Chapter 14: Future Plans

By the end of the season, a very enterprising sophomore got her father, who owned a t-shirt printing company in Matucket, to make some special t-shirts. They were in purple, just like our Pioneer uniforms, and on the front side they said GOON SQUAD in big gray letters. The back had the same motto as our breakaway sign, with S*IT on them. At first just the football team was wearing them, but within days it seemed like the entire school had them. I had to wonder if Mindy Hampton was getting a piece of the action from her old man. He must have sold a thousand of those shirts!

Unfortunately, somebody in Atlanta at the Georgia Department of Education had seen a picture of our banner and decided that it violated all precepts of Christian decency and couldn’t be allowed. (Well, we were nothing but a bunch of thugs and goons, after all. We didn’t know any better!) The banner was banned.

The booster club was downright pissed at this. We were informed the banner had to be something that was either a lot more toned down or relating to the school. That would be something like ‘GO PIONEERS!’ or ‘PIONEER VICTORY!’, some sort of crap like that. Also legal was ‘WISDOM AND EXCELLENCE’, the official Matucket High motto, enshrined on our class rings. (I had never worn my ring once; Kelly was wearing it the day after I picked it up.) It was total bullshit. The booster club decided to tell the Department of Education where to head in. They got us a new breakaway banner with the school motto on it, and then they kept the old one. The banner was a very heavy printed vinyl, with some Velcro holding it together in the center for when we ran through it. The Velcro got yanked off and the banner was sewn together, and then the whole thing was put onto some long poles with heavy stands on the bottom. It went to the top of the Matucket bleachers in future games. That had to be pretty unnerving to any opponents!

By then the entire team was known as the Goon Squad, not just the defense. We continued to dominate our games, both inside Region Three and outside. We’d show up at a game and our fans would all be wearing purple, either our shirts or something of their own, and they would just start screaming, ‘GOON SQUAD! GOON SQUAD!” over and over. Out on the field, the defense was kicking ass and taking names. That had to totally freak out whoever we were playing!

Earl Ray and I were the designated defensive play callers. After we managed to pull ahead by a few goals, Coach Summers would alternate us, letting us play two or three downs and then swapping us. I asked Earl Ray about it once, and he told me, “Coach is trying to teach you, dummy!”

“Teach me?”

“Listen, you’re going to be the defensive captain next year. You know that and I know that. You’re the leader on this squad. You need to learn how to teach somebody else. Next year you’re going to be teaching your brother. That’s how it works, Grim.”

“I had no idea,” I told him.

“You’re fucking hopeless, Grim. Who does your thinking for you at home?”

I grinned at that. “I can answer that one! Kelly tells me she does all my thinking for me.”

“I can believe it! Maybe we should let her play. If nothing else, it would make hitting the showers a lot more interesting!”

I pushed him away. “You want to ask Maddie that one?” Maddie Albright was Earl Ray’s long-time girlfriend.

“Hey, she can join us. I’m man enough for the both of them!”

“You’re full of shit for the both of them!”

At that point Coach blew his whistle and called us out for the next practice scrimmage, and we had to shut up.

I had to think about what Earl Ray had said. I had known him for a long time, going back to Pop Warner, where I was always a year behind him and always on the defense with him. He was going to Georgia State next year, after graduation, but not on a football scholarship. Earl Ray was bluntly honest about it. He wasn’t big enough or strong enough to play college ball. He might be able to do a walk-on with a Division II or III school, but that was questionable at best. Once we finished the season, he would be hanging up his cleats for good.

All season long he had been teaching me the things I would need to lead the defense, but I just wasn’t smart enough to recognize it. Just how smart was I? I was bigger than Earl Ray, but would I be able to get a college football scholarship? Was I good enough? Or was I going to have to figure out something else to do with my life. I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life at the mill running the idiot stick. Mom and Dad were always pushing me to go to college, and they wanted my grades to get better. In the spring I would be taking the SAT tests, just like the rest of the juniors. Did I really want to go to college? And study what?

As much as Kelly and my mother joked that I did my best thinking when they did my thinking for me, I knew that this was something I needed to figure out on my own.

What I wanted to do with the rest of my life mostly took second place to my other concerns. Those centered on playing football, keeping out of trouble with my parents, and keeping my girlfriend satisfied. Football was the easiest of the three. As long as we kept winning, Coach Summers and Mrs. Hollister were happy. By the end of the season, we had gone undefeated, practically unheard of, and were the Region Three champs. We were headed for the playoffs.

