Chapter 25

Cassidy
Cassidy had been hiding a secret. Well, two, actually.

Her plan for college had been to follow David to wherever he picked for football. He’d agreed to let her be his trainer while she went to school. After that, she would follow in her father’s footsteps and join the Marines as an officer.

At the time, David had narrowed his choices down to USC and Oklahoma. Her best friend, Brook Davis, had been proactive and gotten Cassidy a scholarship to USC on the women’s rowing team. She’d done it because Cassidy hadn’t been the most diligent student in high school. And why should she if she could get solid ‘Bs’ without cracking a book?

Everyone knew that she didn’t meet the entrance qualifications. Not that David’s other friends, Tim and Wolf, would’ve gotten in, either. But if you went through the athletic department, you bypassed their stringent rules.

When David decided to go to Oklahoma, she was happy because she didn’t need the USC athletic scholarship to get in. Oklahoma’s admission standards allowed her to qualify without a problem. Plus, it was a quarter of the cost when you figured everything in.

She was set to go to Oklahoma until Brook told David about USC, and the big dork tattled on her. He shared with his parents what Brook had done. If he’d just told her dad, she would’ve been fine. As soon as David’s mom knew, it was game over. She was the one woman Cassidy was a little afraid of, and David’s mom decided that Cassidy couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go to USC.

In the end, it worked out when David enrolled in the spring.

Her second secret was that she wasn’t the only one who’d gotten into USC through the back door of an athletic admission. She’d found out that her crew-mate Veronica had been designated as a preferred walk-on to get into school. Veronica had shared with Cassidy that her parents had paid a guy to make ‘donations’ to USC to help facilitate her enrollment. Cassidy had also seen Veronica at the party where David had outed himself as the David A. Dawson. The funny thing was, David never thought of himself that way, but just about everyone else did.

What worried Cassidy was that Veronica rarely came to practice, which made Cassidy wonder if others had gotten in that way. She’d heard that Veronica’s younger sister was also getting a rowing spot next year.

Cassidy didn’t feel guilty about receiving her scholarship because she’d learned that many of the other girls hadn’t rowed in high school; they took up the sport when they came to USC. She’d taken it seriously and worked her butt off to win a seat on the Novice eight boat.

But even though Cassidy didn’t feel guilty about her own scholarship, she did worry about the fake athletic scholarships and admissions that might have been given out to other girls. If those girls took the money but weren’t willing to put in the effort to actually honor them, there might be trouble down the road.

Veronica had shared that her parents had paid quite a bit of money to get her into school. This worried Cassidy because Brook had never told her how much she’d spent to get Cassidy into USC. Brook came from money and bristled anytime Cassidy asked about what stuff cost. She’d even footed the bill for Cassidy when Brook and David had decided to get their pilot’s licenses. Somehow, Cassidy had found herself taking the classes with them.

The real secret she’d been keeping had just happened. Cassidy was excited because she would be in the number six seat in the Varsity eight today. Last semester, she’d become friends with Nicole, the Varsity eight coxswain, as well as Amy, the girl who rowed in the number eight, or ‘stroke,’ position. Amy was considered USC’s best female crew member.

Nicole and Amy had taken Cassidy under their wings when they saw how hard she worked and how well-conditioned she was. Cassidy’s two ‘mentors’ had been in the Varsity eight for the past three years and were going to graduate at the end of the spring term. They’d been disappointed that none of the underclassmen in the Varsity eight had shown any strong leadership, and they’d started grooming Cassidy for that role.

Cassidy had to chuckle because Nicole had told her they’d picked Cassidy because they’d decided she was a bossy bitch.

In rowing, the coxswain, or cox, was the one to call out the strokes for the crew. She had to not only know her crew’s physical strength but had to lead them through her commands. While the stroke was in charge of the shell, it was the cox’s job to guide the crew to victory. The cox was also the lightest and smallest person on the boat and couldn’t do it herself. The cleverest, most strategic, and most experienced rower was called the ‘stroke’ and sat immediately in front of the coxswain, facing her.

The other seven rowers were seated in line behind the stroke, where they could see the stroke and match their strokes to hers. The stroke set the example for the rest of the crew and had to be the most disciplined rower in the boat and was often the best-conditioned.

The two seniors had watched Cassidy train, and they’d seen her leading David and Ridge in conditioning drills. They knew they’d found their successor as the leader of the women’s crew.

Cassidy was thrust into the position when the number six of the Varsity eight suddenly got sick. Brianna went to the hospital complaining of severe abdominal and back pain. They found a problem that required surgery. Cassidy learned on Thursday that Nicole had recommended Cassidy take the sick girl’s place until she could recover, and their coach agreed.

The rest of the Varsity eight hadn’t been convinced, though, and the other six had challenged Cassidy to an endurance contest on the ergometers, the stationary rowing machines they used for training. Cassidy hadn’t even blinked; instead, she responded that was fine, but if she beat them all, she’d be rowing number six. The other girls, never having watched her practice or drill, laughingly took her up on it. They hadn’t been laughing a couple of hours later when Cassidy kept going a full five minutes after the last of them had collapsed, gasping, over their knees.

Nicole and Amy had laughingly welcomed her to the crew and to the number six position. They didn’t tell Cassidy, or the rest of the crew, that the number six spot was where they were going to put her anyway. That was because she was the strongest rower next to Amy and because that was the best position for them to watch Cassidy and give her tips and guidance. It was also the best spot for her to watch and hear the stroke, especially the calls from the cox.

Cassidy had wanted to be sure David was there for her big moment because he was the one who’d turned her into a leader. He’d convinced her to help train the athletes at their high school in what she called ‘sixty minutes of hell.’ It was a modified workout that she had learned hanging around her dad, who’d been in the Marines before he’d become a football coach. The drill was meant to turn boys into men, and it had turned Lincoln High into probably the best-conditioned athletes in the state.

Cassidy hadn’t realized that David had turned her into someone people would follow until he pointed it out to her during her senior year.

That was what was different about David, different from any other boy she knew. In a lot of ways, he acted like he had life experience beyond his years. More accurately, he was a stupid boy who somehow found the right thing to do in almost every situation. It was uncanny how everything he put his mind to turned out for him.

Some of it was genetic. David’s grandfather, Davey Dawson, had been a politician for many years. He hadn’t been the typical glad-handing kind that you found nowadays. He’d been someone who got stuff done. He’d had a knack for bringing people together, no matter what political party they were in. Davey had made people see what the greater good was, and they’d actually listened and acted on what he’d said.

David’s dad and uncle were a lot like that, too. They’d taught David, and his older brother Greg, how to do a lot of common-sense stuff that most people ignore. Such as how to network effectively or treat groups of people differently based on circles of trust. David had also taken to heart the concepts of goal setting and creating other leaders to whom he could then delegate. He had embraced the idea that the more you involved others, the more you could accomplish; and that many times, the outcome would be much better than what you’d originally planned. This was the basis of David’s willingness to listen to and incorporate others’ ideas. He’d discovered that when he did that, the end result was better.