AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I'll never forget the day, the summer before my junior year, when Billy Golling had a seizure in the middle of a two-point conversion. Heat stroke.
That'll never happen to one of my kids. I won't let it.
But the fundamentals of this game haven't changed. It's brotherhood, mentorship, hero worship--it's dirt and grass, confidence and pain. It's hard . . . it takes real commitment and real sweat. The best things in life always do.
We spend practice breaking them down, like in the military, then building them up into the champions they can be. And the kids love it. They want us to scream at them, direct them--fucking coach them. Because they know in their hearts if we didn't care, if we didn't see their potential, we wouldn't bother yelling at them.
We treat them like warriors, and on the field . . . they play like kings.
That's how it worked with me--that's how it works now.
"No, no, no--god damn it, O'Riley! You drop that ball again, I'll have you doing suicides until you can't see straight!"
Dean Walker is my offensive coach. He's also my second-place best friend, after Snoopy. He was my go-to receiver in high school, and together we were an unbeatable combination. Unlike me, he didn't play football in college; he majored in math--and is now the AP math teacher at Lakeside.
Dean's a real Clark Kent kind of guy, depending on the time of year. He's a drummer in a band--having summers off allows him to tour all the local haunts up and down the Jersey shore. But from the end of August through June, he hangs up the drumsticks, puts on his glasses, and assumes the Mr. Walker, math-teacher-extraordinaire persona.
He grabs O'Riley's face mask. "You're pulling a Lenny! Stop squeezing the puppy to death!"
Some players are chokers--they freeze up when a big moment arrives. Others, like our sophomore receiver Nick O'Riley, are what I call clenchers. They're too eager, too rough, they clasp the ball too hard, making it easy to fumble the minute another player taps them.
"I don't know what that means, Coach Walker," O'Riley grunts around his mouthpiece.
"Lenny--Of Mice and Men--read a frigging book once in a while," Dean shouts back. "You're holding the ball too tight. What happens if you squeeze an egg too hard?"
"It cracks, Coach."
"Exactly. Hold the ball like an egg." Dean demonstrates with the ball in his hands. "Firm and secure--but don't strangle the bastard."
I have a better idea. "Snoopy, come here!"
Snoopy loves football practice. He runs around the field and herds the players like a sheepdog. In a white furry blur he runs and leaps into my arms.
Then I put him in O'Riley's. "Snoopy's your football. You hold him too tight, or drop him, he'll bite your ass." I point down field. "Now run."
Across the field, my defensive coach barks at my starting line. "What the hell was that?"
Jerry Dorfman is a former all-state defensive back and a decorated marine. "I piss harder than you're hitting! Get the lead out! Stop acting like pussies!"
He's also Lakeside's only guidance counselor and our emotional management therapist.
So . . . yeah.
~
A few hours later, when the air is cooler and the sun is on its downward descent, and the team is hydrating and the field is quieter, I watch my quarterback, Lipinski, throw long passes to my wide receiver, DJ King. I check their feet, their form, every move they make--looking for weakness or error and finding none.
Watching them reminds me of why I love this game. Why I always have.
It's those seconds of perfect clarity--when time freezes and even your heartbeat stops. The only sound is your own breath echoing in your helmet and the only two people on the field are you and your receiver. Your vision becomes eagle-focused and everything snaps into place. And you know--you feel it in your bones--that now, now is the time. The raw energy, the strength, rushes up your spine, and you step back, pump your arm . . . and throw.
And the ball flies, swirls beautifully, not defying gravity but owning it--landing right where you've commanded it to go. Like you're a master, the god of the air and sky.
And everything about it is perfect.
Perfect throw, perfect choreographed dance . . . the perfect play.
I clap my hands and pat DJ's back as he comes in. "Nice!" I tap Lipinski's helmet. "Beautiful! That's how it's done."
And Lipinski . . . rolls his eyes.
It's quick and shielded by his helmet, but I catch it. And I pause, open my mouth to call the little shit out . . . and then I close it. Because Lipinski is a senior, he's feeling his oats--that cocksure, adrenaline-fueled superiority that comes with being the best and knowing it. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I was an arrogant little prick myself, and it worked out well for me.
