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Sorry, pal. You did it to yourself. Can you go do your job, please? I see your guys running onto the field.
I grin as the crowd roars to life, a growing crescendo of noise when they start to cheer. I feel the excitement and energy from seventy thousand fans pulse in my blood. The exhilaration turns tangible as my heartbeat matches the stomp of their feet and the clap of their hands.
I’ve never been a sports girl, and the only thing I know about football is the D.C. Titans aregood. They have the best record in the league and they’re heading into this weekend undefeated, the only team without a loss.
A lot of it is Shawn’s doing.
They hired him four years ago, back when the Titans only won two games all season. You couldn’t give your tickets away for free, and premium seats sold for a fraction of the cost. The stadium was empty, and the fans that stuck around to watch the train wreck unfold did nothing but boo and toss garbage on the field.
The locker room was toxic and negative. Management was poisonous, and there were multiple harassment claims. A player even faked an injury just so he could sit out the rest of the season instead of getting beat by six touchdowns every week. The future of the team was bleak, and rumors swirled about a sale of the club for dirt cheap to a business tycoon who would’ve taken the Titans out of the city and moved them to San Diego where the weather is pleasant three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
Then Shawn came in and wiped the slate clean. He started from the lowest of lows an organization could be, and slowly earned the players’ trust. He didn’t just give them work to do and sit on his ass; he worked his ass off, too.
Lining up next to his guys on the fifty-yard line for sprints. Staying late and dripping sweat in the grueling summer months when they practiced lateral passes and trick plays at training camp. Throwing on a beanie and a pair of gloves as he ran two-point conversion drills with his quarterback in the freezing cold, a rookie he drafted in the sixth round out of Howard University. He could see the potential in the kid who, three years later, would win the NFL’s MVP award, the youngest to ever do it.
That’s just how Shawn is, though.
He commits and gives his all, all the time.
It’s how he approaches his friendships. How he treats the responsibilities of being Maven’s godfather. How he acts with his family and the volunteer activities he participates in not because he has to, but because hewantsto.
He exemplifies the purest form of servant leadership I’ve ever seen.
It’s not for show, a smile for the camera that turns into a frown when the flash goes off. It’s not for money—he’s the first coach to take a salary cut so the rest of his staff can have league-leading assistant coach pay. It’s not because he thinks he has to check a box. He hires based on ability, not gender, and that’s why he has eight women as assistant coaches. His players respect them becauseherespects them.
He’s a friend who remembers details; birthdays. Favorite foods. Allergies. He knows I love to collect magnets when I travel somewhere. After being out of town for an away game, he always comes back with a gift for me: the silliest memento for my fridge he can find.
A hunk of cheese when he was in Wisconsin. An apple from New York. A beaver after a Texas circuit, hitting Houston and Dallas in the same month. It's supposed to be the mascot of some gas station chain, but I don’t understand the joke no matter how many times he tries to explain it to me. The bright red double-decker bus from London when they played abroad last season.
There’s nothing but good bones in his body and a good soul in his chest. I’m lucky to have him in my life.
Maggie nudges my side, and I blink. The fluorescent stadium lights dim for the national anthem and player introductions.
“Aiden’s crying,” she whispers.
“He cries at the dog videos you send him,” I whisper back. I look over at her boyfriend wiping his eyes, and I smile. “He’s the gold standard for dads. Men in general, really.”
Maggie and I met in medical school after a seating chart mix-up with our last names. We embraced the faux pas and became fast friends who stood in each other’s corners not just in biochemistry and anatomy, but outside the lecture halls, too. We lean on each other in moments of darkness and pain. Laugh our asses off at all of our horrible mistakes—like the time she told me to get bangs, and the time I told her to wear a white dress to our annual hospital holiday gala. She ended the night with a red wine stain on her crotch.
She’s dealt with a lot in her personal life, experiencing a divorce and finding out she’s infertile all before turning thirty-one. Maggie is resilient, though, a woman who fights like hell for what she wants. She’s brighter these days and never not smiling. Aiden plays a big part in that.
They are star-crossed lovers and soulmates who both got a second shot at love, meeting at a Valentine’s Day photo shoot and having a sizzling one-night stand.
Neither could get the other out of their head after their rendezvous, and they discovered they worked in the same hospital, separated by a quick elevator ride without even knowing it. The rest is history, a happily ever after for a couple who deserves nothing but good things in life.
Aiden treats Maggie right. He loves her loudly and softly, in front of everyone and when no one is watching. I always catch him looking at her, this dopey smile of adoration on his face, like he can’tbelieveshe’s his.
I want to make jokes about how over-the-top their love is, but the older I get, the closer to mid-thirty and beyond I am, the more I want that, too. Someone who finds me in a crowd and looks at me like I’m the only one in the world.
I’ve never had a love like that before. The selfless, all-encompassing type you’re not sure is real because you’re so sickeningly happy, you’re waiting to wake up from a dream. Swept off your feet with butterflies in your chest. Joy and elation andtogetherness.
Maybe I’ll find it one day.
“Let’s go Titans,” Maggie bellows, and I shove those lonely thoughts away.
“I see Uncle Shawn,” Maven says. She presses her face against the window, and her friends crowd around her.
“That’s your uncle?” one girl asks. “Wow.”
