Oh boy. I usually don't talk about such things without a drink in my hand.
My senior year of high school I had earned the moniker of Bill "The Thrill" Hill.
Sounds maybe kinda maybe cool right?
Let's back up a bit.
First off, my real last name really is Hill. But my first name is not Bill or even William. My parents weren't quite that mean. (Although supposedly in a somewhat rare argument lost to my mother, my father had wanted to name me Bunker, which would have been pretty cool).
Bill (or Bill Hill) was a nickname that developed over the course of middle school and early high school (story is too long to tell here) and it stuck really hard. The vast majority of folks who know me do not know my real first name. No sneaky covert reason. Just the way it is.
I was a skinny little fella my first two years of high school.
I weighed 130 pounds my freshman year and 135 pounds my sophomore year. Ran cross country those 2 years and the mile and half mile in track. Wasn't any good, but it was something to do. Didn't do much of anything (but eat and hit my growth spurt I guess) my junior year except take weightlifting as an elective class (thank goodness). When I started my senior year I weighed 230 pounds and looked somewhat buff.
So I went and asked the head football coach if I should play football. Even though I could tell he didn't like me (we had some uncomfortable history together from when I wrote for the school paper) he said that would be a good idea. We were a small school and there weren't many good sized players on our team. Small but fast (10-0 record that year in regular season). I think there were only two fellas bigger than I was. So even though I had never played before I was a senior and kinda big so I was on the varsity squad. I imagine he was thinking I would be a good body to have on the sideline/roster and practice squad if nothing else.
Before I go any farther, I should probably mention that I had never even watched a football game on tv nevertheless in real life. I didn't know much about it at all. We weren't a sports family. We were really poor in a worldly sense. I played in the woods a lot and hunted and fished with my friends. Back then a library card was 5 cents so I borrowed a lot of books when we went to town. I read a lot. Mostly fantasy and some sci-fi, military action fluff like Clancy, lot of Stephen King when I needed a break. But odds are if I was not in the woods shooting or hunting I was reading and most likely there were dragons involved and certainly wizards. I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. Nerdy kids out in the country were few and far in between but there were enough of us to manage. I was the kid who brought in all kinds of extra books from home when we started reading the Hobbit in my freshman English class. My copy of the Middle Earth Bestiary, Tolkien Artwork books, The Silmiarillion, Encyclopedia of Middle Earth, etc.
I was proud of owning those books and wanted to share my enthusiasm with the class.
When you weigh 130 pounds and all of a sudden you think you are such a big nerd that you might get beat up by the "louder" kids in your freshman Honors English class it really brings into clarity your true place in the pecking order.
So now I am on the football team. Offensive line, right tackle. We practice all summer. I memorize the plays inside and out. Our Line Coach was my psychology/sociology teacher. I liked and respected him a great deal. One of my favorite teachers. Pretty sure he and the head coach despised each other just as much as the head coach disliked me.
First game, I didn't get to play and we won but only by maybe 10 points or so. It was an away game.
Second game was at home. A few minutes into the first quarter and I'm still on the sidelines.
Then the crowd starts chanting. I see the head coach getting agitated but I still can't exactly make out what the crowds repeating.
Then I hear it.
We Want Bill
We Want Bill
We Want Bill
WE WANT BILL
WE WANT BILL
WE WANT BILL!!
Over and over again. At this point the entire bleacher area and folks leaning on the fence were shouting it. It was almost deafening. (Later I found out that it was started by the Assistant Librarian and her husband, my English teacher, a handful of my friends, and the band. I think two thirds of the parents and fans and probably even some of the students had no idea who I was or what they were chanting for.) Kinda sounds like a rock star moment but I was thoroughly embarrassed and I could see the head coach turning darker shades of red with every second that went by.
The coach finally let out a long string of expletives that indicated he wanted me to enter the game so he could hear himself think again.
Well, I go in.
I get down in my three point stance.
The defender in front of me moves over a little so I move over a little too so I can be squared up on him. Hardly noticeable to most folks, maybe a 4 inch shift.
Referee blows the whistle. 5 yard penalty. We go back to the huddle. Quarterback asks who was offsides. Nobody knows so he just calls the same play.
I get down in my 3 point stance again. Defender moves again. So do I. Another 5 yard penalty. This time they figure out it is me and tell me what I am doing wrong.
See, here's the thing. I knew the plays inside out. And they all assumed someone my age and size would know the rudimentary, most basic rules of football. Most of the other players had played jayvee or even younger. And we didn't talk about those little basic rules in practice. We focused on play execution.
I knew the plays but I had no idea what a lot of the rules were.
So I get down in my 3 point stance for a 3rd attempt to run this play.
I now knew not to move after I got down so no problem there.
This was a "pull" play. Once the ball was hiked, instead of blocking, myself and the right guard would run behind the line over to the left side guard and tackle so the 4 of us could bust through the line and the running back would have 4 initial blockers instead of two.
I was finally in my first real play. I was full of adrenaline. I'm so excited I was an offensive tackle who was running just two or three steps behind the running back.
It looked somewhat psychotic on film the next Monday.
But then this guy from the other team comes running over like he wants to tackle our guy who is running with the ball.
SO what did I do? I didn't hit him. I straight up ran him down and tackled him. The guy without the ball.
That damn whistle blew again. Touchdown didn't count.
I got THREE penalties on one hike of the football!
That may still be a record at that school.
Head Coach was apoplectic.
My Line Coach who liked me and didn't get along with the head coach was on the sidelines laughing his butt off.
Oddly enough the head coach left me in for the rest of that game. I didn't get anymore penalties. I looked insanely good on the rest of the film. I was all over the place hitting people (once they explained I couldn't tackle someone with a ball in their hands). Sent one guy to the hospital. It was glorious for the nerdy D&D kid from the woods that had to buy a used pair of cleats from one of the other guys from town.
So from then on, in class or walking down the hall, I would hear my line coach/psychology teacher yell "Bill the thrill Hill" at the top of his lungs. He said it was one of the greatest thrills of his life watching the head coach almost have a heart attack that night. The rest of the school picked up on it and I was henceforth referred to as "Thrill Hill" or "Thriller" by and large.
A very attractive cheerleader walked me to the film room on Monday. All of a sudden I was a thing.
Well, "Thrill Hill" was anyway, it really didn't feel like I was the one doing and experiencing those things.
As the season progressed I feel like I grew into my nickname (on the field anyway). I went from pretty much loosing every fight I had been in most of my life to being able to knock the shit out of people and be applauded for it. I'll say one thing for getting my ass kicked most of my life up until that point. There was no pain I was afraid to inflict on myself and the other guy to get the job done. From that point forward I never lost a fight again. Girls (especially the freshman and sophomore girls who never knew me as the nerdy wizard book guy) took offense when I didn't ask them out. In all reality, despite my newfound "popularity" I still didn't know what I was doing and was scared to death to ask any of those girls out.
I got over it though.
In high school I got to be the nerd and then the jock and a few other things in between. That's what my screen name is to me. It's kinda funny, and kinda nostalgic for me, but it mostly reminds me of my progression back then which was certainly NOT linear.
My adult life has pretty much followed a similar trajectory.
I may not know what the hell I'm doing, but if you give me a chance I can figure it out, and may even be really good at it.
That is what "thrillhill" is all about.
It's who I am and it's what I am.