Chapter 3

Coach Clayton
USC’s head football coach, Dylan Clayton, had a dilemma on his hands. He’d received word from his recruiting coordinator, Bryant Franzese, that David Dawson had backed out of his commitment to Oklahoma and was interested in coming to play for USC.

Coach Clayton had asked Bryant to call Coach Michaels to get some background on why David was making a change. The coach had to chuckle at what a boneheaded move their interim athletic director had made. Bryant had also sent him an article from the local paper in Norman calling for the athletic director’s head.

Coach Clayton’s dilemma stemmed from his system for recruiting and handling his quarterbacks. He wasn’t one of those guys who just kept recruiting top talent, letting them fight it out to see who came out on top. He didn’t want his starting quarterback continually looking over his shoulder, worried that one minor mistake would see him on the bench.

The coach was a believer in having a clear number one recruited every two years. That would give the future number one a couple of years to get settled and learn the offense.

USC’s current situation was a textbook example of how and why he wanted quarterback recruiting to work. Ridge Townsend had been their starter for the last two years and was projected to be a top-five draft pick in this year’s NFL draft. Even though Ridge was leaving a year early, they’d picked up Matt Long. Matt had had a chance to redshirt and was set to take over this fall as the starter with four years of eligibility.

Last year, they’d recruited both David and Matt. Coach Clayton had sat David down and assured him that if he accepted, they would back off on Matt’s recruitment. It wasn’t like Matt was a consolation prize or Plan B-type player, though. He ranked as the number four quarterback and the tenth overall recruit in the nation coming out of high school.

As tempting as it was to take the number one ranked quarterback and number one overall recruit in David, it went against what Coach Clayton believed. David would walk on and be at a significant disadvantage because of Matt’s year of experience in the program.

In his system, he gave the lion’s share of coaching and playing time in practice to his starter, another factor that worked against David. David had sat out the football season to make movies and would walk onto campus without having taken a live football snap in over a year. High-level college football wasn’t something you could just show up for after that kind of layoff and do well. He would require practice time that would eat into what they planned to give Matt.

Having both highly rated quarterbacks would mean that one would have to sit on the bench. That wouldn’t be fair to them because he felt they both had the potential to play on Sunday after graduation.

With that in mind, the coach was leaning towards not taking David, as crazy as that sounded. Before Coach Clayton called David back, he wanted to get his brain trust together and talk about it. That included his offensive coordinator, Wyatt Thomas, and defensive coordinator, Jackson Farrow, to get their thoughts.

Coach Clayton was on his way to meet with them. They had a small conference room where they talked about strategy. He found both men waiting, so he took his seat.

“Bryant got an interesting call. David Dawson pulled his verbal from Oklahoma and has put out feelers to see if we’re still interested. I talked with Coach Michaels at Oklahoma, and he’s okay with it, says David has a legitimate beef with Oklahoma’s administration.”

“My first instinct is to say absolutely. My only concern is what this will mean for Matt. He might transfer if he hears that David is coming. I’d hate to see that since we invested so much time in Matt, and he’s going to be a good one,” Coach Thomas said.

“Do you really think that David, who hasn’t touched a football in over a year, could come in and displace Matt?” Coach Clayton asked.

“When you put it that way, maybe not. But when we recruited them, it was obvious that David has the higher ceiling. While Matt might get us to a national championship game, David could win it for us,” Coach Thomas said, giving his evaluation.

“It sounds like we’re splitting hairs,” Coach Clayton said and then made his opinion known. “I’m leaning toward saying ‘no.’ Matt has earned his shot, and I don’t want to muddy the waters with a quarterback controversy before he has even had a chance to take the reins.”

“If you two idiots don’t want him, I do,” Coach Farrow said to weigh in.

Coach Farrow had kept out of it to this point because David’s best position was on offense. But he was more than a quarterback. He was, first and foremost, an athlete. In high school, David had played defense at times. When he did, he showed that he could play almost any position on the defensive side of the ball. Coach Farrow was excited because he could move David all over the field, from stand-up defensive end to cornerback, as situations dictated.

Coach Farrow also felt that you put your best athletes on defense. While schools like Oklahoma loaded up the offensive side of the ball, they ran into problems when they met better teams outside their conference. Defense won championships, in his opinion.

“We don’t have any more scholarships for your side of the ball. You used them in the early signing period,” Coach Thomas pointed out.

“This surely warrants giving me one more, don’t you think?” Coach Farrow asked.

“What if we offered him a preferred walk-on spot with the promise of a scholarship when one opens up? I mean, he can certainly afford tuition, to start with. It shouldn’t be long until we have someone leave for one reason or another, and we could give him one then. We could sell it to him as, ‘if we’d known you were coming, we would’ve had a scholarship on hand,’” Coach Clayton floated.

“Why take the risk of his going elsewhere?” Coach Farrow worried.

