Chapter 91: State Championship

The principal announced they were canceling the second to last period on Thursday for a mandatory pep rally in the school’s gymnasium. It being mandatory was okay with the great majority of students since they would all like a chance for a final goodbye to the team before they left to compete to bring back a state championship in football.

While the other students reported to the gymnasium, the football team, its managers, and student athletic trainers met in the locker room.

“Okay, ladies, let’s get in line by uniform number. The spirit squad has prepared a special concert of some kind for y’all. Be appreciative if you’re dating one of those ladies or a couple of them,” Coach Fontana joked while everyone got into order. “Make sure you thank them for all of their hard work. Believe it or not, while we’ve been toiling away out on the practice fields and in the weight room, they’ve been in that second gym working on their different routines for each week. It’s a lot of damned work, and you need to let them know you’re impressed. Trust me, it’ll help. Now give me the captains and Murphy, please. Front and center!”

“Yeah, coach!” Tim announced as he was just entering the locker room.

“Here. The cheer squad asked that you and the two captains wait until y’all hear your names,” Coach Fontana explained. “Don’t give me those looks. These girls have been working on something for the last couple of weeks, and when the game was postponed, they asked if they could do a special skit for the pep rally.” After addressing the captains behind Tim, he focused in on him. “After your video, we’d look like assholes if we said yes to you and no to them.” The three quickly agreed to go with the flow.

The two captains, along with Tim, gathered just inside the doorway to the gymnasium from the locker room. They kept the door slightly ajar, hoping to see some of the show. Unfortunately, their views were blocked by standing football players, but they could definitely hear the band doing a not-so-bad rendition of DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.”

The rest of the team mulled into the gym but kept themselves near the locker room entrance as the student body filled in the empty spots. It was mainly standing room only, with priority seating going to kids who entered early. Everyone else got to stand and watch the festivities from the gym floor.

From his spot in the doorway, Tim could occasionally see a smallish figure dressed in the cheerleader uniform flying through the air in some crazy gymnastics routine. The student body was pleasantly surprised and impressed. They showed their true feelings with a raucous ovation when the presentation was finished.

After a thankfully short speech by Principal Sanders, Coach O’Shaughnessy took the stage. First, he introduced each of the student managers and athletic trainers, and then, he introduced the handful of junior varsity starters who were dressing out for the championship game.

Gabe “Big G” Gomez, the sophomore offensive tackle, was likely to be the future of the offensive line. Tim had to work a little bit harder each week he lined up against ‘Big G.’ Sophomore running back Cody Watson was all set to become a prized running back of the future for Roosevelt. Kevin Robinson, Sophomore middle linebacker and Frank’s brother, was not as flamboyant as his brother. Still, Tim saw the young man as a talented player and, with age, he could become a quality college player.

The freshman team members were Tim’s friends. Johnnie Boynes, a freshman and a quality running back in his own right, was all set to give Cody a hard time earning his starting running back position for next season. Jeff Green, the large kid already showing signs of extraordinary play along the offensive line, even for a freshman, would make all the upper-class offensive linemen work harder to keep their positions. Finally, from the freshman squad was Mark Mazzurana, a defensive lineman who showed great potential. Before the cessation of Coach Fontana’s “no freshmen on varsity” rule, Mark was a prime candidate to consider leaving the school for greener pastures and the opportunity to play varsity. Now, he had a fighting chance. He played like a younger Jeff Smith, the future UTSA Roadrunner.

The JV and freshman players were dressing up mainly as added security in case of disastrous injury to every player in front of them who could play their position. Considering who the Rough Riders were preparing to face, it was not totally out of the realm of possibilities that they might be needed.

Next, Coach O’Shaughnessy listed off the varsity team in his unique way. For each player, Coach O’Shaughnessy told a brief anecdote of something unique about that young man the coach had learned throughout that player being in the football program. Even if that player had minimal interactions with the defensive coordinator for the varsity team, it was a look at just how well the coaches really knew their players. It was also a nice way for the coaches to tell the players that they saw them as people, not just lumps of coal they would press into football-playing diamonds. Soon enough, the entire team had jogged up to cross the stage and take a spot behind the stage.

