SANTA CLARA — One Bay Area reporter asked Mario Manningham at his press conference Thursday afternoon why he’s so good catching passes along the sidelines. Here’s what he said.
MANNINGHAM: When I was little, our yard wasn’t very big. Most kids when they’re little, they play one foot in. We always played two feet in, knowing that the yard was a little bit snug. If you didn’t get two feet in, you weren’t getting in.
Q: How old were you?
MANNINGHAM: Oh man, I was knee-high to a duck. I was like six or seven. Real young.
Q: Front yard or back yard?
MANNINGHAM: I lived in the projects – one building. It was a front yard, basically. Imagine, it was as wide as this tent and we were playing six-on-six. It was a little bit cluttered. We knew how to make it work.
Q: On your touchdown catch against the Bills, did you set up the cornerback?
MANNINGHAM: I kind of set him up, made him think I was going inside. He fell for it, so I just made sure I came out my route flat. Alex threw a good ball.
Q: You were wide open.
MANNINGHAM: Yeah, they were joking around saying the dude wasn’t even in the screen. They didn’t know if he blew the coverage or something. I was pretty wide open.
Q: Is that area of the field wider than your front yard growing up?
MANNINGHAM: Yeah, it was (laughs).
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I grew up playing football on a narrow field too. It didn’t help me much :)
I had plenty of room, but the Gopher holes were a b—-! : >)
I had a small yard too….and it was so small that a couple of times, momentum used to take me through a wooden fence and into my neighbors backyard….couple games were called short due to fence repairs….
Knee high to a duck!!! LOL i’m stealing that
Haha! Reminds me of something I haven’t thought about in a while. Our yard was small, but across the street, between their fence and the street was a lawn that was about 15 ft wide and maybe 100 ft long. Fence being OB on one side and the pavement the other.
I’m running with the ball down the pavement sideline as fast as a 10 yr old can go and my older brother was right behind me trying to catch me and I got my head turned back to see how close he is. Turns out that I was the exact height of that mailbox. (knee high to a duck) Man! That was a wreck like you aint never experienced. The side of my head impaled that mailbox perfectly. Dented it to about half the size and that was one of them old metal ones. The stand thankfully elled up to back so when my body and legs kept going and my head stayed there, I didn’t hit the pole. Made the total experience much better! As if my head didn’t take enough abuse from the mailbox, the concrete sidewalk ( the goalline) was another bad crash in it’s own right. I did manage to hold on to the ball until I crashed down onto that sidewalk. The TD call was upheld. Oh yeah, great times growing up in Butte!
Thanks MontanaMan. Very enjoyable read, I’m just now getting the laugh tears out of my eyes so I can type this.
Manningham is the Calvin Borel of NFL receivers.
All these small interview segments are annoying to read through- why cant the whole interview just be in one post- it is annoying and makes me not want to come to this site
Then don’t come nobody cares if you like it our not nobody its making you read it and nobody wants to hear u cry about it so see ya!