                                                By JAMES OTT

     Jack Delaney absorbed the secure feel of soft, cushioned leather around his head. The all-leather football helmet felt part of his body.

     A self-proclaimed stick-in-the-mud, Jack was guarded about the trend of high school teams replacing leather headgear with hard, plastic helmets. He thought the new helmets resembled globular headgear worn by spacemen on TV’s “Captain Video.” His resistance had reason on its side. He foresaw players using hard helmets like battering rams. Furthermore, a teacher at Bishop Harding Catholic High School sparked his thinking when he said, “Plastic is the gold of our 1950’s throwaway culture.”

     Jack did not dread the coming of the plastic helmet. He liked the one he had. On this day, his helmet was too tight. He took it off and loosened the chin strap, easing the stress. Examining the interior padding, he sniffed at years of sweat soaked and dried into the oiled leather. The aroma viscerally embodied the game of football.  

    On the practice field, the Harding varsity eleven advanced to the scrimmage line against the smaller junior varsity team. Quarterback Barkley Bennett looked to the right and left. Linemen hunkered down in position, Jack an end on the far right. They awaited the signal, “thirty-two,” that would launch the drive. On hearing it, Jack cut to the left and was behind linebackers when he snared Barkley’s pass. He dodged a defender and scooted past the goal line for a touchdown.

   Barkley’s face broke into a triumphant smile. He joined Jack walking toward the locker room. He shoved Jack on the shoulder. 

  “Good catch,” he said.

  “Yeh, thanks. Nice throw.”

  “I hear we’re getting new helmets, from Notre Dame. They’re coming Saturday just in time for the big game.”

  “Are they rejects?”

  “Absolutely not,” Barkley said, incredulous at Jack’s cynicism. “They were used by the Irish traveling squad. Maybe they are a few years old. Least that’s what Coach Brogan said.”

  “That’ll be neat.”

  “I can’t wait. Somebody said the Notre Dame helmets have a layer of gold leaf.”

   Jack hung his gear in the locker. The leather helmet proudly occupied a ledge at the top level.

   For two days Jack speculated about the impending change. In the least he hoped he would be able to keep his leather helmet. 

    Saturday morning came quickly. In the locker room Coach Brogan said, “You know I am a fan of that school in Indiana, its traditions, the golden dome, and football. My favorite movie is Knute Rockne, All-American. Ronald Reagan plays George Gipp. He’s in the hospital and asks Coach Rockne to tell his teammates, ‘Win one for the Gipper.’”

   A freshman called out, “Who the hell is the Gipper?”

   His question was met with a chorus:

    “Aw! Don’t you ever go to the movies?”

    Catcalls died down when Coach Brogan resumed talking.

    “Here’s how this came about. My friend, Joe Sullivan, on the Irish coaching staff, told me about a surplus of helmets. He didn’t know what to do with them. I negotiated a deal. We’d take the old helmets off his hands. All I needed was a truck.”

    The coach’s face turned serious.

    “Boys, we are about to be a part of a great legend. Choose your own helmet!”

   He opened a door to a dark room. Overhead lights came on. Myth was about to be challenged by reality. Helmets crowded the floor, big round domes, as dirty as if they had been caught in a brown river flood. Jack picked up one and tried to put it on. An odd smell assaulted his nostrils from rotting padding. The face guard was loose. 

   “Try another one,” someone said.

   Jack picked up a second helmet and carried it to stationary tubs. He doused it with tap water, rubbing off the Indiana mud. The color came out a dull yellow.

   “I don’t see any gold leaf,” a player said.

   Coach Brogan intervened. “These are the old helmets. Only the new helmets in South Bend have gold leaf.”

  “Who cares,” Barkley, the quarterback, said. “They are from Notre Dame and now they’re ours.”

   Barkley looked with pride at his badly scuffed helmet. He put it on and smiled all the way to his locker. Jack sat on the bench, holding in his lap the bulky, round, and dull helmet. He compared it to his smart leather job and felt let down.

    Coach Brogan climbed on the bench surrounded by assistants and the team’s spiritual advisor, Father Riley. The priest called for quiet. He asked the Lord to guide the team and put in a plea for sportsmanship.

    The boys responded, “Amen.”