“Now I understand the team captains have something they want to say before we continue, so let’s have a great big round of applause for the two captains all season long!” The applause started right up as loud as during the cheerleaders’ performance. “Our offensive captain is a two-time all-district winner, and this year, we have just received word he can add a third year for that honor. I can also let everyone know that he has just accepted an offer from the University of Texas at Austin as a preferred walk-on; let’s give it up for Troy Williams!”

Troy jogged up to the stage on pure muscle memory. By the look on his face, he didn’t remember the short journey.

“Oh wow! Um, okay. That was something I had not heard about yet,” the young man muttered nervously.

Coach O’Shaughnessy pointed to the side away from the locker room. Troy’s mother and father were both standing there, and his father was waving a sheet of paper and a burnt-orange colored envelope in his hand.

“Seriously?”

His parents both started nodding enthusiastically, and Troy, rather than speaking to the pep rally, jumped off the small stage and ran toward his parents. All three embraced, like a scene from a made-for-TV movie. Needless to say, the crowd noise grew exponentially!

After a few moments of getting their emotions back into check, Coach O’Shaughnessy waited patiently for the noise level to drop for more announcements.

“Okay, well, that’s not all! Our defensive captain has been leading the varsity squad for over two years, and he has earned all-district and all-city accolades each of those seasons. So come on up here, Frank Robinson!”

Frank held his hand up to his ear, egging on the pep rally crowd for a louder reception as he slowly walked to the stage, absorbing all the love offered by the student body. When he took the microphone from Coach O’Shaughnessy, the coach again pointed toward the door where Troy’s parents had just been waiting. Now, though, standing up front, was his mother, Phileesha. She clutched a sizable purple envelope to her breast.

Frank had a microphone in his hand, so he used it. “Is that what I think it is?” His mother nodded enthusiastically. Frank leaped off the mini-stage in a repeat of what Troy had done a minute earlier but with microphone still in hand. Frank bear-hugged his mother and twirled her around in an expression of love as he had done since he first grew big enough to do so. He almost missed his little sister, Janet, standing right behind her, pulling her into a hug. Frank’s little brother, Kevin, jogged over from the team to join in the hug. Frank’s mother, who was openly crying and wearing a huge smile, handed her oldest son the envelope and unsuccessfully tried to wipe away a few tears streaming down her face. Janet handed her some tissues from out of her purse.

“It came in the mail yesterday, and when I called your coach to see if you were nearby, he asked me to keep it quiet and to bring it here for the show,” Phileesha explained as he carefully opened the envelope. It took a mind-numbingly extended amount of time for Frank to open the envelope, and the previously raucous crowd all held their breaths in anticipation. Frank did not want to damage any sheet of paper in the package. If the news were good, it would become a treasured keepsake to show his children when they were old enough to understand the significance.

Frank’s lips were moving as he read from the cover letter. Finally, some sound came out of his mouth a couple of lines into the letter. “It is with great pleasure, Frank, that we send this letter and admissions package to you. We are happy to extend a full athletic scholarship to you for the following fall semester here,” Frank mumbled, but when he looked up to his mother, his high returned. “Mama, I’m going to TCU.” The two began to hug again, and the crowd roared to life so loudly that the family was jerked back into reality.

Troy Williams had finished talking to his parents for the moment and remembered their announcement before their group interruptions. He returned to the dais behind Coach O’Shaughnessy, who was beaming with pride. The coach handed another microphone to the offensive captain. The gym was buzzing with pride and joy.

“Say, Frank? I’m sorry to pull you away from your family, but we still got an announcement of our own. Can you come back up here, please?”

Frank nodded, gave quick kisses on the cheek to his sister and mother, and gave a hearty hug to his brother Kevin. The two jogged back to the stage, with Frank jumping onto it and Kevin rejoining the team lined up along the back wall.

“Congrats, my man! I knew you could do it,” Troy offered his friend.

