Chapter 28

“Welcome to Trojan Inquirer. To support our show, please give us a follow because it really helps us out. Today, we have my fellow USC quarterback, Matt Long, as our guest,” David said.

He’d thought long and hard about how to show Matt that he was okay with their situation. Yes, Matt had been a jackass and tried to get him killed in the spring. And, yes, Matt felt like David had taken his girlfriend away from him. But in the last few weeks, they’d begun to learn to coexist.

When Tracy had told him she’d lined up ... well, no one, David decided he might want to take a more active role in their guest invites moving forward. He was scrambling this morning when he saw Matt working out with Tank and asked him to be on the show.

“Matt’s been cleared of his injuries, and Coach Merritt has named him the starter for this week’s opponent, Utah,” Tracy said. “How are you doing physically?”

“Good,” was Matt’s detailed response.

David inwardly cringed. Tracy would kill him if Matt didn’t open up and talk.

“This is a huge weekend for the Pac-12 South, with Utah considered the favorite, but USC controls their own destiny, being one game up on the Utes. How do you see it playing out on Saturday?” Tracy asked.

“We’ll win.”

David was encouraged. Matt had actually said two words this time. Tracy looked at him to see if he wanted to jump in and question Matt. David leaned back and gave her a blank look. He would pay for that later, but he was starting to enjoy this.

“How do you plan to win?” Tracy tried.

“By scoring more points than they do.”

If David didn’t know better, he would think Matt was punking her. When Coach Merritt had heard about the interview, he’d told Matt he’d be benched if he gave Utah any poster material to fire them up for their game. Coach had also not allowed Matt to talk about his injury or anything else that might help their opponent. David should probably have mentioned that to Tracy. He also thought Matt was a wimp for going to Coach to ask permission to be on David’s show.

“USC’s ground game was tepid at best last week. What will you do to improve that against Utah?” Tracy asked.

“Execute better.”

Before Tracy killed them both, David jumped in.

“How do you like playing quarterback for USC?”

“This is my dream school...”

It didn’t take long for Tracy to figure out that Matt would shut down whenever she asked about Utah. Anything else, he became a dream guest. David even learned that Matt had a Lab named Darcy and drank Mountain Dew. Those two things made him like Matt a bit more.

When David arrived for practice, he had a note to see Bryant, their recruiting coordinator.

He was disappointed to see that Rachel wasn’t working that day. The receptionist’s desk was being manned by the new guy, who gave David some side-eye. David knew the new guy had a crush on Rachel, so he let the dirty look go for now.

David found Bryant intently tapping out a message on his phone. Clearly, the man wasn’t up to speed on the two-thumb or swipe-to-type methods because he was using just his index finger to jab at the screen.

“Give me a second. I need to send out four more of these before I forget.”

“What are you doing?” David asked.

“Commenting on social media posts some of our recruits have put out. I seem to spend half my time doing stuff like that.”

“Why don’t you have Rachel do it for you? Most of the time, when she’s out front, she’s bored out of her mind. I have someone do mine,” David suggested.

“But—”

“Plus, she’s probably a lot more relatable on social media than you are,” David said, his eyebrows rising in obvious amusement at his coach’s plight.

Bryant scowled, but David could tell that Rachel would soon have a new job.

“So, what did you need?” David asked.

“Oh, yeah. I wanted to tell you that both Damion and EZ verbally committed.”

“You’re starting to put together a great class,” David said. “Which brings me to something I wanted to talk to you about: we could use some help on defense. Damion Roth, who just committed, tells me there’s this cornerback at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas who may be the best he’s ever seen. His name is Dequan Bailey, and Damion says the guy played him tough. My own experience says anyone who can keep up with Damion deserves a look.”

“Well, you’ve done well for us so far, so I have to take this seriously. I’ll see if we can’t get someone out to look at him soon.”

“Thanks. If he’s as good as Damion says he is, we’ll have a real juggernaut next year,” David said.

“And we’re not done,” Bryant said. “Your brother is coming for the Arizona State game with Rockefeller—”

“Roc. He hates his full name,” David interrupted.

“Roc,” Bryant said, then pressed his lips together. “I would think he’d get bullied with a name like Roc.”

“Trust me, it’s better than Rockefeller.”

“Anyway, I was hoping you and Bill could act as hosts since you know them.”

David chuckled because Phil was his brother. He hoped he knew Phil well enough to be his USC guy for the visit. Then again ... maybe Phil would prefer someone else.

“Bill will be fine with Roc, but I don’t think they know each other; Bill graduated before Roc started at Lincoln. And I suggest you ask Phil. Maybe he’d rather Jaden or Matt be his host. He might feel less pressure to come here from them,” David reflected.

“He asked for you.”

“Then I would love to,” David said, then pointed at the coach’s cell phone. “Seriously, have Rachel do that for you.”

David was on his way to the locker room again when his phone rang. It was Lexi.

“Hey,” David answered.

“I called to gloat and give you something to think about.”

He couldn’t think what she would be calling to gloat about unless it had something to do with her raising money for charities.

“Gloat away.”

“I received a link to UCLA’s monthly magazine. According to one of the articles, they’ve been working on an interesting project that helps identify people at risk before they become homeless,” Lexi said.