    “Holy Cross is a good team,” the coach said. “The Saints are known for the fake play, the Statue of Liberty. Don’t forget. We’re wearing a piece of football history with these helmets. Win one for the Gipper!”

    As the Harding eleven took to the field, Jack thought about how Reagan’s Gipper might have felt if he had to wear a dirty plastic helmet. Under the bright sun of the September afternoon, only several ex-Irish helmets managed a little shine, most others dull as old brass.

    Jack was dismayed seeing their opponents, the Saints’ varsity, wearing leather helmets.

    Lining up for the kickoff, the Saints’ left tackle, a hairy beast destined for the NFL, looked over the Hurricanes line and bellowed, “These palookas look like a bunch of spacemen.” The comment launched a brief rumble with Harding’s right tackle, Bob Keller. The next play, a drive over center, ended in a pile up. Writhing at bottom were the Hurricane’s Keller and the Saints’ loud-mouth lineman locked in a wrestler’s embrace.

   Two plays later, the Hurricanes were five yards short of a first down. On the sideline, the Hurricanes’ punter, Billy Goetz, was barfing up his lunch in his helmet. Coach Brogan rolled his eyes and turned to Jack. “Alright Delaney, get in there and punt.” Jack adjusted the chin strap of his plastic helmet. He took the long snap and positioned the football in front of him. He brought his right leg up as hard as he could. Too hard. His cleated shoe hooked behind his toes, caught the ball pitching it skyward, and to the rear. The Saints’ loud-mouth tackle scooped up the ball and ran for a touchdown. The point after attempt was wide.

    Jack stood at midfield and wanted to scream. His teammates walked by him and no one looked him in the eye.

   Throughout the first half, Harding and Holy Cross fought while fans despaired over dropped passes, fumbles, short punts, and interceptions. In each locker room at halftime, coaches passed over obvious blunders and stressed the importance of carrying out assignments. The two teams returned to the field and a somber Harding crowd.

   Play in the second half cloned what had happened in the first. The pigskin shifted hands within a forty-yard stretch in the center of the field. Twice the Saints tried the Statue of Liberty play, twice they were foiled. Scrambles in midfield erased the grass and line markings. Rain fell, turning the field into a quagmire.

   Late in the fourth quarter Jack caught Barkley’s pass in the flat. A linebacker brought him down after a five-yard gain. The jolt knocked off Jack’s ex-Irish helmet. Jack looked at the mud-smeared dome without confidence.

   Coach Brogan called time out. The Hurricanes huddled on the sideline. Jack could think of only one thing: his leather helmet. He deserted the huddle and dashed across the running track that circled the field. He entered the Harding locker room, opened his locker, and pulled from its perch his leather helmet. He placed it on his head on a mission to victory.

     Jack returned to the outskirts of the huddle. The coach said, “Jack Delaney, what’s up?”

    “I need my helmet.”

    The coach shrugged. “Whatever. Get out there and do your thing.”

    In the final minutes on the Saints’ forty-yard-line, Barkley took the snap and found Jack racing on a diagonal up field. He tossed a bullet into Jack’s arms. Seconds later, Jack crossed the goal line to thunderous cheering.

   Moments later, fans fell quiet, an intense kind of quiet that happens when teams go for the extra point critical to victory. The ball was snapped. Barkley, in kneeling position, caught it and placed the ball on the ground for Keller, subbing as Harding’s kicker. He booted the pigskin through the uprights for a Hurricane win, 7-6.

   The Harding crowd screamed and yelled. The Hurricanes retired from the field, rejoicing.

    Coach Brogan stopped at Jack’s locker. “Why did you leave the field?”

   “Sorry. I didn’t like the plastic version. I got my leather helmet. It works for me.”

   Coach Brogan said, “Jack, the leather helmet is yours. Let me write an inscription.” With his ballpoint pen, he wrote, Delaney’s game, 9/14/1955

     On the drive home Jack reveled in the Hurricane’s victory.  At a stop sign, he looked at his leather helmet on the passenger seat. He admired the noble cant of the crown, unlike the soap bubble shape of the plastic version. To him at that point, the leather helmet revealed its essence, a piece of property that served its purpose, a thing of value. And now it was his to keep.

The End