Chapter 21: Was it Something I Said?

Thursday November 5

I got up to do my morning run. I asked the girl at the front desk what direction I should go. I didn’t want to end up in a bad neighborhood. She told me that if I ran towards where we went to dinner last night, there was a State Park called White River. Even though the Holiday Inn Express offered a complimentary breakfast, I wasn’t interested in what they had available, so she suggested a diner I could go to.

I began my run and it took me by the football stadium. It was different than running at home. Everything was paved over and there was a slight smell of exhaust fumes. When she’d said ‘State Park’, I’d expected something more like a forest. What I found reminded me of our park at home, except this one had large metal art scattered throughout it. There was also a zoo and outdoor stage for concerts.

I wasn’t alone in the park; there were other people out running. They looked like they were all older, and I would guess they were professionals. I had to laugh when I saw one guy running with his shirt off. This must be a place to pick up girls, because when I circled around to head back he was chatting up a woman as I ran by. I took a closer look and he obviously spent a lot of time working out. I still didn’t think it was a good idea to run this time of year without a shirt on. It was a little too cold for that.

As I ran, I started to notice that many of the women would make eye contact and smile at me. Being adventurous, I waited until I saw a cute brunette who looked younger than most, and when she smiled I stopped. She stepped in front of me and gave me a brazen inspection from head-to-crotch-to-toe.

“I was going to go get breakfast. Care to join me?” I asked.

“You seem a little young,” she said.

“I’ll ask someone else,” I said as I started to step around her, but she blocked my way.

“I like a confident man. I think I’ll let you buy me breakfast,” she said as she grabbed my hand and we began to jog.

She cracked me up when she checked out my butt as we ran to the diner. I’d been under the impression that only guys were that aggressive. I thought I might like older women. I also realized that this was a better way to meet the type of woman I liked than to go to a bar. A woman who ran was athletic and would have a nice butt. I could get behind a firm bottom.

When we got to the diner, we sat down at a booth that overlooked the park. The server handed us menus and left us to get to know each other. I was interested in how this worked. I was sure a little research might be good in case I ever needed some company in a strange town.

“So, what do you do?” I asked.

“I just started at Eli Lilly as a programmer. I moved here from Dayton. How about yourself?”

“I do some modeling.”

“I think I need to change my answer. I’m a brain surgeon. Next you’ll tell me you’re only in town for a few days and we owe it to ourselves to spend some quality time together.”

“Does that usually work? Because I am only in town today and will leave tomorrow. We could skip breakfast if you’re in a hurry,” I shot back.

“So you’re cheap as well. You won’t even spring for breakfast.”

“Hypothetically, if I were to pick you up jogging and treat you to breakfast, what would it take to spend some quality time with you?” I asked.

“Hypothetically, you’d need to come up with a better line than you’re a model. Maybe if you said you were a stock trader or insurance salesman, something normal. When you hit a girl with the whole model shtick, she’s going to get her guard up.”

“But what if I really were a model?” I asked.

“Then you wouldn’t be hitting on someone like me.”

“What if I told you I was a quarterback? Would that be any better?”

She gave me an exasperated sigh. The good news was she hadn’t gotten up and run away.

“So, by now you know I’m a player just looking for a good time. If I was honest and said I was looking for a hookup, would that be any better?” I asked.

“Are you sure you’re interested in the type of girl who’d respond to that?” she asked.

“If it was just a hookup and no one got hurt, I might. It would have to be discreet, though. I wouldn’t want the wife and kids to find out.”

“That’s probably a good idea. I’m sure my boyfriend would be a little upset too.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend,” I said with confidence.

“Just like you don’t have a wife and kids,” she said.

The server came and took our order. I flirted with her shamelessly while we ate, and she gave me pointers on pickup lines. We both knew this wasn’t going any further, and didn’t even share our names or contact information. I did tell her to watch ESPN tonight and she would see me play quarterback. I wondered if she would.

