Editor's note: As part of The Tennessean's season-long, all-access series about the Brentwood Academy football program, we will regularly visit with former players or coaches. This week, we catch up with the first quarterback in school history, Randal Mash.
Randal Mash had barely pulled his helmet over his head for the first time as a Brentwood Academy football player when the team's coach, Carlton Flatt, made a decision that changed Mash's life.
For a while, though, Mash felt like he was in over his head.
It was 1970, the Eagles' inaugural season. Flatt figured out his roster on the fly.
"Y'all line up!" he instructed his players during one of the team's first practices.
One by one, the coach approached them with their assignments.
"Tommy, you're going to be a guard."
"I never even seen any of 'em play," Flatt said. "We either had to get in or get out."
Eventually, he found himself face-to-face with Mash.
"Randal wasn't even a quarterback, but I said, 'Randal, I want you to play quarterback,' " Flatt said.
He paused to chuckle.
"You know why?" he asked Mash. "He said, 'No.'
"I said, 'We don't have anybody else to put at quarterback.' "
Mash was 5-foot-nothing, 100-nothing pounds.
He was, in his words, "not a leader."
'Everybody's homecoming punching bag'
Technically, Brentwood Academy went undefeated that first season (1-0-2). But those were its only three games against varsity teams. Overall, the Eagles finished 3-3-2.
Things didn't get any better in 1971, when they were 3-7-1 against a full varsity schedule.
"We were everybody's homecoming punching bag," Mash said.
A 9-2 showing in 1972 turned into 1-10 in the record books because BA was forced to forfeit eight games for using an ineligible player.
A 10-1 season followed in 1973.
The one loss, though — 33-7 in Week 3 against Bellevue — left Mash doubting himself.
'You had to be a leader'
Still in uniform, he visited Flatt's office after the game, those doubts in tow.
Am I cut out to play quarterback?
Should I play a different position?
Should I play football at all?
"He took time to sit me down and calm me down a little bit," Mash said. " 'No, Randal, you need to do this.' "
A few words from Flatt convinced Mash that his coach had made the right decision that day on the cow pasture when he pegged him for the job.
"He knew how to punch my buttons," Mash said.
Mash never lost another game in a Brentwood Academy uniform. The Eagles went on to win 21 games in a row.
He said he put to use some of the lessons he learned from Flatt and his coaches in aspects of his life, including his coaching career.
"I was very shy, very standoffish," said Mash, who coached football at White House Middle School for 27 years. "But being a quarterback at Brentwood Academy, you had to be a leader. That motivated me."
'You've got to be kidding me'
That's where 1974 comes in.
A 13-0 record. First state championship of 10 the program would win under Flatt.
Part of the game against South Pittsburg that Mash will remember most is the victory, of course. But also for "student body mass right," a play in which the back runs around the tight end and cuts upfield.
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It was third-and-6 during Brentwood Academy's first possession when the order was delivered from the sideline.
Student body mass right.
"We run it," Mash said. "Gets maybe 29 yards. First down."
Except there was a penalty. Now it was third-and-11.
"The guy comes in, calls the same play," Mash said.
Student body mass right.
"I'm going, 'You've got to be kidding me,' " he said. "I barely even call the play out so the team can understand what I'm saying and Coach Flatt wants me to run the exact same play.
"Well, we run it and it gets 59 yards."
Brentwood Academy went on to win Mash's last game there 38-7.
Not a bad ending for a kid who, four years earlier, had just found out he was a quarterback.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at pskrbina@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter)@paulskrbina. Follow his workhere.
