Life is Heald: During my 15 minutes of fame, the timekeeper recalled my watch

I was around 8 years old when I entered and won my age division of the local "Punt, Pass and Kick" competition in which kids punt, pass and kick a football. This was during a period in our nation's history when giving creative names to athletic competitions for kids was sacrificed in order to save time explaining the competition itself.

In fact, any child asking what to do in the "Punt, Pass and Kick" competition was immediately disqualified, issued a library card and placed curbside for parental pickup. A child insisting on remaining involved in the competition was given a black and white striped shirt along with a whistle, and told he could pick up the footballs after they had been punted, passed and kicked by the other kids.

In addition to the onomatopoeia nature of the name "Punt, Pass and Kick," it was, most fortunately, a time before the concept of corporate naming rights burst forth from some capitalistic think tank and placed every sporting competition and venue squarely in the crosshairs of Madison Avenue. This saved my trophy from the decidedly less prestigious proclamation "1st Place, Taco Bob's Punt, Pass and Kick."

Unfortunately, corporate naming rights will now leave generations of children sitting, utterly confused and a bit worried, at the feet of grandpa as he tells the story of going to see his sports hero play in some place named after his underwear. And if grandpa's power of attorney still has a library card from when he tried to sign up for the "Punt, Pass and Kick" competition, then that guy's probably confused, too. This could mean grandpa ends up telling his story to the orderlies down at the grandpa dormitory where Billy Simpkins' grandpa moved after he showed up at Billy's baseball game, clad only in his underwear and cleats, insisting he could play third base better than the fat kid in glasses. But that's another story.

The way you win a "Punt, Pass and Kick" title is by punting, passing and kicking a football really far and really straight. Any distance right or left from the straight line in front of you is subtracted, reducing your total score. In other words, let's say your boy Bobby can kick the bacon right out of the pigskin. Trouble is, Bobby doesn't kick it straight, not even close. That's why seven houses on your street have plywood in their windows and you have a past due balance down at the glass shop. Bobby will not go pro. Bobby will shorten his name and open up Taco Bob's.

The accuracy requirement gives every kid a chance, so your third grader need not be on his second set of razor blades or have a pituitary gland on the fritz in order to have a chance. But don't get me wrong, if you have an inhaler in one hand and the football in the other, or more than one eyewitness has seen you work up a sweat passing the salt, accuracy alone will only get you a job interview at Taco Bob's.

Back to my story. All the punting, passing and kicking is over. They crunch the numbers and hand yours truly the first place trophy.Understand something now, for a kid whose trophy shelf had been vacant longer than the Bates Motel, this was a big deal. This predates participation ribbons and getting a trophy 'cause Mommy's check cleared the bank; all communist plots designed to wussify America's youth so their backbones have osteoporosis before they hit kindergarten. I earned that trophy myself, not because my momma made a wicked batch of cupcakes.

It was time to take a picture for the newspaper. All the first, second and third place winners sat in the bleachers with our trophies. I had a smile that would make the Joker from Batman looked clinically depressed. Two spotsfrom me sat a good friend of mine named, oddly enough, Kevin Hill. He got third place. He looked like somebody had shot his dog. With a cannon. Twice.

I drove home with my dad trying to decide which side of the bed my trophy would sleep on. We got home, and just as my smile had finished applying for citizenship on my face, a knock came at our front door. It was Kevin Hill and his mother. There had been a mistake.Kevin Hill had come in first place, Kevin Heald had come in third. And if this kick in the crotch had entered the "Punt, Pass and Kick" competition, it would have come in first place, too.

Being the resilient child that I was, I bounced right back with no ill effects and I've got the pediatric, psychiatric medical records to prove it. They're kept in a storage unit downtown. Two units, actually. I have no childhood memories from age 6 to 9, the tapes from my visits to the Watergate Children's Psychiatric Clinic mysteriously containing a three-year gap. I actually just found out about this story last week when a friend had too many beers and thought it might be funny to tell the tale. He's buried out back, a blow to the head his undoing. The police haven't found the murder weapon yet. It won't be in the first place they look. Or the second. Third place ought to do it.

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Kevin wanted to change his legal name to "Third Place Stinks," but relented when his mother refused to write it in his underwear when he went to camp. Kevin can be reached in the trophy room at or