When I returned to the hotel, Phil told me that Coach Mason had requested that I meet him in one of the coaches’ rooms at the football field. I was the last one to arrive and I found Jim, Wolf, Ty, Yuri, Roc, Johan and Tim with Coach. It was a group I didn’t expect Coach Mason to want all together, because Tim was injured, and Yuri played defense. Coach Mason saw my confused look.

“We have some time this morning, and I wanted to talk to all of you about your future. I’ve been involved in high-level coaching for a number of years. While it’s true that if you have talent, the NFL will find you, the problem is that it’s much harder to get there if you don’t find the right situation in college. Moreover, it will affect your earning power both in and out of football if you don’t come out of the right situation. While I don’t want to make you think that you all have a shot at playing on Sundays, college football can open doors for you outside of football.

“The reason you’re all here is because I’ve watched tape of you playing, and you all have the skills to play college ball. I want to help you clarify what you should be looking for in a football program.

“Let’s talk about a couple of programs that make me wonder, and I would suggest you stay away from them. The two I want you to consider are Rutgers and Georgia. I’ve gotten the reports from scouting sites like 247Sports and Scouts on state-by-state recruit density. That means the number of 3-, 4- and 5-star recruits you can expect a state to produce each year. If you take that number, and divide it by the number of FBS schools in the state, you can easily see why some teams are successful and others aren’t.”

“What’s FBS?” Yuri asked.

“The NCAA Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division 1-A, is the top level of college football. The FBS is the more competitive subdivision of NCAA Division 1, which itself consists of the largest and most competitive schools. There are 10 conferences and 128 schools in the FBS,” Coach Mason said, and confirmed Yuri understood before he moved on.

“If you have balanced recruiting classes, you need to have 20 to 25 players join your program each year. Numbers one and two are New Jersey at 44 quality recruits per year and Georgia at 38 per school. Since it’s the only FBS school in that state, if Rutgers could lock down the talent in New Jersey, they should compete for the Big Ten title every year. Georgia baffles me. They’re in the SEC and have the fan base and facilities to compete for national championships. All I can say is they must not have the coaching to pull it off.”

I didn’t comment on what I thought about Georgia.

“At the other end of the spectrum is Wyoming who produces a quality recruit about once every two years. Yet they seem to have solid teams.

“What I wanted to point out is there are natural recruiting bases for certain schools that should make them competitive year in and year out,” Coach Mason explained.

“I thought that states like California, Texas and Florida had the most talent,” Jim said.

“They do, but they also have more FBS schools in each state. California and Florida have seven FBS schools and Texas has twelve. Even with all the competition in-state, they still could fill their rosters with homegrown talent,” Coach Mason said.

“Coach, while all this is great, not all recruits are created equal. I can see why you’re explaining this, but we have a game to play. Maybe you could get to the point,” I said with a smile.

I’ve worked with Coach Mason over the last two years to some extent and he was great with details. The man had so many facts stored in his head that he could talk for hours. He gave me a look and at first I thought I’d pissed him off, but then he realized what he’d been doing.

“Fair enough. Let’s start with Roc and Yuri. You’re both underclassmen who have the potential to develop into good enough players to be recruited. Talk to David about how he prepared. You both need to go to football camps this summer. You’ll both learn, but also the right people will see you.

“Tim, you need to focus on rehab and only rehab. I don’t want to hear anyone tell me you went out for baseball or anything like that. You need to get that knee back to even better than it was before the injury. You also need to put on at least twenty pounds of muscle,” Coach Mason said.

“Yes, sir. I talked to my parents and they agree with you. I’ve talked to the head trainer at State and he’ll help me with rehab and workout plans.”

I didn’t know that, but it made sense. Our State University made an effort to help area high school athletes.

“Johan, you just need to put on about fifty pounds of muscle and start to contact colleges. You can’t wait for them to come to you. Is this your first year of football?” Coach Mason asked.

“Yes, I was homeschooled before this year.”

“If you want, I can make some calls on your behalf.”

I don’t think Johan had thought about going to college. He got a serious look and nodded. Coach Mason turned to Jim.

“Do you have an offer from Alabama?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” Jim said.