Keeping my parents off my case was a totally different problem. They wanted me to keep my grades up, be home, work hard, never ding the car, never drink, never goof off, never fill-in-the-blank. Mostly that worked, but not always. The car got dinged big time, but it wasn’t my fault. I had it parked over at the mall while at the movies with Kelly, and when we came outside, we found the cops and a wrecker by the remnants of the Sienna. A drunk driver had creamed it. Mom and Dad drove over to see the ruins. Thank God the cops told Mom we weren’t even around when it happened. She still wasn’t happy with me but couldn’t punish me. I guess I was supposed to have parked it around the back and surrounded it with traffic cones or something.

I didn’t drink and drive, because Kelly would have handed me my head, but I did have a beer or two when I was out with the guys sometimes. I kept my grades high enough to stay on the team and to keep from getting grounded. I worked hard enough to have enough money to take Kelly out and put gas in the Siennas (plural - Mom got a new one when the insurance company totaled hers out.)

Keeping Kelly happy was both the easiest and most difficult of the three tasks. I broke it down into two parts, keeping her mentally and emotionally happy, and keeping her sexually satisfied. Keeping her happy was a constant problem. I solved it by simply surrendering and doing whatever she wanted me to do. That helped the other half of the equation also, since a happy Kelly was a Kelly who was probably going to let me satisfy her carnal urges. She was very demanding that way, a trait that I encouraged in her. Any number of my buddies described me as pussywhipped, and I couldn’t really argue with them. Then again, seeing Kelly in her underwear, or less, really made it worthwhile!

By the end of the season, I was the top-ranking defender on the team, based on tackles and sacks, with Earl Ray close behind me. Interestingly, the third ranking defender was Brax, and he had the most interceptions of anybody on the team. On the offense, Speed Demon was number one in scoring, rushing, and pass reception. That surprised nobody. What did surprise most of us was that Brax Hughes was our third ranking scorer, even ahead of a couple of the offense’s running backs. He told me once that Coach Summers had asked him to play on the offense, switching to becoming a running back, but Brax preferred being on the defense. He liked tackling people!

One of the more interesting things that I discovered in varsity football was that you didn’t just compare your personal statistics against your teammates, there was also a comparison against other schools and students. Georgia had a computer bulletin board that the coaches sent their results into every week. It was kind of cumbersome and slow, and only the coaches could get at it, but it ranked you against students throughout the state. That was pretty neat. Coach Summers said that college scouts looked at it all the time.

We went undefeated in the regular season, 10-0, and were the top seed in our region for the playoffs. Georgia had eight designated regions, and the top four teams in each region were guaranteed a slot, which made for some strange rankings. Region Three had ten teams in it, so we were an above-average team. Region One was in a very rural section of southern Georgia and only had five teams in it; you were practically a lock to make it to the playoffs, even with a losing season. Our first playoff game was Friday, November 9, against the fourth seed from Region Four, Marietta, and we had the home field advantage. Marietta was a suburb of Atlanta, and the high school was big and rich, certainly bigger and richer than Matucket. We didn’t much care. We had beaten them 24-7 during the regular season, and we beat them 24-6 this time.

That cut the number of teams down from 32 to 16. We were still the higher seeded team, so we still had the home field advantage, and we faced Alpharetta, the third seed from Region Six, who had smacked down the Region Five second seed, Cherokee. Alpharetta was a very large suburban Atlanta school. They had over 2,000 students in four grades, probably a third more than Matucket High did. They were nowhere near as impressed with the Matucket Pioneers and the Goon Squad as some of our other opponents were. For all that the Pioneers were ‘violent, brutal, and ruthless’, the Alpharetta Raiders were just as violent, just as brutal, and just as ruthless. We pounded each other back and forth, up and down the field. It was 7-7 at the half. The Raiders got another touchdown and point after at the end of the third period. At the end of the fourth quarter, Speed Demon managed a good run that got us into the end zone. That made it 14-13.

Coach Summers debated trying for a two-point conversion, but instead settled on a regular point after kick. I am guessing that he figured it was better to take it into overtime than to chance the loss. Maybe that was right. I can’t say. I can say that if we had gone into overtime we would have probably come out as tied as we went in. They had to be dragging their asses as much as we were! It didn’t matter. Eugene Strackmeyer hadn’t missed a single point after or field goal all season. Today he missed it. Maybe one of the Raiders got a fingernail on it, but I don’t know. The ball wobbled slightly in the air, hit the upright, and then caromed off to the side.

