AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good riddance.”
“Amen. Anyway, he pumped me for information on your background. Your folks. Coach Miller. All that. All I told him, the only thing I told him, was that you had the best arm and best hustle of any quarterback I’d ever seen. Topping Montana, Staubach, Favre, Marino, Elway, Unitas. You name me one, you were better. I mean that.”
“Thanks.”
“Which makes me all the more pissed off at you for what you did.”
Bolly Rich, a sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, had always been fair to him. Even when he didn’t perform well, like one Monday Night Football game against Pittsburgh. It was his rookie year, his first time playing the Steelers on their turf. He played the worst game of his career. Bolly’s column the next morning had been critical, but he’d placed part of the blame for the humiliating loss on the offensive line, which had done precious little to protect the new quarterback. He hadn’t crucified Griff the way other sportswriters had. That wasn’t Bolly’s style.
Griff was hoping to appeal to Bolly’s sense of fair play now. “I fucked up,” he said. “Huge.”
“How could you do it, Griff? Especially after such an outstanding season. You were one game away from the Super Bowl. All you had to do was win that game against Washington.”
“Yep.”
“No way Oakland could have defeated the Cowboys that year. Y’all would have waltzed through the Super Bowl game against them.”
“I know that, too.”
“You only had to get the ball to Whitethorn, who was standing on the two. The two! Nobody near him.”
Bolly didn’t have to recount the play for him. He’d replayed it in his mind a thousand times since he threw that pass while the final seconds of the game ticked off the clock.
Fourth and goal on the Redskins’—it would be the goddamn Redskins—ten-yard line. Cowboys trail by four. A field goal won’t do it.
The center snapped the ball into Griff’s hands.
Whitethorn shot forward off the line of scrimmage.
A Redskins lineman slipped, missed the tackle. Whitethorn got to the five.
Skins defenders trying to blitz were stopped dead. They couldn’t climb or penetrate Dallas’s line, collectively named “Stonewall” that season.
A Skins linebacker was charging toward Whitethorn, but Whitethorn was now on the two with space around him. The team was only one step shy of the goal, of victory, of the Super Bowl.
All Griff had to do was lob a short screen pass over the line into Whitethorn’s hands.
Or miss him, and get paid a cool two million by the Vista boys.
Cowboys lost 14–10.
“It was a crushing loss,” Bolly was saying, “but I remember how the fans still cheered you as you left the field that day. They didn’t turn against you until later, when it came out that you’d missed Whitethorn on purpose. And who could blame them? Their Super Bowl–bound star turned out to be a cheat, a crook.”
Talking about it five years after the fact still made Bolly angry. He dropped the tennis ball, which bounced off his desk onto the floor, ignored. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes with agitation, and asked brusquely, “What do you want, Griff?”
“A job.”
Bolly replaced his glasses and looked at him as though waiting for the punch line. Eventually, realizing that Griff was serious, he said, “What?”
“You heard right.”
“A job? Doing what?”
“I thought a paper route might be available. Could you put in a good word for me with someone in that department?” Bolly continued to stare at him; he didn’t smile. “That was a joke, Bolly.”
“Is it? Because beyond that, I can’t imagine why you’ve come to me asking about a job. You go anywhere near the sports desk at the newspaper and you’ll probably be tarred and feathered. If you’re lucky.”
“I wouldn’t have to go near the sports desk. I could work directly for you.”
