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“It’s impressive.”
I sat forward so we were facing one another. “I’m sure you’ve pushed yourself, being a collegiate athlete.”
“Yeah. We definitely did. It was a lot of work. I miss it sometimes. But I still run a couple of days a week and swim when I’m home.”
Thoughts of Brinkley in a bathing suit flooded my mind.
“You can join me on my swims. I’ve been cross-training a few days a week.”
“Sure. Seeing as now you’ve made me your training partner, when does the actual interview start?”
I smirked. “I knew you were going to ask that.”
“Don’t get a big head. I’m a reporter. It was sort of inevitable that I’d ask.”
“All right. Three questions today. Make them count.”
“I can ask anything?”
“Like I said, I’ll answer what I’m comfortable with. If you ask a question that I don’t want to answer, I’ll just tell you to move on to the next one.”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to record this, so anything that’s not on the record, just be sure to say that so I can make a note later when I type up our conversation.”
“Fair enough.” My jaw ticked, and I prepared for the worst.
“Why do you look so uncomfortable?”
“I don’t like talking about myself outside of football.”
I’d never been one to put myself in vulnerable situations, and for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like I was in complete control over this interview.
“Then we’ll start with football.” Her lips turned up in the corners the slightest bit, and her gaze locked with mine. She held up the phone to show me that she was hitting the record button. She said the date and the time, and her demeanor changed in that moment. Her shoulders squared, and she let out a long breath. She took her job seriously, that much was clear.
“Did you know that you wanted to play football when you were young?”
She’d thrown me an easy pass, and I appreciated it.
“From the first moment I held a football in my hands, something changed in me.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I was maybe five or six years old when my grandfather gave me a football. I just remember coming alive. Waking up every day and wanting to play.”
I remembered that day with my grandfather like it was yesterday.
“Like it was a part of you?”
“Sure. I’d say that’s a fair statement. It was all fun and games back then. I played flag football for years, and then things started changing in high school. It was no longer just a hobby or something I looked forward to doing. It was what I wanted to pursue.”
She nodded.
“So, Lincoln, tell us about the next level of play. About getting recruited to college.”
I held up two fingers to remind her that this counted as question number two.
She glared in response, and I forced back a smile. I liked irritating her.
“I got one offer to play at a small college in Iowa, where I’d grown up. My high school coach knew Jack Hardin, who coached at Iowa State College, and he took a chance on me. He’s also the man who helped me transfer to Alabama from there. I still wasn’t their best guy, so I didn’t get a ton of playing time when I first arrived. But I was training with top-notch coaches and athletes. Learning. Taking it all in. Working my ass off every day to try to get better.”