The Raiders were going fucking bonkers on their side of the field. We just stared in disbelief at the goalpost the ball had bounced off. Earl Ray came over and helped Eugene to his feet. Eugene was just kneeling there on the grass, crying. He went off the field, and it was our turn to kick it back to the Raiders. Our only hope was for an onside kick, but they managed to grab the ball. It was less than two minutes before the end of the game, so they simply downed the ball and ran out the clock.

It was the end of our post-season. The Raiders were going to the next round, and the Pioneers were going home. Well, the bastards deserved it. It was the toughest game I had ever played in! Still, I had won games and I had lost games, and winning was a whole lot better. We were quiet in the locker room.

The Monday after the game I was cleaning out my locker for the season, throwing it all into a big duffel bag. It was the end of the day, and I had a few minutes before I had to get to the bus. When the spring semester started, I’d have to take gym again, which totally blew. In the meantime, I got a free period for a few weeks. Coach came wandering through and nodded to me, and it got me to thinking. “Coach, you going to be in your office for a few minutes?”

“Sure. What’s up, Grim?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m done.”

He shrugged and left. About five minutes later my bag was packed and I grabbed it and my school pack and headed to his office. It was around the corner from the locker rooms, between the locker rooms and the gym. I knocked on his door and he waved me in. “What’s up, Grim?”

“Uh, well, Coach, I was wondering about the rankings. You know, the ones comparing me to other guys around the state?” He nodded but didn’t say anything. “Well, I was wondering ... college coaches and scouts see them, right? Which ones do you think will be interested in me next year?”

Coach Summers sighed and didn’t smile. Somehow, I hadn’t asked a good question. I was right. He said, “Have a seat, Grim.”

“Will this take long, Coach? I’ll miss my bus.”

“We need to talk about this. I’ll get you home. Don’t worry about it.” I sat down in the chair next to his desk. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me, and then said, “Grim, you’re one of the best high school football players I’ve ever coached.” I smiled at that, but he held up his hand. “But you’re not going to be a college football player.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

He nodded. “Grim, you have many excellent qualities. You are smart; you are tough; you are aggressive. You are a real leader out there on the field, and the guys respect you and listen to you. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news. You’re just not big enough or fast enough to play Division I. You’re probably not going to be playing Division II or III, either.”

“Huh.” I didn’t know what to say about that.

“Just how big are you, Grim.”

“Five-eleven, may six-foot-even. Mom says I have to stop growing, soon,” I said with a smile.

Coach wasn’t smiling. “What do you weigh?”

“One-ninety-five,” I answered proudly.

“Your Mom may say you have to stop growing, but that’s going to happen soon enough, all on its own. You’ll be seventeen next spring, right?” I nodded. “You’re not going to keep growing forever. Based on what you’ve said, you might peak at six-one and two-hundred pounds, maybe two-oh-five. That’s what I mean about you not being big enough. Go look at the Division I stats. Pick a team, any team, and check out their roster. Those guys start at where you’re going to peak. To have a real chance at playing college ball and then going on to the pros, you’d need a couple more inches in height and at least another twenty, thirty pounds.”

“You’re not much bigger than me, Coach, and you did it,” I countered.

He shook his head. “Different times, Grim. That was twenty years ago. Players have been growing every year. I wouldn’t even make the taxi squad these days. It’s only going to get worse. Besides, it’s not just your size. You’re not fast enough to play college or pro ball. Earl Ray is faster than you, and he wouldn’t cut it either.”

“No chance, huh?”

“Grim, even if you juiced so much your nuts fell off and rolled down your pants leg, you’ll never be big enough to go pro,” he told me.

Juicing was taking steroids, or some other stuff, to bulk you up. It was highly illegal, but not unheard of. Coach Summers was death on it, but if you watched the sports news, somebody was always getting caught doing it. I cocked my head and gave him a funny look. “Does that stuff really work?”

“Don’t even think about it, Grim. I’ll bench you so fast your head will spin!” he warned.

“No, I mean, does it really work, that’s all.”

He shrugged again. “Sure, that’s the problem. That stuff was invented for people with real medical problems, not just so they could bulk up to play a game. There are all sorts of side effects. At high enough levels, your nuts will shrink. You think that pretty little redhead you trail around after will appreciate that?” he said, grinning.

“I don’t trail around after her!” I protested.

“Whatever you say, Grim, whatever you say,” he chuckled.