“Call them today and accept. Alabama has the best offensive line in college football. They’ll redshirt you your first year to help you get there physically. While you’re big enough for high school, you’ll need to add muscle to withstand the punishment of playing college ball.”

Jim nodded. I think he needed someone to tell him what to do, because he’d been back and forth as to where to go. If Jim went to Alabama, it was the first crack in my grand scheme to get everyone to go to the same school. For that to happen we would all need to go to USC. In the end, it would need to be what was best for each guy. I was sure Coach Mason would sit down with Jim and talk to him and his parents. He then turned to Ty.

“At every level there’s a place for a running back who can catch the ball. You’re also a hard runner who can run between the tackles. I would focus on improving your receiving skills and speed. A fast running back that can catch the ball will normally be defended by a linebacker. You can be a difference-maker. From what I’ve seen, it’s just a matter of time for word to start to get out before recruiters will be knocking down your door. I would suggest that you be careful about where you play your college ball. You need to be in an offense that throws the ball to their backs. We can sit down and look at some possible places for you,” Coach Mason offered.

“Wolf, there are two college teams that really value a tight end, Stanford and Michigan. You’ll get more exposure at Michigan, because the media is biased toward teams located closer to the East Coast. The other thing you should consider is the academic challenge of getting into Stanford. If your main objective is education, you need to consider it.”

“I’d actually like to go to school with David,” Wolf said.

“Well, before you do that let’s talk about David,” Coach Mason said, and then looked at me. “I’m on the fence as to whether David should play football or not. I think he might be better off if he played baseball.”

I rocked back in my chair, because that was the last thing I ever expected him to say. Coach Mason had told me on more than one occasion that I had the talent to not only make it to the NFL but to excel. He wasn’t the only one who thought that, if you took into account my performance at Elite 11 and how I rated as the number 1 quarterback in the junior class.

I had grown up playing baseball and if I were honest, it was my first love. People had recognized me for my football skills, though, and I had worked hard to get the right coaching and trained almost constantly to be the best football player I could be. Would I be crazy to play baseball? Did I have the talent to make it to the highest levels?

“David, if I had a son I’d be hard-pressed to encourage him to play football. It’s a violent sport and the chances of injury are significant. What I worry about for you is concussion. You’ve already had one this season. What I’ve seen in the NFL is that it’s much more common than anyone wants to admit. Once you’ve had one, I think it’s more likely that you’ll have more.

“I’ve seen the long term effects of brain injuries from playing football. Too many players have had it cause long-term problems, and too many have had their lives shortened because of it,” Coach Mason said, and then sighed.

“Okay, that was the scary part. Let me tell you the benefits. Being the best-of-the-best at quarterback can give you a nice payday. The top quarterbacks make in the $20 to $25 million range. Average is around four million per year. The average NFL career is a little over three years, six years if you make the roster your rookie year.

“Let’s compare that to major league baseball. If you last your first three years on a major league roster, you can expect six more years, or a total of nine. The average salary is just under four-and-a-half million per year. Top salaries are in the thirty-five million range.

“I think there’s a good case to be made for you to consider baseball. Longer career, higher average salary, much higher top-end salary, and the probability of injury is much lower. I’m not going to try to talk you out of playing football, because I think you could be special. I just want you to slow down and consider your options. Heck, you might want to be a movie star,” Coach Mason said.

After we talked to Coach Mason we were sent to watch game film of King High School. It was a good thing we hadn’t done this on Monday. We watched them demolish their opponents on both sides of the ball. Our toughest opponent the last two years had been Springfield, and I would put money on King beating them by four touchdowns. We would need our best game to even have a shot.

When we came out of the film session a camera was shoved into my face and I saw Margaret Chin, the sideline reporter I’d met at the Northwestern game.

“David, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” she started in.

“Can we do this somewhere other than in the middle of the hall?” I asked.

She leaned in close so only I could hear.

“I have a story I don’t want to get out, so I don’t want to take you to the media rooms. Could we use one of the coaches’ rooms?” she asked.