“Thanks, and the same to you, even though we’re going to have to hurt you when we play each other next season,” Frank joked with a quick bro hug, a forearm grasp, and a short, manly hug.

Troy brought the mic up to begin what they planned to do. “Listen. We aren’t stupid. To have the two of us as the only captains when there is one obvious individual who has earned the rank of a captain just as much as either one of us,” Troy announced, then deftly handed the microphone back to Frank.

“Probably more so if we were to be true!” the defensive captain added.

Frank took a few moments to take in the view of the entire school firmly behind their football team. “Wow. Look at us, will ya?” Frank paused again, gazing at the audience, the smiling cheerleaders, spirit squad members, and his fellow teammates all paying attention and wondering what would happen next. “I mean seriously, not just up here along the wall or up on this stage. Look at us. Theodore Roosevelt High School.” The rally started cheering again but came under control right away.

“Who would have thought all this was possible at the beginning of the year? Seniors walk the halls, ready for their adult lives to begin. Freshman desperately hoping they didn’t incur the wrath of some upperclassman version of a high school bully. Some are ready for the next chapter in the still-being-written books of their lives, while others are desperately trying to hang on to those final whiffs of childhood, but all of us are going to be connected for the rest of our lives by one thing ... we’re all Roosevelt Rough Riders!”

Frank raised his hands above his head and waved on the cheers. Then turned around and returned the microphone to Troy. They had a brief palaver that was barely audible through the still-hot microphone between them.

“Go ahead, you do it.”

“Nah, you go ahead.”

“Well, one of you do whatever the heck you were going to do, I gotta take a leak, and we gotta stay out here until the end of this damned rally!” Coach O’Shaughnessy decried, causing a short laughing fit through the student body and a few coaches who tried to cover up their mirth in vain.

Troy ended up with the mic. “Well said, Frank. Beautifully said.” Troy stepped forward and took in the crowd. “We are here for one very special reason. It’s actually one of the saddest thoughts I’ve had in the last few weeks. This game is going to be my last high school football game, and I’ll get to play with these guys all around, and in particular, it was the man who spearheaded our drive into the state playoffs. So, with all of your help, I’d like for you to clap your hands and bring out the main reason we are on the verge of doing something this school has only done once before. The guy that we, as a team, voted on earlier today to officially become our third captain for the state championship, Tim ‘Mayhem’ Murphy!”

Tim almost stumbled a step coming out of the locker room. Hearing the team had voted him a new captain faltered his attention, but there was also the light-hearted Johnnie Boynes shove from behind. Tim climbed the stage and joined the team captains through the cacophony of congratulations and friendly shoves given to him by the rest of the team.

“Well, first of all, I’m not announcing where I’m going to college just yet. I think I have a little bit of time before I have to decide that.” A noticeable number of coaches could suddenly see the backs of their heads as their eyes rolled back into their own heads.

Everyone politely laughed at that. “Wow. Yeah. I didn’t hear about a vote by the team, so I’m kinda worried about something like that happening right under my nose, but I’m also really thankful for it all as well. Look, we have a big game happening on Friday night. I really hope we can get most of y’all out there to help cheer for us against what will actually be a true home-field advantage for Duncanville. I mean, it’s like, what, twenty minutes or so from their school out to AT&T Stadium?

“We are heading out to Dallas in about an hour or so, and I want to thank the teachers for trying not to bury us in homework or do too much studying so we can have our heads ready for the game. Trust us, we appreciate it, and we will all be doing a bunch of studying on the bus ride, anyway, tomorrow just to think about something other than this football game,” Tim joked.

“But wow. I see all of our school out here to help send us off to hopefully bring back one more win for the Roosevelt Rough Riders,” Tim led the students into another loud cheer, but then he thought of something else to say. “And besides, guessing there has got to be one heck of a party if we can pull out the win, am I right?”

While the rest of the school returned to their classes, the team ate a dinner provided by the cafeteria staff. It was the same meal they had eaten before each game, and it tasted just as good as it did every week. Afterward, the players gathered up large duffel bags to carry their shoulder pads, helmets, and any other assorted pads and accessories. They also had an overnight bag with a couple of changes of clothes since it was decided to make the return to school right after the game instead of going back to a hotel and staying another night out of town.