A kid can't grow if he's walking around with his coach's foot on his neck 24/7. You have to give the leash some slack before you can snap it back--when needed.
My players huddle around me and take a knee.
"Good practice today, boys. We'll do the same tomorrow. Go home, eat, shower, sleep." They groan collectively, because it's the last week of the summer. "Don't go out with your girlfriends, don't frigging drink, don't stay up until two in the morning playing Xbox with your idiot friends across town." A few of them chuckle guiltily. "Eat, shower, sleep--I'll know if you don't--and I'll make it hurt tomorrow." I scan their faces. "Now let me hear it."
Lipinski calls it out, "Who are we?"
The team answers in one voice: "Lions!"
"Who are we?!"
"Lions!"
"Can't be beat!"
"Can't be beat! Can't be beat! Lions, lions, LIONS!"
And that's what they are--especially this year. They're everything we've made them--a well-oiled machine. Disciplined, strong, cohesive--fuck yeah.
~
Before I head home, I put Snoopy in the Jeep and walk down to my classroom, where I'll be teaching US history in a few more days. I have a good roster--especially third period--a nice mix of smart, well-behaved kids and smart, mouthy ones to keep things from being too boring. They're juniors, which is a good age--they know the routine, know their way around, but still care enough about their grades not to tell me and my assignments to go screw myself. That tends to happen senior year.
I put a stack of rubber-band-wrapped index cards in the top drawer of the desk. It's for the first-day assignment I always give, where I play "We Didn't Start the Fire," by Billy Joel and hang the lyrics around the classroom. Then, they each pick two index cards and have to give an oral report the next day on the two people or events they chose. It makes history more relevant for them--interesting--which is big for a generation of kids who are basically immediate-gratification junkies.
Child psychologists will tell you the human brain isn't fully developed until age twenty-five, but--not to go all touchy-feely on you--I think the soul stops growing at the end of high school, and who you are when you graduate is who you'll always be. I've seen it in action: if you're a dick at eighteen--you'll probably be a dick for life.
That's another reason I like this job . . . because there's still hope for these kids. No matter where they come from, who their parents are, who their dipshit friends are, we get them in this building for seven hours a day. So, if we do what we're supposed to, set the example, listen, teach the right things, and yeah--figuratively knock them upside the head once in a while--we can help shape their souls. Change them--make them better human beings than they would've been without us.
That's my theory, anyway.
I sit down in the desk chair and lean back, balancing on the hind legs like my mother always told me not to. I fold my hands behind my head, put my feet on the desk, and sigh with contentment. Because life is sweet.
It's going to be a great year.
They're not all great--some years suck donkey balls. My best players graduate and it's a rebuilding year, which means a lot of L's on the board, or sometimes you just get a crappy crop of students. But this year's going to be awesome--I
can feel it.
And then, something catches my eye outside the window in the parking lot.Someone.
And my balance goes to shit.
I swing my arms like a baby bird, hang in the air for half a second . . . and then topple back in a heap. Not my smoothest move.
But right now, it doesn't matter.
I pull myself up to my feet, step over the chair towards the window, all the while peering at the blonde in the navy-blue pencil skirt walking across the parking lot.
And the ass that, even from this distance, I would know anywhere.
Callaway Carpenter. Holy shit.
She looks amazing, even more beautiful than the last time I saw her . . . than the first time I saw her. You never forget your first. Isn't that what they say? Callie was my first and for a long time, I thought she'd be my only.
The first time I laid my eyes on her, it felt like getting sacked by a three-hundred-pound defensive lineman with an ax to grind. She looked like an angel. Golden hair framing petite, delicate features--a heart-shaped face, a dainty jaw, a cute nose and these big, round, blinking green eyes I wanted to drown in.
Wait . . . back up . . . that's not actually true. That's a lie.
I was fifteen when I met Callie, and fifteen-year-old boys are notorious perverts, so the first thing I noticed about her wasn't her face. It was her tits--they were full and round and absolutely perfect.
The second thing I noticed was her mouth--shiny and pink with a bee-stung bottom lip. In a blink, a hundred fantasies had gone through my head of what she could do with that mouth . . . what I could show her how to do.
Then I saw her angel face. That's how it happened.