I nodded and led her to the room Coach Mason had taken us to to talk about our recruiting. When we were done, I had a little smile on my face.

Coach Hope allowed us to go off and spend time with our families for a couple of hours. The ones that didn’t have families with them went to the zoo. Coaches Mason, Hope, Zoon, Alan and Moose had all gotten together to watch game film of King High School. While that sounded like fun, I needed to get away from football for a couple of hours.

I suggested that we go to the Canal Walk that looped through downtown Indianapolis. I’d seen where you could go for a gondola ride or rent paddle boats. You could also rent bicycles and pedal cars, which looked like golf carts. Half our group decided on water transport and the other half picked the pedal cars. Tracy told me I was to be part of the second group. I agreed because I could see the potential for getting wet with the first group, and felt it was a little too cold for that type of fun.

We rented a four-man rig. I ended up in the back with Pam, and my mom and Lacy sat in front. There were pedals in the front and back for everyone, but somehow it seemed I was the one who did all the pedalling. Dad joined Tom, Mary and Tracy in another rig. We enjoyed a leisurely ride along the three-mile trek through downtown Indianapolis.

While our moms talked, Pam decided that she needed to catch up and make up for not talking to me for a couple of weeks. I leaned back in my seat and pedalled as her monologue washed over me. I found she’d taken ahold of my hand. Holding her hand felt right. I looked at my California surfer girl and imagined what our child would look like. He would be a gorgeous little boy if he shared our looks. I smiled at Pam and she gave me a nervous look.

“What?” she asked.

“I still like you,” I said.

She had always seemed to ask me that, and I wanted her to know that we’d be okay. I saw her look away and she suddenly became quiet. I squeezed her hand.

“Look at me,” I said, and she turned to look me in the eyes and I saw a small teardrop trickle down her cheek.

I leaned towards her, she leaned into me and we kissed. It wasn’t a kiss of passion. It was a kiss of love and friendship. If we were to have a baby together, we needed to put what had happened behind us. While I still wasn’t ready for a girlfriend, I was ready for Pam and me to be good friends. I guess that as we kissed I quit pedalling, because we’d stopped and both our moms had turned around to watch us. They both smiled and I could see that they also had tears in their eyes.

Great! All I needed was a bunch of crying women on my hands. Pam laid her head on my shoulder.

“I always knew you liked me.”

When we returned to the hotel, it was time to go to the stadium. The booster club had arranged a buffet so we could eat before the game. I put on my headphones and started to listen to my rock music that psyched me up to play. I was happy to see they had a variety of food so I could try and keep it healthy. There were salad, pasta and fajita bars where you could make your own concoction. I made a big salad, then went to the fajita bar, and added chicken and beef to top it.

I found a table. My teammates knew my pregame ritual and left me alone. I was happily eating my dinner when someone sat down next to me. I was surprised to see Jeff Delahey, my favorite reporter. I pulled my earbuds out.

“How did you get back here?” I asked.

“I have my ways. Care to give me some pregame quotes?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, and he pulled out his phone to record me.

“Tonight is a big game between two of the best teams in the nation. Since you’re not rated nationally like King is, do you even have a chance tonight?” Jeff asked.

“That’s why they have us play the game. If you asked the people that know these things, they’d tell you that King should handle us easily. They haven’t been challenged by any opponent so far this year. I think I saw where they’ve outscored their competition by an average of four scores each game. They have so much talent that we’ll have to play perfectly to give them a game.”

I gave him the ‘aw shucks we’re lucky to be here’ routine and he even let me mention God. When we finally finished he gave me a smirk.

“Just between us, how badly are you going to beat them?” he asked.

I noticed he hadn’t put his phone away, so this was on the record. It was a fun little game he and I played, and I usually guessed pretty close. I just shook my head.

“Just between us,” I said, and raised my eyebrows. “Honestly, this will be the closest I’ll probably get to play against college-level competition until I actually get there. We’re in for the fight of our lives, and I plan to raise the level of my game. I know my teammates have my back, and our coaches have done a tremendous job to get us ready. I have faith in what we can accomplish together. I predict that we’ll win, but it’ll be a close one.”

