Chapter 32

Bill
Bill’s knee woke him up, which wasn’t unusual. During his freshman year, he’d worked his way up the depth chart. By the end of the season, he saw as many snaps as the guy in front of him. Everything had been in place to move into the starter’s spot last fall because the guy in front of him had graduated.

Then, their freshman year wide receiver coach took a job at San Diego State as offensive coordinator. That spring, USC’s new wide receiver coach had his own ideas about the type of receivers he wanted to put in the field. The coach maintained the guise of open competition, but it was obviously a ruse. Bill had outperformed the coach’s pets in spring ball, yet somehow, they were all at the top of the depth chart.

The issue wasn’t confined to the wide receiver position, either. Probably the worst example was the offensive line. They’d had four different coaches in four years, each with his own agenda. It was apparent that whose ass you kissed was more important than how you played.

His sophomore year, he’d only seen the field sporadically. He’d seriously considered transferring. When Bill had come to college, he’d been one of four wide receiver recruits that year. They were touted as one of the best receiving groups to ever step foot onto USC’s campus. He’d been named the Gatorade Football Player of the Year in his state, which meant he was considered the best player that year. Rated a 4-star recruit by most service, the other three guys who’d accepted scholarships with him were his equal.

They were supposed to be the future core of USC’s resurgence. From that class, Bill was the only one still on the team.

Two had transferred when last year’s coach ran them off, and one had flunked out. Bill had heard he’d entered a junior college with the hope of turning his life around and maybe playing college ball again. After a strict upbringing, he’d overindulged in the freedoms to be found at college.

Bill’s freshman year, he’d made friends with Ridge Townsend. Ridge had a long-time girlfriend from his high school days, Penny, to whom he was now engaged. That didn’t stop Ridge from partying like a rock star and bedding his share of jock bunnies. What surprised Bill at first was that Penny was even wilder than Ridge.

Bill’s first serious girlfriend, Sage, had left him when she discovered what he and Ridge got up to at away games. The final straw had been when she’d watched him and Ridge initiate a foursome with Penny and another girl. It had been apparent to Sage that this hadn’t been their first such indulgence. While Bill hadn’t admitted it to her, she’d been right, and Penny had been the instigator when it happened.

Since then, Bill had dated several girls, none seriously, since it was college, after all. He’d grown up in a small Midwestern town that was 95% white. USC’s multicultural diversity had been eye-opening. He’d found that he was attracted to Asian women.

Not starting hadn’t seemed so bad when you considered that he was living in LA and had a life most guys could only dream of. Being a football player at USC was awesome.

Then, at the start of his junior year, Bill had hurt his knee in preseason practice and missed playing last season. In all honesty, the fun had gone out of playing football for Bill.

He’d come to realize that their head coach was the cause of most of the team issues. Even the press had started to point out that Coach Clayton was squandering his team’s talent on the bench. Last year, with Ridge Townsend on the Heisman shortlist as the best college football player, they’d been projected to be in the national title hunt. They fell short of that.

This coming year, they were projected to be in the middle of the Pac-12. If that happened, they would get a whole new coaching staff next year.

Being injured had opened Bill’s eyes, and he’d figured out something that most of his teammates either didn’t know or ignored: USC offered a world-class education. As with all schools that did, what you received was commensurate with your efforts. The school gave athletes the tools to be able to squeak by to stay eligible. They had to because most athletes would never have qualified to get in. While they didn’t go quite as far as North Carolina, paths through the curriculum were easier than others.

Bill had decided that he would knuckle down and take advantage of that education. He planned to stay his fifth year in the hope of picking up a master’s degree. He would barely manage to get it done if he loaded up with summer-school classes.

He’d also realized that only a tiny percentage of college players made it to the NFL. And for most NFL players, it wasn’t the life-changing experience Bill’s teammates all thought it was.

Yes, even the player making the minimum would rake in around a half million a year. However, those salaries were, for the most part, not guaranteed, and most NFL players didn’t manage their money well enough to make it last the rest of their lives.

Worst of all, the window for earning that kind of money was abysmally short. The average professional lifespan for a player who managed to get drafted was less than three years. That meant that the total NFL salary for an average or below-average player was somewhere between $1.5 and $3 million. Then you had to subtract state and local taxes, agent compensation, anything the player paid for during the offseason to stay in shape, etc. Typically, that meant the player’s actual take-home pay was less than half his ‘salary.’

The bottom line for Bill was the recognition that he would almost certainly need to be able to rely on his degree at some point. Therefore, after his knee surgery, he’d become an earnest student who didn’t chase jock bunnies, drink, or otherwise screw around when not working out.

That was why Bill hadn’t looked up his friend David when he’d learned he was on campus. Between doing his physical therapy and buckling down, Bill didn’t have time for distractions. He considered David to be one of his best friends, but it seemed that distractions found him without his even trying with David.