Lexi had made the foolish decision to reenroll at UCLA for a semester. She never let an opportunity go by for her to point out something UCLA did that was better than USC.

“Tell me about it,” David said sincerely.

“I’ve been doing some research, and with the ranks of homeless people growing faster than housing is being built, one of the most popular strategies for reducing homelessness is to simply keep people in their homes. In theory, a small infusion of cash, counseling, or legal aid could be the difference that prevents someone from ending up on the street.”

David agreed, but the problem was that tens of thousands of people were on the brink of losing their homes every year in California. The reality was that only a tiny fraction did end up on the street.

Most prevention programs latched onto the idea they were saving people, so they erred on the side of helping as many people in need as possible. It was, in truth, a terrible waste of resources. So, if UCLA could predict more accurately, money could go where it was actually needed.

“UCLA has developed a statistical model that identifies the ones truly at risk,” Lexi continued. “They’ve moved it from a concept to the real world. They’ve partnered with the LA County Departments of Public Health, Mental Health, Children and Family Services, and Public Social Services to gather data. That data is used to create lists of people who need to be helped so they can be.

“Prevention, by its nature, is a onetime, relatively modest intervention,” Lexi said.

David was impressed with her research. He’d learned that math could solve almost any problem, and here was an example.

“I learned from the homeless coalition back home that it was important to help people as soon as possible when they lose their housing. It’s called rapid rehousing. If you can give them a helping hand for a short while, it allows them to find new housing and not end up on the streets,” David said.

“I think we should find a way to help them, especially women and children,” Lexi said.

“It sounds like a worthy cause. Find out what would be the most cost-effective way to accomplish that. I just made a lot of money selling one of my business interests. I’d rather give it to charity than the state and federal governments. So that puts a clock on it: You have to spend the funds before the end of the year,” David said.

“I’ll talk to your dad and Megan now that you’ve given me the go-ahead,” Lexi said.

He had to go to practice, so he ended their conversation. David would be interested in finding out what she came up with.

This was David’s second trip to Utah. The last time had been for a baseball game; they’d had a cold snap the day before, and it had snowed. Today was a gorgeous day for football in Salt Lake City. When the team went out to warm up, they were greeted by the USC band, which had made the trip.

You could feel this was a big game as the fans began to file into the stadium, all decked out in red. By kickoff, the place would be packed. David was envious of Matt because he loved this type of game.

Finally, the coaches called them in for final prep before kickoff.

Coach Merritt gathered them for some final words.

“There are a lot of people in the world who will take the challenge to climb the mountain. You can take on that challenge, but when you get to the top of the mountain, you become the mountain; you become the object that everyone’s trying to top. Everybody else is now shooting at you.

“It’s easy to become complacent; after all, you’re at the peak. But the great get to the top of the mountain and say, ‘I can be even better.’ They don’t let up.

“Today, Utah wants to knock us off our perch atop the South Division.

“Be ready to play, but don’t be disappointed if you don’t. When you’re on the field, do your job. Hustle in and out of the huddle and remain focused. And defense, stay in front of the damn ball! No one gets past you.

“Now, let’s go out there and win!” Coach Merritt shouted.

They were met by a chorus of boos as they came onto the field. Then the crowd’s mood changed when it was time for the Utes to make their entrance. A motorcycle led the team out to the roar of their fans.

“It’s going to be loud today,” David said to Matt.

“We might have to go to the clap to hike the ball,” Matt said in agreement.

They’d practiced doing that. If the wide receivers couldn’t hear Matt call out the snap count, they could see when his hands came together.

USC quickly jumped out to a 14–0 lead.

The first touchdown was all Bill. Matt had dropped back and was forced to scramble. He had a Utah player at his feet, so he couldn’t step into his pass. Utah had two defenders trailing Bill, so when Matt underthrew the ball, they were in the perfect position to intercept it. Bill reached over both of them and pulled the ball back into his arms as he fell backward into the end zone. That was one of those plays that made ESPN’s top ten at the end of the day.

The next touchdown was created by the defense. Percy beat his lineman and flushed the Utah quarterback, forcing him to step up into the pocket. Todd had blitzed, so he was in the perfect position to tackle him for a sack. As Todd wrapped Utah’s quarterback up, he brought his arm down on the ball, causing it to hit the turf. A freshman defensive lineman scooped it up and rumbled into the end zone.

That was when the tide turned. Utah scored two touchdowns and two field goals, with the last touchdown occurring from sixty-six yards out with no time on the clock.

David could feel his team was deflated going into halftime. The Utes had flashed more firepower in the first half than a Colombian cartel at a festival.

When they got to the locker room, there was more bad news: Marcus and Amari were both done for the day.

The third quarter found Utah in the end zone twice to put USC down 34–14.

Coach Merritt made the call to pull Matt because he’d gone 6 of 19 passing for a total of 89 yards. He’d thrown the one touchdown to Bill but had two of his passes intercepted.

Jaden was given a chance for the last quarter, as were David’s friends Big Cat and Chuy.

Though Chuy was classified as an H-back, they moved him to tailback. His job was to power his way between the tackles and pick up two to four yards per carry. During the fourth quarter, he had 10 carries and gained 44 yards and a touchdown. His rushing yardage total led the team.