Chapter 57

David
Part of David’s plan was to integrate better with the football team. To that end, he’d skipped running this morning to work out at the John McKay Center. When he arrived, he found there weren’t many players in. David suspected that they had slept in after spring break.

He didn’t have a lot of time, so he focused on his workout. One great thing about their weight room was the abundance of equipment, which meant you didn’t have to wait your turn. David found he got a much better overall workout if he worked fast and at lower weights. Not having people eyeing him while waiting for his current machine helped him do that. Not having to eye other people while waiting for a machine they were using helped even more.

Once he was done, he headed to the locker room. On his way, David spotted Coach Farrow. Coach nodded to acknowledge that David had shown up.

He quickly showered and dressed, then made a pit stop to grab some breakfast. Then it was off to his first class, Economics.

David went back to The Palace for lunch. He’d told Cassidy that he wouldn’t be coming to workouts this week. He planned to use the time to study.

After David grabbed his lunch, he spotted Veronica eating alone.

“Mind if I join you?”

Something very close to an emotion slithered over her face. Finally, Veronica nodded her assent.

“I need your help,” he said, and she just looked at him, so he pressed on. “You know people associated with USC, especially the athletic department. I was hoping you might give me a rundown of who’s who.”

“Why?”

David smiled; that was a good question. He wasn’t sure he fully trusted Veronica. In fact, he didn’t really trust her at all.

“I want to get USC back to where it should be, football-wise. I’d like to meet the people who can get stuff done,” David said as he decided to reveal his ultimate goal.

“What’s in it for me?” Veronica asked.

What saddened David the most was the realization—too late now—that despite everything, he understood Veronica.

“That depends on what you can do for me,” David said in return.

“What if I can get you into a party after the spring game where the guys you need to talk to will be?”

“What guys, and what can they do?” David asked.

“Well, what if I told you that two boosters had donated just over $500 million between them to USC athletics over the past five years?”

David sat back in his chair. He’d always thought that the Pac-12 was at a disadvantage to conferences such as the SEC and Big Ten because those others had lucrative TV deals. If just two boosters were pouring that kind of money into USC’s program, it more than made up for the crappy TV deal their own conference had made.

Ohio State, for example, reported a budget of over $200 million for athletics. UCLA had tried to keep up with the big boys by growing their budget from just over $40 million to $125 million in a few short years. Knowing that USC had donors who were immediately willing to spend $100 million a year satisfied David that they could keep up with the big boys, money-wise.

What confused David was that with their historic success, facilities, and consistent top-ten recruiting classes, as well as the Southern California weather, the Trojans weren’t even close to dominating the Pac-12. David was having trouble figuring out why that was.

Yes, they’d just had a great year, but they were projected to be barely over .500 this coming year. It just went to show that the previous few coaching hires had been a disaster. They’d gone from a guy that shot his mouth off to a drunk to their current coach, who had his own issues. Coach Clayton was getting knocked for squandering the talent he had because of his inflexible approach to training and using that talent.

It wasn’t that David didn’t think that the coaching staff at USC couldn’t be successful. In all honesty, he hoped they could. In his opinion, even a mediocre coach could shine in a situation like this. There was no telling what someone who knew what they were doing could accomplish.

“What do you want?” David asked.

“You have to go with me to the party.”

“Deal.”

Veronica smiled for the first time since he’d sat down. She spent the rest of the lunch filling David in on all the key players who had input on running USC’s athletics. He took notes and planned to send the names to Lexi so she could have her people do some background work on each one. He didn’t want to make any silly missteps when he met them face-to-face.

When David went to football practice, he was back on defense. Percy welcomed him back with open arms when he saw David would be on his side of the ball. He admitted that Coach Farrow had gotten on them pretty hard when David had smoked them on more than one occasion.

David’s day was made when Matt came out and showed that his injuries were still bothering him. David knew full well what a bad case of messed-up ribs could do to a quarterback. Matt must have gotten with the training staff because by the end of practice, he was looking like his old self. Ah, the magic of pharmaceuticals! Some of the stuff they’d given David in the past had made him feel like he was Superman.

The concern would be the harm that could unknowingly occur if Matt took a blow because he wouldn’t know if the contact had done more damage or not. He could also very easily overstress his injuries just by throwing a football.

He understood Matt’s motivation, though. David had shown flashes of what he could do while Matt had been on the bench. Matt wanted to leave no doubt that he was back and that David could just stay on the other side of the ball.

Coach Clayton must have felt the same way David did about playing on painkillers because, towards the end of practice, he sent Matt to the showers. David was disappointed that he wasn’t called upon to fill in, but he’d had a good day playing both middle and outside linebacker.

The next morning, David was in the weight room bright and early. There were twice as many players as the day before working out with him. He made it a point to not overdo it as far as fitting in was concerned. He was just himself as he focused on working out. David knew if he came across as too pushy, his plan to be a better teammate would never work.

Besides, many of the guys had built up a group of friends, and David was the new kid, as far as they were concerned.

When he reached Accounting, Alyssa was already waiting with his tea. When he sat down, she smirked.

“What?” David asked.

She showed him the most recent article about Fiona and David on one of the tabloid sites. He gave her a mock pout and hung his head.

“Are you okay?” Alyssa asked,

“I’m sorry. Do I just suck? I didn’t know the photographer was there. Am I such a terrible person?” David asked.

“You’re not a terrible person. You’re just a work in progress,” Alyssa assured David.