Aggie football practice began yesterday under the not-so-blazing August sun as our local heroes prepare to open the season at — you’d better sit down and take a cool drink – Pac-12 power Arizona State. Yes, it’s the Pac-12 this year, even if that conference has not yet seen the wisdom of offering UC Davis a seat at the table.

UCD’s roster is loaded, the schedule is both challenging and interesting, and there’s even a nostalgia game thrown in against long-ago rival Humboldt State.

Most of the pieces are in place for dramatic improvement on last year’s uncharacteristic 6-5 season, but the key ingredient is a player who has not yet established eligibility to participate in preseason camp, a player crucial to success or failure in 2011.

That player would be me.

I have checked with the NCAA clearinghouse and have been assured I have one year of collegiate athletic eligibility remaining that I can use in any sport. I choose football.

I choose football mostly because the Aggies have scheduled a trip to the University of Hawaii in late September and I’m awfully fond of pineapple.

Going back a few years, I was a member of the Aggie tennis team in the days when you were given five years to complete four years of eligibility. I played only my junior and senior seasons and had a year’s eligibility remaining when I graduated. Graduating in four years was customary in those days, when a wide variety of jobs presented themselves to college graduates.

However, once you graduated, your eligibility for intercollegiate athletics ran out. Even if you attended graduate school at the same institution, you were out of luck. Those rules have now been changed and it’s not uncommon to see a graduate student still competing.

Because I was robbed of my final year of eligibility by an unfair and discriminatory rule that clearly punished you for doing what all students are there to do — graduate — the NCAA has now reinstated my eligibility. For one year only.

All that remains before I can report to camp with my Aggie teammates is to actually become a UC Davis student again, but I’m sure Chancellor Katehi has read my urgent letter by now and is at this very moment picking up the phone to the admissions office to tell them the future of the university rests with my fate.

Then it’s the simple matter of picking a position out of the many available on the Aggie football team and “trying out” for a spot. Since UC Davis does not have any AARP members currently on its football roster — and anyone over the age of 50 is presumed to be in a “protected” class — my attorney assures me a roster spot is mine for the asking.

Not that I anticipate any legal action to assure myself a spot on the team. No, I plan to earn my position the old-fashioned way, with speed and cunning and an unparalleled knowledge of the game.

For instance, I know the difference between a safety who is 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds and a safety that’s worth two points. I know when to call for blindside protection and I know the difference between a nickel back and the more expensive kind.

I know instinctively that if you’re eight points behind and then score a touchdown on the final play of regulation, you “go for two.” What can I say, I’m just a genius when it comes to football and numbers.

If I let my ego do the talking, I’d prefer to play quarterback, but the Aggies have this kid named Randy Wright who looks awfully good at the position and I’d really hate to deny someone who has worked so hard a chance to win the Heisman Trophy.

I’m not big enough to be an offensive or defensive lineman, not strong enough to be a linebacker and not wide enough to be a wide receiver. Running back is a possibility, but if I carry the ball 30 times a game, I’m likely to get tackled by 350-pound linemen 30 times a game, and that doesn’t sound like the way I’d like to spend my final season of eligibility.

Despite my size-15 foot, I can’t kick worth a damn, which eliminates kickoffs, punting, field goals and extra points, but there is one obscure yet extremely important position where I can compete with the best of them.

I want to be a holder.

You know, the guy who trots confidently onto the field with the clock winding down, who must take the snap from center and place the ball perfectly — laces up — for the field goal kicker to boot the game winner. All this with one knee planted firmly on the ground.

No position can possibly be more important. Everything that has happened in the first 59 minutes and 59 seconds of the game is futile if the holder botches the snap from center or fails to place the ball ever so perfectly on the turf at the very instant the kicker’s foot makes impact.

Best of all, the position does not require any blocking, tackling or trash talking. Apparently, even the football gods recognize just how delicate this position is.

I have the genuflecting part down pat from my years of altar boy training long ago, and all summer long I’ve been practicing my craft in the backyard, with my 6-year-old son doing the snapping and my 7-year-old daughter doing the kicking. I’ve broken my index finger only twice.

I’m ready, willing and able to give it my all for the old alma mater. Let the season begin.

Go Ags.

— Entries to the Contest to Replace the Above-Pictured Columnist are due by Friday, August 26. Entries may be about any subject and should be between 400 and 800 words in length. Entries may be emailed to [email protected], and should include the author’s daytime and evening telephone numbers and a brief biography.

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