Frenemies

"Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies."-Voltaire

Sit, children, and listen to a tale. A tale of friendship, football, and blood. The tale of the time that I broke Matt Moseley's nose.

When Matt and I were freshmen at Simpson, we organized a weekly football game. It was out in what is now the baseball field, and it was a full contact endeavor. No helmets, no pads, just balls (haha).

We welcomed anyone with the guts to play, all ages and skill levels were welcome, and every Saturday we'd whale on each other for a few hours and limp back home to our dorms. Each time we played one could count on a bloody face (like the time I knocked Shaun's teeth through his lip), someone knocked senseless (like the time Troy Fast whacked Nick Ristow in the face with his elbow), and my shoulder popping out (too many times to count). Despite the brutality, we eventually amassed a crew of about twenty hardcore players that we could count on playing every Saturday.

This particular bloody face happened when Matt and I went up for a pass-he was trying to catch it and I was trying to prevent said catch. Being the extraordinary athletes that we were, we leapt up to a ridiculous height and collided (Pass interference? Nah). As we fell, I saw that I was going to land on Matt as I stuck my hand out to try to catch myself.

Matt landed and his head bounced off the ground-right into my oncoming palm.

I got up and said "Are you alr-WHOAH!" as I saw him get up with a crooked nose and what looked like a stream of blood pouring from it. Lunatic that he is, he straitened his nose as well as he could, stopped the bleeding with his shirt, and finished out the game like a champ. It made for a heck of a photo.