NO BLOOD, NO FOUL

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I’ve been getting a strange kind of enjoyment lately out of listening to the way generations talk about each other. Every generation, it turns out, is convinced the one below it is softer, more fragile, and completely incapable of taking a joke.

I remember hearing about the Greatest Generation.

They really were great.

There just aren’t many of them left anymore.

Which is unfortunate—because I could really use someone else to blame.

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Instead, I’ve discovered that at some point I quietly became a boomer... You know, those people.
The generation that apparently caused all the problems and then wandered off, pretending we had nothing to do with it... Sorry.

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Then millennials.

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Then came after us us came Gen X.

Then Gen Z.

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And now we’ve run out of letters, lowered our expectations, and landed on Gen Alpha.

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What I’ve noticed is this: the “snowflake” accusation always runs downhill.

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Every group looks at the one below it and says,
They wouldn’t survive what we survived.

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And maybe that’s true.

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Because when I was a kid, we played even when it hurt.

You remember the rule:  No blood, no foul. 

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Some of the parents just flinched reading that.

It’s okay. Take a breath.

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Blood on the playground wasn’t a crisis. It was information. You were usually told to walk it off.

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And I could tell you a lot of stories—but this one stuck.

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When I was a kid, I played park-league flag football.

Not the NFL.
Not Friday Night Lights.

Park league.

Just kids from neighboring areas playing flag football.

Sometimes from the same school, sometimes not.

The kind of football where the loudest people on the field are the parents,

and none of the players are listening to them.

I was about twelve or thirteen.

I knew everyone on the other team—same parks, same neighborhoods.

The ball was hiked.

I ran a long route.
The quarterback threw it.

I caught the ball.

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Which was already unusual enough to feel suspicious.

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I should add some context.

At that age, I was a big kid.

Not “athletically gifted” big.

More like why are you legally allowed to play with children? big.

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Six-foot-one at twelve.

Just enough facial hair to raise questions.

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The kid covering me was about the same size. The two of us, set up in front of each other. who else was going to guard the other, 

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We looked like misplaced adults who wandered onto the wrong field.

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I made a small move—just enough of a juke to get separation.

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He bit on it, ran into another kid…

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…and I never saw any of that.

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Because I was doing exactly what the rules told me to do.

I ran.

Full sprint.

No reflection.
No ethics.
No injury assessment.

Just one thought:

Don’t get caught.

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It lasted maybe five seconds.
Five seconds of total focus.

I crossed the goal line.

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Touchdown.

I turned around.

And no one was there.

No teammates.
No cheering.
No coach.

Just me—standing in the end zone, holding the ball.

And my first thought—this is not my proudest moment—was not concern.

It was confusion.

Wow. These people are terrible friends.

I’d just scored.

Where was my moment?

So I looked back down the field.

The game was over.

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Not paused.
Not slowed down.

Over.

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Everyone was on one knee.
Coaches were running in.
Parents were yelling.

And one of the other big kids was on the ground…

with bite marks on his forehead.

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This was flag football.
No helmets.
No pads.

Not a hospital situation.

Just enough teeth to make you rethink the rules.

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To this day, I still don’t know how he got bit on the forehead.
No one else was tall enough.

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Which means something truly chaotic happened
forty yards behind me
while I was still playing football.

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That’s when it hit me.

While I was finishing the play,
everyone else had switched to emergency dentistry.

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Same field.
Same moment.
Different game.

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I hadn’t broken a rule.
I hadn’t ignored anyone.

I just didn’t know the rules had changed.

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I was still in no blood, no foul.

Turns out—

bite marks count.

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There was blood.

After the shock wore off, my brain did something strange.

It started scanning.

Not emotionally.

Logistically.

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Had I done something wrong?
Had I blocked illegally?
Had I tripped someone?
Was that move too aggressive for park league?

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I wasn’t trying to justify myself.

I was trying to locate the rule I might have broken.

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And then—worse than all of that—

I wondered if they were still going to count my touchdown.

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As an adult, that thought makes me cringe.

As a kid, it made perfect sense.

Because kids play roles.

At twelve, my role was simple:

Run.
Catch.
Don’t get caught.

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I didn’t have the whole field.
I didn’t have authority.
I didn’t have responsibility for everything happening behind me.

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I had a lane.

Meaning didn’t change because anyone was bad.

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It changed because distance, role, and thresholds shifted.

While I was giving everything I had to finish the play,
the play had already ended for everyone else.

No villains.
No heroes.

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Just misalignment.

That’s what no blood, no foul actually points to.

Not toughness.
Not indifference.

But where the line is,
who can see it,
and when you find out it moved.

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Sometimes the game changes behind you.

And the moment you cross the line,
you realize you’re the only one
still playing by the old rules.

That’s not cruelty.

That’s being human.

And to this day…

I still don’t know
if they counted my touchdown.