If the game was successful, the time on the road should fly right on by, especially with the other fans driving back in a long convoy to return to Roosevelt. If they didn’t win, the guys would be alone with their feelings and teammates to help them get over the loss and to better face the fans once they got home.

The trip up to Dallas seemed to go much quicker than the trip to Waco, even though they had passed Waco much earlier on their five-hour drive. They were moving at a good clip up I-35.

Several of the players got a little overexcited to catch a fleeting glimpse of the stadium for the University of Texas at Austin. The coaches had to order them back into their seats when the driver objected to the sudden shift in weight in and around the heavy congestion of Austin traffic. When the uproar over their eagerness subsided, the small conversations started up again.

“Dude, Mayhem. Do you have any idea where you want to play football when you go to college? I mean, you wanna. Don’t you?” one of the other players asked from a couple of seats behind Tim.

“You know what? I don’t really have any kind of idea about it. I mean, I’m looking forward to visiting a bunch of schools. I mean, they’ll make sure you have some fun, I guess.” The snickers threatened to become loud but died off abruptly under a dark gaze from one of the coaches. “I mean, I guess I’ll have my choice, but I do know one thing for sure. I’m not interested in one of those big-time religious schools. That ain’t me,” Tim answered honestly. “They ain’t me at all.”

The conversation died down again while everyone was generally quiet and stuck in their own thoughts.

The response video the team and friends made went viral — not just in the United States but also internationally. Several people dubbed Tim’s lines, inserting their own. A group around the Tim was sharing them on their tablets with each other.

“I especially love the one meme where they hand Tim a Snickers bar to keep him from being so angry. That shit made me laugh out loud for real, son!” Frank added.

The bus pulled up to the front door of the hotel, and one of the coaches jumped off. The driver had to work hard to get the bus into the proper spot on the far side of the hotel’s parking lot. “Okay, ladies, eyes up front and mouths shut, please,” Coach O’Shaughnessy shouted to get everyone’s attention. “Now, like last week down in Waco, you are going to get assigned a room, and most likely, it will be again with the same guy from then, but we are getting here in time to get settled and then grab some shut-eye,” Coach O’Shaughnessy announced. “Newsome!”

“Yes, Coach?” came an answer from somewhere near the back of the bus.

“I already talked to your uncle. No parties tonight,” the coach smiled, and he shot finger guns at the young man to show he was kidding around.

“No problem, Coach. Lesson well learned! Besides, I’m looking forward to catching a few Z’s tonight!”

“Okay. Everyone step off the bus. Coach Barrett has a room key and roommate assignment for you. Don’t switch roommates. We are responsible for you, and I don’t wanna have to fill out all kinds of paperwork if we lose one of you cause you changed rooms with somebody else. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Also, when you approach the hotel door, we have some sandwiches and snacks that the cafeteria set up for us since we knew we’d be coming in pretty late. So grab a couple of sandwiches and some chips and something to drink and enjoy them in your rooms. I’m sure you all have all kinds of stuff to entertain yourselves before falling asleep. And remember, this is not a vacation. Don’t forget why we’re here.” Frank, Troy, and Tim stood up from their seats nearer the front of the bus and gave evil eyes to a few possible problem children, but everyone would be on good behavior for the night.

A half-hour later, everyone had their room assignments, sandwiches, and more bags of chips in varying flavors. In their room, Tim and Rob Newsome got themselves situated, and each one decided to check up on homework via the better internet connection in the room rather than on the road. The room check came a half hour after that. Startled, they both looked at each other when the knock came.

“What are you two laughing about?” Coach Van Cleeve asked after being let in and checking the room.

“Oh, we both sat down and started our homework when we got into the room. We were both so into what we were doing that we didn’t realize how long we were working, so when you knocked for the bed check, considering last time, we found it funny,” Tim answered.