Jeff put his phone away.

“Okay, now we really are off the record. How big will you win?”

“We’ll win by at least two scores. It’ll be tight early and we may even get down, but our conditioning will carry us through in the end. King hasn’t played anyone that simply will not give up. My biggest fear is that someone might get hurt.”

We had an 8:15 ET kickoff. ESPN planned to use this game to highlight their sister station ESPNU and had them featured during the pregame telecast. I’d set the broadcast to record, and when I got to watch it I was a little embarrassed when they talked about me. They set this up as the ‘David and Goliath’ game. Yes, I was portrayed as David. If you watched what they said about our two teams, they compared our game to the college rivalry of Navy vs. Notre Dame. The Midshipmen had beaten the Fighting Irish once in the last 50 years, so it was possible. The last time had been in 2007 when Navy had broken a 43-year losing streak to win in triple overtime. Navy’s previous win came in 1963, with future Heisman Trophy winner and NFL quarterback Roger Staubach at the helm.

I was glad we hadn’t seen any of this, or we might have just gotten back on the buses and gone home. We came out for warm-ups, and I marveled that we were actually playing on a field that was used by an NFL team. ESPN had been smart in that they put the fans for each team on the same side of the field. They’d split them at the 50 yard line. While we had traveled well, I would guess we had about seventy-five hundred fans; King must have had twice as many. It helped highlight the narrative ESPN had portrayed.

What King didn’t have was our damned cowbells. For once I was glad we had them, because we actually made more noise than King’s fans did.

Shortly after we took the field to begin to stretch, King came out. My back was to them as I led my team in warm ups.

I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“You’re going down, Dawson!” Todd Davis, their five-star linebacker, yelled.

I turned around.

“Sorry, Todd, but I can’t put small objects in my mouth or I’ll choke!” I yelled back.

Oh, boy, that pissed him off. Even his own teammates laughed, because they’d seen him in the shower.

“Fuck you!”

“No, thanks, I don’t want to get the clap!”

Okay, that was a cheap shot, but that did it. Luckily his coaches had seen what was about to happen and two of them grabbed him before he could get to me. I bounced around like Muhammad Ali and motioned for him to join me on our side of the field. That was when Coach Zoon grabbed my facemask and marched me back to where our team had started to run pregame drills.

“Did you forget you have a mic on?” he hissed.

I just smiled at him. I think Coach Hope had told him that he couldn’t actually hurt me or I might have been in trouble. While I threw passes, Wolf came over.

“Do you have a death wish?” he asked.

“Remember freshman year and how mad Kevin would get?”

Wolf just shook his head. Kevin had been a senior and played middle linebacker when we were freshmen. He hated offensive players with a passion, and I had taunted him in practice one day so I could win a bet. I’d done it to get him mad and make him lose focus. I would’ve won the bet, but I reminded Kevin that if he calmed down, he had the first team defense playing against our scout team. Once he did, I lost the bet. My goal was to get Todd so mad he lost focus. Of course, I didn’t plan to tell him he had the better team if he calmed down and just played.

“The only thing is, I think he’s bigger and faster than Kevin ever was,” Wolf reminded me.

He had a point. If he hit anything like Kevin did, I might have just made a mistake.

We went into the locker room and waited to be called out for the game. I had my earbuds back in when I felt my nervous stomach get the better of me. I ran to the toilet and lost my supper. When I came out, I saw a sea of grins. Everyone knew that meant I was ready. Coach Hope called us to gather ‘round, so I put my phone in my locker and took a knee.

“Most of you may not know that I’m a spiritual guy. I’m not trying to tell you what to believe or how to believe, but I wanted to share something with you. I open the good book daily to get inspiration. Sometimes that page will give me great insight. Today I opened it and it opened to a page that I think you need to hear about. It was the story of David, the son of Jesse. Saul was the King of the Israelites. When Saul was on his deathbed, the Lord appointed the prophet Samuel to choose who would succeed Saul. David had seven brothers. Everyone looked to one of Jesse’s sons to take power, and David was the least likely. David was the youngest, the smallest, the weakest of the eight, but Samuel chose David to be the next king.

