Chapter 4: A Very Good Defenseman

Our first game was a non-conference away game at the University of South Florida. I was preparing for a very long bus ride, thinking USF was located around Miami or Fort Lauderdale, until Jesse corrected me.

"Sorry to disappoint you, freshman," he said with a chuckle, "but the University of South Florida is in Tampa. It's not even three hours away, man."

"Tampa? I don't think anybody would consider Tampa to be in southern Florida. What's up with that? It must be a really old school, then. I'm assuming the name was picked because Tampa was considered to be way south, what, maybe a hundred years ago?"

Jesse laughed out loud. "You'd think," he said. "The school's not even thirty years old, Porter. The state legislature, in the infinite wisdom that political bodies all over the world consistently demonstrate, decided that the University of South Florida was a perfectly appropriate name for an institute of higher learning located smack dab in the central part of the state."

I must have looked very confused, because Jesse just shook his head and chuckled as we loaded our gear bags into the baggage compartment of the bus.

We filed onto the bus and settled in for the ride to Tampa. I took along a backpack filled with books and homework assignments. I was already falling behind on my schoolwork, and I owed Kayla about four letters. In her last couple of letters, she mentioned how she had grudgingly accepted not getting a letter every day. She also pointedly wrote about how she felt when she went two or three days without hearing from me. Even that guilt trip couldn't manufacture things to tell her, however, and my letter-writing frequency was dropping again.

Schoolwork first, I reminded myself. I sighed as I reached into my backpack for my English assignments.

I had worked very hard during practices, both on the field and in the weight room, trying to increase my chance of earning a starting position. Right from the beginning, Pick had been very encouraging, urging me to try my best and not be afraid of failure.

Just that little statement alone put the fear of God into me, and spurred me on to work even harder. I did not want to fail. What would my parents say? What would Kayla say? What would I tell myself?

So I pushed. I ran further, tried to run faster, did more reps on the machines, and lifted free weights in an attempt to strengthen my legs, my traps, and my pecs. These were the areas I felt needed the most attention, especially for playing at the college level. I needed more support from my upper body if I was going to be heading the ball with any force or direction.

I took Coach Pick's admonishments to mean he still hadn't decided on his starting lineup, particularly at the right defensive position. There was a junior named Dan Ortega on the team who was pretty good, and I knew he was my main competition for the starting job. Dan was bigger and stronger than me, but he was slower on his feet. He handled the distance runs pretty well, though he tended to lag toward the back of the field. Additionally, his sprint work was terrible.

I had heard about some research that was being done on the leg muscles of men and women who ran track events, and preliminary results indicated that there were two types of muscle fibers. Slow- twitch fibers suited long-distance runners, and fast-twitch fibers were predominant in sprinters. Dan's legs had to have been made up of nearly one hundred percent slow-twitch, because he ran sprints like he was carrying fifty-pound weights in his hands. His best time at the hundred-yard dash was something over fifteen seconds, and his two- twenty and four-forty times were even worse.

He was a strong defender, however, and experienced. It was nearly impossible to push him off the ball, and he could power the ball downfield on throw-ins much further than I could. It was his third year playing on the team, and even though he was a role player and not one of the stars, he functioned efficiently on the field.

Dan was as easygoing a guy as I had ever met, though, and he took my eagerness to compete completely in stride. In fact, he often met me at the gym and partnered up on working with the weights. He encouraged me, and even gave me a fair amount of advice on the Florida system of playing.

One day, as we were resting between battles with the lat machine, Dan said, "Here's kind of what's going through Pick's mind, Sean. You know how football is divided up into the NFC and the AFC?"

"Sure," I said. I took a gulp of water and stretched out my upper arms. I might have overdone it working my triceps, I thought.

"Okay, the NFC has always relied on the running game and defense, right? And the AFC likes to run and gun."

"Right," I said. "Joe Montana loves the running game."

"Okay, there are always exceptions, smart-ass," he retorted. "But listen up for a second. Pick's teams are like the NFC. He believes defense wins games. And he's been pretty successful so far operating on that premise. But, just like the Forty-Niners, he's not going to object too much if he happens to have a little firepower in his offense, too. Know what I mean?"

