Hunter Smith is Good at Holding it

For some, the final preseason game has many ramifications. The last two or three spots looming over the heads of twenty different players. But the amazing thing is, in our line of work, the competition for a spot is almost always indirect. Tight ends are competing with linebackers, receivers with DB's. It really comes down to who the better special teams player is. What's funny is the idea of whats going on is always fuzzy.

For me, Jacksonville was a mundane as possible. I checked into my room at the Omni hotel around three on Wednesday only to leave for an hour while I walked around in awe at a lackluster downtown. After the tour, I proceeded to watch nearly three hours of stunning pottery throwing videos on YouTube. Which sadly, was by far my most productive use of time the entire trip. I was, however, able to complete one and a half crossword puzzles and a few sudoku puzzles out of the local Florida newspaper.

The night came and went and after forcing myself to sleep in until sometime after 10, I was woke up just in the nick of time to begin a movie marathon. The problem with the hotel movies is that the hotels only having 15 or 20 movies in their on demand selection. Since I have spent countless hours sitting in hotels during preseason, I have watched practically all of them. So it should come as no surprise that I chuckled when I pressed the order button to the Miley Cyrus movie. I figured what the hell, I don't have to tell anyone about this. After finishing a gem of a movie I didn't bat an eye before putting on "Year One." I think I can explain how much I liked both of these movies by saying that I was seriously disappointed when my third movie "17 Again" with Zach Efron was cut short by some hotel glitch. I guess I'm gonna have to just ad that one to netflix!

As restlessness had completely set in, I headed to the the stadium around 4 o'clock. The highlight of my day, getting all the rookies all over the field and playing punt, pass, and kick games. We were so serious by the end of the games that we actually had Josh Scobie (Jacksonville's kicker) giving us tips and drawing X's on the bottom of the balls where to hit it with our foot. For some reason the p p n' k never ceases to draw an awe inspired group of onlookers out of the other football players. Maybe it's the idea of a complete nonsense warm up effort, but who cares, it's always worked for me.

Finally the game. I could not have been more excited to get home. Really I felt like I would take nothing from my three hours of field standing, team judging effort, but then this masterpiece of a story came to me.

As the the game went into the second quarter Casey Rabach, giddy as ever, asks if I know what happened to Hunter. With a priceless smirk he says "You're not gonna believe this."

Hunter is standing on the sideline and makes the decision that he definitely has to take a piss. Now I've seen a variety of urinating options on the sideline ranging from taking a knee while a guy or two blocks off crowd vision, to offensive lineman being so lazy that they will actually just piss their pants. Usually they make the excuse that their legs are already soaked with sweat so it really doesn't matter. Yes this really does happen, I'm not using this for effect. Hunter chose what would have been way down my list and went with a more labor intensive effort.

The punter turns to Ethan Albright says to "I really gotta go piss, I hope I have time." He then proceeded to walk to the near tunnel entrance, which is also the entrance furthest away from our locker room.

"Stadiums always have bathrooms in the back tunnel so I just went to grab the security guy and was going to have him take me to the nearest one."

Well the security guy is a little dumbfounded. Not only that Hunter has made his way all the way off the field and into the tunnel, but that he is asking for a bathroom. The dude says, "Sorry man, we don't have any extra bathrooms you can go anywhere in this tunnel."

Hunter then explains "Look, I've played here before, I know there is a bathroom back here somewhere." Hunter later went on to tell me that he scopes out all where the bathrooms are in different stadiums and while I would never do this, I'm not surprised because Hunter seems like a very thorough guy.

With no tunnel bathroom the security guy looks at Hunter's anxious face and says, "I guess...follow me man." He then proceeds to walk Hunter around the tunnel, up a couple stairs and into the main concourse. Hunter is still in full gear, he even has his helmet with him.

"I was completely strapped up!" Hunter laughs. "No, but the helmet was still perched up on top of my head. I always have to be ready for a sudden change." Still chuckling. "The guy actually takes me into to public restroom and there is a line of fans waiting to take a piss blindly staring at me. I then make the decision that there is not enough time to wait for the line and I run back out to the field."

Amazing! And within two minutes Hunter is booming a punt down the field. For some reason, this is the most exciting story of my preseason. Just the thought of a player, in full gear, waiting in line in the public bathroom. So amusing. I can't imagine being one of the people looking on wondering what in the world is happening.
- Quote of the night by Hunter Smith.

"A dad waiting in line with his little kid actually points at me and asks, "Don't you need to be in the game right now?"

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