Page 1 of The Law Student

The Law Student

My college football career ended as it began. On the bench. Late in the fourth quarter of a dreary and meaningless ritual known as the Annual Spring Game, with fans by the dozens huddling under blankets as a raw March wind howled and blew bits of frozen moisture at them, I finally had my epiphany: Why was I there? What was I trying to prove? Who was I kidding? Why was I still lying to myself when I said I loved the game?

I was on the bench! In the spring game! And it wasn’t really a game but more of a controlled scrimmage, with coaches on the field yelling at players and the quarterbacks wearing pink so they wouldn’t get hit. What a waste of my time. For the third year in a row I was “riding the pine,” as they say, with little hope of seeing much action in the fall. And I wasn’t exactly busting my ass two to three hours a day for a Top Ten program. I was a student-athlete at Davidson College, a Division 1 school with two thousand students and about that many fans in the stands for home games against schools like Concord and Dickinson. I loved my college and once loved football, but it was time to put away the toys. The coaches were fine men and I admired them, but they had this depth chart that was often baffling. At that moment it listed me—Stuart Nash, #54—as the number two middle linebacker, same as last year when I spent the season on the bench waiting for number one to get hurt.

That’s the thing I grew to hate about the sport—always waiting for someone ahead of you to get hurt.

I was cold and shivering and trying to find warmth under a bulky sideline cape with the words Davidson Wildcats in bold red letters across the back. Suddenly I said: “I’m tired of this.” And with that, it was over. I smiled, said the words again, and then felt an enormous weight lift from my shoulder pads. I was watching my final game from the sidelines. Never again would I be humiliated when the depth chart got juggled and I didn’t move up, or when a cute coed asked what position I played, or when a smart-ass frat brother asked if I was going to the game Saturday because it was away and he knew damned well I, once again, had not made the traveling squad. Nor would I ever be forced to talk about my football career with my father, a decent man who’d always thought I could play more if only I spent more time in the weight room. I was clear proof that lifting weights for hours will not increase foot speed.

Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to clean out my locker and become a regular student. Most of them were at the beach for a week of bad behavior, another spring ritual I’d always envied.

It was fourth and long, and our third-string quarterback had once again proven that he could not throw a pass that didn’t resemble a wounded duck, and I was forced to enter the game on the second-string punting team. I shook off the cape and trotted onto the field, absolutely certain that no one was watching with the slightest interest. My father, who hasn’t missed a real game in three years, gave up on the spring silliness last March.

When I broke the news to him, I’d use the word “retiring” instead of “quitting.” I was not looking forward to that conversation, but I was determined to get it over with. Afterward I would tell my coach, and he would go through the usual routine of feigning disappointment and so on, but I wouldn’t be missed.

At any rate, as I trotted onto the field for the last time, I was worried about getting hurt. Football is a dangerous game made even more so if you play while trying to avoid injuries. Play it like a mad dog with complete disregard for your body and you’ll do okay, generally. Play it on your heels and you’re guaranteed a broken bone. Luckily, our third-string punter had about as much talent as that last quarterback, and he shanked one out of bounds where it bounced into the bleachers and missed the nearest fan by eighty feet. Untouched, I jogged to the sideline, glanced at the scoreboard, said to myself, “Who cares about the score? It’s a spring game.” Two minutes were left in my dismal career.

Hidden under my cape again, I watched the clock and mouthed the numbers, five-four-three-two-one, then hurried off the field. The locker room was downright joyous as ninety-five players showered and bantered and celebrated the end of a three-week marathon no one enjoyed. But their joy would be short-lived because starting Monday they would return to the weight room for two hours a day, five days a week, plus speed training (never worked for me) and all manner of conditioning. And one of the fifteen coaches (who needs fifteen coaches?) would monitor their conditioning through the summer to make sure they arrived in August in superb shape.

No wonder I felt such freedom as I cleaned out my locker and drove away.

—

The team’s equipment managers were unofficially in charge of organizing the jock parties, and they planned another blowout because it was Saturday night and spring football was over. Kegs of beer, cheerleaders, and what few other girls were in town and not in Florida. Drawing a crowd for a football party was easy because there was never a shortage of students who wanted to hang with the athletes. Even at Davidson, a rigorous academic school, the jocks were kings. Some of them anyway. After dark we gathered in a party barn on a farm owned by a former player who made some money and still clung to his glory days on the field. He was about fifty, one of those Peter Pan types who refused to grow up and thought coeds were still part of his game.

The campus DJ played tunes from the ’80s and the dancing started as the beer flowed. Virtually everyone at Davidson studied hard, and when it was time to party, things got wild in a hurry. We recovered on Sunday. Few classes were cut on Monday.