“You may wonder why I’m telling you about that. I’ll tell you why. He was the least likely candidate. There are a lot of people out there that think you are the least likely team to be successful tonight. David was chosen because he had something his brothers didn’t. What he had was the heart of a lion. Okay. They’re bigger! They’re faster! They’re stronger! They have a bunch of guys who are going to Division One schools. We can see that, and so can everyone else out there. But nobody can see what’s in each and every one of your hearts! King High School is not going to know what hit them! We have to put our hearts on the line and believe that we will win. Show them what it means to tangle with the Lincoln Bulldogs! Show them the pride that we have, and show them that even if they may be bigger, faster and stronger, they don’t have our heart! Now go get ‘em!” Coach Hope boomed.

We ran out of the locker room and down the tunnel. ESPN had someone with a headset that held up his hands. I think he wanted to time our entrance onto the field, but there was no stopping us. We ran past him and our fans erupted and began to ring their cowbells. We got into a big mosh pit and began to chant ‘Our House’. Our fans joined in and you could hear us even on TV. I’d never seen our team as fired-up as we were in that moment. Coach Hope was right. King couldn’t match our heart.

We went out for the coin toss. Jim and Yuri were my co-captains. We met eight King players in the middle of the field. I smiled when I saw Todd. He’d walked up and our noses almost touched.

“Okay, I won’t tolerate any funny stuff,” the referee said as he pushed between us.

“Hey, Todd,” I said, and paused so everyone would hear me. “Your village called, and they want you back by midnight.”

“Did he just call him an idiot?” Yuri asked.

That was when a fight almost broke out.

“You’re a fag, Dawson!” Todd screamed.

“You wish I were!” I shot back.

“You two, back to your sidelines!” the referee ordered.

I smiled as I bounced over to our sideline as I pointed at Todd the whole time. Coach Mason grabbed me when I got close to the sideline and pulled me over to the bench.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, because that is one big boy,” Coach Mason said with a big smile on his face.

I just smiled back. My team needed to see me in full Alpha Male mode. I needed to assert dominance over Todd. Right now, we circled each other to see who was the best. I knew this wasn’t over by a long shot. One of us might not walk off the field under our own power before this game was over.

We won the coin flip and deferred to the second half. Our kicker, Derek Hoffman, boomed the opening kickoff deep into their end zone. The one thing we had seen in film was they always ran the ball out. Our players knew this and flew down the field. This was our chance to pin them back to start the game. Our advantage was that we practiced with one of the best open-field runners I’d ever seen in Ty. When their return man made a fancy spin move, our team didn’t bite and crushed him on the 9 yard line.

Coach Zoon sent out Wolf and Johan to play defensive tackle. I think this was the first time they may not have been bigger than their counterpart offensive linemen were. King lined up in the ‘I’ formation. We had watched how they would use that big offensive line and run the ball down the defense’s throat on the first couple of series. So far, no one had been able to stop them.

On the snap both Wolf and Johan exploded off the ball and stood up their offensive linemen. If you can get an offensive lineman to stand straight up, he doesn’t have leverage enough to block you. If you keep your head up you can see where the ball is going, shed your block and make the tackle. When Johan saw the ball would come to him, he tossed the offensive guard to the side as if he were a rag doll. I could see the tailback do one of those stutter-steps where you could read his mind when he made it. He had just thought, ‘Oh, shit!’

Johan put him down hard. On the next play, they did a little better and Yuri tackled their tailback for a short gain. It was now third and ten. Coach Zoon unleashed Yuri and Kelly at linebacker to stop an obvious pass play. Their quarterback made the right read and threw the ball out of bounds.

Their punter stood on the goal line. When we lined up, we had Johan line up across from the center with Wolf and Jim on either side of him. Yuri and Kelly slipped in between the three of them. Their center must have been nervous, because he snapped the ball over the head of the punter and out of the back of the end zone. We were up 2 – 0.