"And that's where Jesse fits in," I said.

"Yep," he agreed. "And maybe your buddy Goldman, too."

I glanced over at him, and then stood up to attack the lats again. "Dan, you know I'm going to try to win the starting spot on the right."

"Of course, freshman," he said with a small smile. "I'd expect nothing less from an All-American. But you'll have to go through me to get onto the field."

I was puzzled. "So why are you helping me so much, then?"

He slapped me on the back, and then gently pushed me toward the Nautilus machine. "I'd like that starting job, too," he said as I settled myself into position. "But soccer isn't my be-all and end- all. If you make the team stronger by being on the field, then you should have the starting spot. Go," he said, pointing to the weights.

I started working my reps again. "I'm not going to lay down for you, freshman," he continued. "But if you win it fair and square, I'll be your biggest supporter. Because it will mean we're fielding the best team we can."

Dan played on Team Alpha in practices, and he played hard. He lumbered around and got in anybody's way who dared attempt an incursion into his little kingdom. He rebuffed every offensive set in his direction, clearing the ball out of bounds or moving it over to Rick in the net. He was easy to run around, but he always seemed to have the angle on any penetration, and his center support was always there to lend a hand.

In short, he played like a man who deserved to start on a Division One team. His game was stifling, if not very flashy.

It was a bit of a surprise to me, then, when Coach Pick named me as the starter for the first game.

We got to the USF campus and found our way to the soccer complex. The USF team was already on the field warming up. It was a hot day, into the nineties and pretty humid. I hoped the team managers had put plenty of Gatorade on ice for us. We would need it on this day.

Spencer and Jesse were anchoring the offense, and Martin, Rick, Brad, and I were holding down our end of the field. Nobody on either team wanted to run full out during the opening minutes, preferring to save something in reserve for the second half, so the ball never got much beyond midfield in either direction. Occasionally there would be an incursion by an offensive unit, but there was never much of a threat mounted against either goal.

It became kind of obvious, however, that Martin Flauget really was the Prima Donna that Jesse considered him to be. Every time he got the ball, instead of passing it or moving it up, he would hold his position with the ball, waiting for an opponent to challenge him. He would then use his tricks and skills to move around the opponent. Then, once he was finished dazzling the onlookers, he would pass the ball off. Occasionally the USF forward or midfielder would attempt a slide tackle, and a couple of times they were able to knock the ball away from Martin, usually out of bounds. It didn't bother Flauget, though, since it almost always resulted in a throw-in for us. He would trot over to the sidelines, grab a ball, and toss it. Even his throw-ins were tinged with an insouciance, and perhaps even nonchalance, that was grating to his teammates, and must have been infuriating to those assigned to guarding him.

He was a very good defenseman, despite all that. He followed the direction of his keeper, kept himself well positioned between the ball and the goal, and in general disrupted the flow of USF's offense. His passing was acute, and he could move the ball in one fluid kick halfway up the field and hit his target with startling accuracy. I couldn't help but be grudgingly impressed with his play, despite the grandstanding.

On the bus back to Gainesville after our 3-1 win, I found an excuse to wander up to the front of the bus, where Pick and his assistants were spread out. I slipped into the seat next to Coach.

"Can I ask you something, Coach?"

He glanced over at me. The intelligent look in his eye made me think he already knew what I was going to ask.

"Why, shore, son, fire away," he said.

"What's the deal with Flauget, sir? I would think his showboating would make you angry."

He glanced quickly over to one of his assistants, a tall and gangly graduate student named Eddie Whitehead, and just as quickly looked back at me.

He lowered his voice as he explained, "Well, it doesn't please me, I don't mind telling you, Sean. Eddie, here," and he nodded his head in the direction of his assistant, sitting across the aisle from us, "found him playing club ball out of New York City. Graduated from high school a year early, and was havin' a good time just playin' soccer in Central Park. His daddy's a bigwig at some Frenchy company with an office in Manhattan, his mommy fancies herself as a jet- setter, so he was just kinda left on his own a lot. His social skills was just plain awful, I tell you." He chuckled softly at the memory.