The coach was smiling, too. “Yep, I can see that. Well, don’t stay up too late. We’ll meet at the hotel restaurant at nine for breakfast. Then we’ll probably break up into team units and go over last-second stuff before lunch, and then to the stadium. We get to hurry up and wait.”

“We got you, Coach.”

“Good. Good night, ladies,” Coach Van Cleeve said as he backed out the door and pulled firmly to lock it behind him.

The hardest part of the next day was sitting around the hotel after lunch and having to wait until it was time to head out to AT&T Stadium. The idea to go early and get a tour of the place was killed when Coach Van Cleeve told the team there was a specific window for when the team could arrive at the stadium. There were going to be earlier games with four different teams. The weather delay of a week moved the games back from Saturday since the stadium needed to be reset for some prominent country artists on Saturday night. That meant more games squeezed into that Friday.

Each team needed time on the field to acclimate themselves. They would get that time a little bit before the team needed to be dressed in pads, but not really a lot of time to totally get over the size of the field.

“The difference between AT&T Stadium and the Alamodome will be night and day. That damn overhead scoreboard is gonna make you break...” The coach paused mid-speech to look up. “ ... your necks trying to look at it during the game.

“Fellas!” Coach Van Cleeve said a little bit louder for the whole team to hear and waited a moment for them to turn their attention to him. “Fellas! If you’re on the field and in the play, try not to look up at the scoreboard. It’s made to force you to do that. You might miss something, or even worse, you’ll screw up. You do that, and then we crack your neck ourselves and blame it on the scoreboard!”

The bus ride to the stadium following day was not very interesting, but the tension on the bus was growing. When the stadium first became visible, the tension grew exponentially. As they came to a stop next to the towering stadium, the tension on the bus could have been cut with a spoon. The idea of what they were about to face came to the forefront for each of them.

The bus came to a full stop, and the driver opened the door and hopped out to open the undercarriage for the players’ pads. Coach Fontana was the first to notice a TV cameraman was waiting for the Rough Riders to exit. Coach Fontana leaned over to the acting head coach and got his attention. He whispered into his ear, and Coach O’Shaughnessy simply smiled and nodded.

“I figured, and I got a way to work it.”

The shrill whistle from Coach O’Shaughnessy gained everyone’s attention, and he waved for everyone to sit back down. It took a moment since several players had gotten up from their seats to exit the bus.

“Men. Remember, this is just a big-ass building over a football field. I mean, I could do a football version of that scene from the movie ‘Hoosiers,’ but I’m not about to whip out some damned tape measure to show you the field is a hundred yards long, just like our field back home!” The joke lifted the tension just enough to keep those on the verge of losing their lunch the ability to hold it — at least until they were safer into the locker room.

A man in a University Interscholastic League polo shirt stepped up onto the bus and met eyes with Coach O’Shaughnessy. “Roosevelt?” Coach nodded. “Excellent! You guys are right on time. Follow me, and I’ll get you to the locker room.” The nondescript man exited the bus and waited for the team to follow him off.

“Okay, ladies, get off the bus and grab a bag of gear. It doesn’t have to be your own. We’ll sort it out in the locker room.” Right before everyone jumped up to start off the bus, Coach O’Shaughnessy paused for a final instruction before entering the new unfriendly confines of AT&T Stadium. “Ooh, here’s an idea. We got a cameraman here. Murphy!”

“Yes, Coach!”

“Because you never did get that doughnut like Coach Fontana kept asking you to, you go out first and lose the shirt! Do that same look from your video. Scare the shit out of them!”

The whooping and hollering from the rest of the team was infectious. Frank handed him an unopened bottle of water. Tim nearly ripped off his t-shirt, poured the water into his hair, and ruffled it to give it an unkempt look.

Frank spent a moment looking over the newly minted team captain. “Nice, but not quite there yet. You don’t have that pissed-off look just yet.”

The TCU-bound middle linebacker stood in the bus aisle and, with a long reach back, gave Tim an open-handed slap across the face. Several of the players winced at the sound of the slap. It was not a light slap, but Tim barely moved a muscle. His focus seemed to sharpen, and the look he gave his friend made him stay a bit out of reach of the freshman.