I already felt like an outsider and wondered if I would be invited to the same parties next season. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be invited. It was time to grow up.

—

Conroy, my hometown, was an hour west of Davidson in a small, rural county that struggled to stay alive. I was born and raised there, as were my father and grandfathers, none of whom left, primarily because they owned a lot of land covered with hardwoods—oak, elm, red maple, birch, and sweetgum. I grew up in the lumber business but had no plans to continue in the family tradition, though the family had yet to be informed of this unwelcome decision. We had always been considered wealthy and I suppose we had more than most folks in Conroy, but that’s not saying much. We had land, history, tradition, and status, but what was all that worth when there wasn’t a lot of money in the bank? The old description “land rich and cash poor” definitely fit my family. There may have been some cash two generations ago when Nash Lumber was busy selling wood to the state’s bustling furniture industry, but those days were gone.

I sneaked into Conroy on the same back roads I used in high school when I was parking with girls and drinking forbidden beer with the boys. As always, I expected someone to recognize my car and tell someone else, and before long my mother would know I had been sighted but had not called her or stopped by the house. I didn’t want to go home. The reasons were complicated, still are.

I planned to talk to my father later.

I avoided downtown and drove a mile into the country. I called Breece’s mother and she said he was still the same, nothing had changed. I had not seen him in a month and, as always, felt guilty for not spending more time with him. His days were numbered but no one knew the size of the number. It could be years.

—

Breece Joyner, a far distant cousin.

When he was a senior in high school, he led the Conroy Eagles to a state title, their only one. He was a great quarterback and got offers from dozens of colleges. When he signed with Clemson, the town threw a party in the school’s gymnasium. Most folks wanted him to stay in state at one of their favorite schools, but Clemson had a national program. My father had also played at Clemson, though he had not been heavily recruited. He was quietly proud of Breece’s decision.

I was a freshman back then and never played on the same team with Breece, but we watched every game, every play of his career. Like most small towns, life stopped on Friday nights and everyone went to the game. When Breece played, though, the crowds were even larger. He was a cocky kid with good looks and a swaggering persona, and of course he dated Natalie, the cutest cheerleader and every boy’s dream. It was the perfect romance.

But the fairy tale came to an abrupt end a few weeks after high school graduation when Breece got the news that he was about to become a father. Natalie was two months pregnant. The scandalous news rocked the town and dominated all gossip for weeks. What were their plans? Marriage? Adoption? Abortion? Running away together? One week a hot rumor made the rounds that Breece was enrolling in summer school at Clemson and leaving Natalie behind. More time passed with more speculation. Why couldn’t someone just confirm the truth so the town would know for sure? Weren’t we entitled to know? Didn’t Breece belong to the entire town? The summer crawled along. There were cruel rumors that she was gaining a lot of weight and he wasn’t happy about it. The next week it was told for certain that he wasn’t ready to stay home and give up football.

They got married in the backyard of a family friend, in a small, simple ceremony in which everyone tried to smile in spite of the dark cloud hanging over them. Her family was strict Baptist and barely surviving the scandal. His family was “unchurched” and frowned upon by the Baptists and all other denominations. The reception dinner was tense and didn’t last long. An aunt had a small apartment for rent above her garage. Instead of moving into the rather luxurious football dormitory at Clemson, Breece and his bride moved into a one-bedroom attic flat with unreliable air-conditioning. He got a job in a furniture warehouse twenty miles away and Natalie tried to find a job as a secretary. She couldn’t work, though, because the pregnancy was complicated. Eight months earlier she’d been the rather stunning homecoming queen, and her fabulous boyfriend escorted her across the field as Conroy melted with pride. What’s the old saying? “No star fades faster than that of a high school athlete.”

As sad as it was, Breece’s story kept spiraling.

When football season began that year, I was a sophomore and still growing. In a rebuilding year there were openings, and, at 180 pounds, I started at weakside linebacker. We won our first three games, and the town stopped talking about Breece Joyner. That isn’t true—the town would always talk about him and wonder: What could have been? But for a few weeks we had the spotlight and life was good. Then we lost three in a row and missed the playoffs.

The week before Thanksgiving, Breece was on the job when a terrible accident happened. The warehouse was owned by a foreign company that made cheap furniture and shipped it to the States. It was stored on tall metal shelving designed to hold tons of inventory. An entire wall of shelving collapsed and badly injured two employees, Breece being one. The other guy got lucky and escaped with a broken leg and some cuts. Breece was crushed under a pile of sofas, recliners, and tables. It was obvious to the EMTs that his neck was injured, so his rescue was complicated. Almost an hour passed before he was braced, extracted, put on IVs, and loaded into an ambulance. His once magnificent body was mangled and lifeless.

Breece wishes every day he had not been resuscitated.