“If he threatens to do that, we’ll give him a scholarship. But we make it clear that we’re offering him a shot to play defense and not take over at quarterback. If he doesn’t accept that, then we take a pass,” Coach Clayton said to make the final decision.

“I want to take the lead on this,” Coach Farrow said.

“Go tell Bryant. He has enough on his plate and will be happy to let you handle it,” Coach Clayton said to conclude the meeting.

Coach Farrow
He wanted a chance to sell David on this before Coach Clayton could mess it up. Coach Clayton’s focus was on his precious offense and some rather rigid ideas as to how to build a team. Coach Farrow had no doubt that David could beat out Matt if given a fair shot. After all, he’d seen the tape from both and had actually seen the two of them go head-to-head at a football camp, where David was clearly the better quarterback. But David was also both excellent and flexible on defense. No, the best thing would be to get him into the fold and use him defensively. That would leave open the possibility of going to the offense somewhere down the line if the change was needed for some reason.

He swung by Bryant’s office to get David’s information and to let the recruiting coordinator know that Coach Farrow had been put in charge of his recruitment. Bryant was thankful because he had his hands full working to fill out this year’s class.

Coach Farrow confirmed that they were still willing to give David his waiver. Bryant smiled and assured the coach that they’d agreed to the waiver request and would make it official as soon as David decided to come to USC.

When Coach Farrow got to his office and discovered that David lived in Malibu, he called David and set up an in-home visit for that very night. The coach wanted to be in front of all the decision-makers, which he assumed included David’s parents, when he worked to sell him on the idea of playing defense.

David lived in a gated community of higher-end homes. The guard at the gate gave him directions. As Coach Farrow pulled into the driveway of the given address, the gate magically opened. A large man who looked to be Samoan or Tongan pointed to where he wanted the car parked.

“Coach Farrow?” the security man asked as he got out of his car.

“Yes. I’m here to talk to David.”

“Right this way.”

As they walked to the front door, Coach Farrow couldn’t help but take in the property. It was evident that making movies paid well.

When they entered the house, he was led to a large playroom. There he found David sitting on the floor next to a short table where his five kids were coloring with markers.

“Daddy! Help circle,” the redheaded boy of the bunch said.

“Hey, Coach. Give me a minute, and we’ll go upstairs,” David said and then helped the redhead draw a circle. “You just take your time and go slow. Start with little circles and then try a big one.”

A redheaded young woman came in.

“Carol! Don’t draw on Coby,” she said as she rushed over to take the marker out of Carol’s hand.

“I’m too young to have to know what child-safe markers are,” David said, standing up. “You got this, Peggy?”

All the little ones started to clamor for their dad not to leave. David reached into his pocket and pulled out small suckers.

“Bribes,” he admitted.

Peggy didn’t look impressed, but it distracted them enough for David to make his escape. As he and Coach Farrow walked upstairs, he explained.

“Being away filming, I was only able to talk to them via video chat for the last seven months. Now that I’m home, they want to be with me all the time. I figured I better do just that until I go off to college,” David said.

“My two are older. My boy is a junior in high school, and my daughter goes to USC. She’s a freshman. When they became teens, they didn’t want much to do with me anymore. Enjoy it while you can,” Coach Farrow advised.

David took them to the kitchen, where two women were cooking.

“Mom, Rosy, meet Coach Farrow.”

“Carol Dawson,” David’s mom said to introduce herself. The coach could see where David got his good looks. “Rob should be here shortly. I sent him out to pick up some wine.”

“Get out of there,” Rosy chastised David when he stuck his head in the oven to discover what smelled so good.

“Oh, man, she’s outdone herself tonight-both red and green enchiladas. Rosy is the best cook ... besides my mom,” David announced.

Coach Farrow gave him points for the save. The kid had already learned what took him five years of marriage to discover: never compare women to each other.

“Are the adults eating on the roof deck?” David asked.

“Yes. We’ll feed the horde down here,” Carol said. Turning to Coach Farrow, she asked, “Would you like a beer with dinner?”

“I’ll wait for the wine,” Coach Farrow said.

“We’ll go up and get everything set up,” David said.

Coach Farrow followed him up to the roof and was instantly jealous. He could never bring his wife here because she would insist they remove their roof and install something like this. It had great views of both the hills and the ocean and was set up for adult entertaining, complete with an outdoor kitchen, wine fridge, and fireplace. The topper was the ten-person hot tub. The space took full advantage of what drew people to live here, namely the weather.

David grabbed some cleaning supplies so he could wipe down the chairs and a substantial redwood table. The table was cut out of a solid piece of wood; you could tell by the live edges. While David did that, Coach Farrow followed behind, setting the table for eight. It looked like he was going to meet more than just David’s parents tonight.

They’d just gotten done when people began to come upstairs. Coach Farrow was introduced to Ashley and Scarlet, the mothers of three of his children: Allen, Dawson, and Carol. Peggy was the slender redhead, Dave’s mother. David’s parents, Rob and Carol, were the last to join them.