“Other side as well,” Tim ordered with a sinister growl.

The second slap was not as strong, but definitely strong enough to get the job done.

Frank examined his handy work, took off his own shirt, and said, “Yep, that’s it! Everyone is pissed off, like Tim’s video. Lead us out, Captain.”

Tim and the other captains exited the bus first. The cameraman understood his job and was ready to catch the first view of all of Tim’s six-foot-five, 280-pound frame. While Frank and Troy were far above-average physical examples of high school athletes, Tim looked like he was carved straight out of marble. The nanites helped by flexing nearly every muscle he had and popped all his veins, highlighting his low, five percent body fat percentage. To top off the look, Tim showed no emotions on his face. It was a disturbing demeanor.

In all honesty, Tim was mainly concerned with not tripping. The quick dowsing of water put the satin on the panties and made it look like Tim had been working out during the entire bus ride up from San Antonio. It was the perfect pièce de résistance the cameraman sought for the broadcast. Tim glowered at the cameraman, seemingly staring into his soul to see his most hidden truth. The cameraman could not stop himself from visibly gulping as the stunning and terrorizing figure intimidated everyone in his path toward the visitor locker room.

When they got into the locker room, Frank could no longer hold his emotions in. Frank started howling out loud and jumped onto Tim’s back, laughing and haphazardly slapping at Tim’s chest, almost uncontrollably laughing.

“Did you see his face?” Frank barely got out. He was now visibly crying as the two danced around one of several weight-bearing columns in the locker room. “His face! His face! His ... freaking ... face!”

Frank was still laughing as the majority of the team entered the locker room to find their defensive captain now rolling on the floor and laughing harder than an elementary school kid first discovering Bugs Bunny. The tension was lifting but was still threatening to take over in no time.

“Okay, ladies. Let’s settle down. Settle down and get your gear ready to go — pants and pads — and then we head out to check out the field,” Coach O’Shaughnessy declared once everyone was in the locker room.

Tim and the other two captains went out to the field first. Their initial observations were momentous compared to what the coaches had tried to convey. “Fuck. This is big,” Troy mumbled.

“That’s what she said,” both Frank and Tim added without thinking.

Another fit of laughter hit the threesome as they wandered underneath the gigantic scoreboard hovering over the center of the field. It did not appear as high above the field as seen on TV. Still, an impromptu toss around of a football between the three captains hinted that hitting it with a throw was not going to be a simple accomplishment.

Rather than trying, the three captains tossed a football around between themselves as more of their teammates joined them on the field. Most were working on not falling flat on their asses as they bumped into each other while staring up at the jumbotron. It showed highlights of games already played that day.

A smattering of fans in the seats from the Texas 6A Division II Football Championship played earlier, but the number was steadily growing as fans of the battle between Roosevelt and Duncanville for the 6A Division I Football Championship entered the stadium.

“Say, man! Say, man! So here I am,” a booming voice from the opposite side of the field carried over the other conversations. It quickly gathered everyone’s attention. “You said we were gonna see each other. So I’m here. What’s up?” Antwaun Gibbs’ gravitas reverberated on the field. “You called for the trouble! Guess what? Trouble here, now!” He pushed a slower player in front of him with a hard shove. The player plowed into the group of players ahead. “Trouble here, now!”

“Oh good,” Tim said from the iconic Dallas Cowboys blue and white trimmed star in the center of the field. “I was hoping we had a chance to talk before the game.”

Tim was very nonchalant and non-confrontational, as he usually portrayed himself daily. When the helmet’s chin strap was buttoned up and Tim walked onto the field, a switch was flipped, and Tim would become Mayhem. He was very much in Tim mode as he walked toward the high school boys decked out in their pants and pads. Neither side was wearing helmets or shoulder pads yet.

The few Duncanville players joining Antwaun on the field were initially apprehensive since a couple of authority figures were yelling from inside the Duncanville tunnel. Antwaun did not waiver for an instant. He was hyper-focused on Tim, and Tim was focused on him as well.