“Pay attention… connect the dots.” — Rules I have lived by as a community journalist.

Your Honor, I hereby plead guilty with great embarrassment to failing to live by the rules presented above. Over my lengthy career in small-time newspapering, I have attempted to pay attention and connect the dots while researching and writing stories.

But somehow I have fallen far short in reporting on the saga of Martin High School football, and I should’ve known better.

Martin this fall has switched, like so many other small schools, to playing eight-man football instead of the customary 11 players. The reason for smaller schools is that it’s been getting increasingly more difficult to field enough players to engage in the time honored number. It was so customary that often sports writers would refer to teams as “elevens.”

It was about six years ago that I asked then-Supt. Bill Miller if Martin would switch to eight-man football because it had only 15 or 16 players in the middle of that awful 55-game losing streak. Miller told me school officials were confident then that the Clippers would rebound because of a quality crop of youngsters coming up through the ranks.

I confess I did not know Martin took the plunge in whittling playing numbers down to eight until this past weekend when former Townbroadcast reporter Austin Marsman commented on a Facebook post that the Clippers had adjusted well in transitioning.

I felt terrible that I hadn’t paid attention. I generally don’t attend Martin Board of Education meetings because they meet on the same nights as other government units I cover.

I should’ve known when I checked with the MHSAA site. Opponents Tri-Unity Christian, Bellevue and New Buffalo were not included in the histories of each school annually since 1950. At first, Martin and Bellevue were, as 11-man teams.

Because we’ve never before had eight-man football in these parts, I’m not well versed in the rules. I am aware that the offense must have a five-man line that includes a center, a guard, a tackle and two ends, both of whom are eligible receivers. Three backs include a quarterback, halfback and fullback.

To get myself acquainted with the modified sport, I am tentatively planning to attend the Clippers’ game Friday evening against Lawrence, a team that has been playing the eight-man variety for quite a spell.

My humble apologies to Martin fans, coaches and players for not paying attention and connecting the dots. I fancy myself as being good at those two things, but this time I wasn’t.

As the David McRaney podcast title says: “You are not so smart.”