Chapter 8

Billy was new to football of the organized team arrangement they had in high school. Of course, he had occasionally played football with some of his friends, but they never went so far as to have 11 players on each side and to play on a full sized gridiron. Therefore, he was going to have to learn the game from scratch, but that was actually an advantage, since he did not have a lot of bad habits already ingrained into his playing style.

The first day he showed up to register for the team, he was already at a big disadvantage. He had not been there for the summer training camp for the team, so he had no idea what position to try out for. Coach Sam Holsmer had heard a lot about Billy's physical abilities, but he was not sure how much of the hype that he could believe. As an athlete, Billy simply sounded too good to be true.

On the other hand, Sam was no fool, so he wanted to get the most from his players that he could. Therefore, he assigned each of his assistant coaches the task of evaluating Billy in each of the specialties. The team was in desperate need of a kicker, so that was where he was evaluated first.

Coach Benson had Billy try first as a punter, and he was amazing for his ability to punt the ball for 60 yards. That was almost unheard of for a 15 year old kid who stood 5'-10" tall and weighed in at 162 pounds. Not only that, Billy was unerringly accurate. He never shanked the ball, nor did he kick it too far. However, he nearly always got favorable rolls and bounces, so Coach Benson knew that Billy was going to be their punter if he had anything to do with it.

Billy then tried out place-kicking, and he was just as accurate and could kick just as far. At last, Central High School had a kicker who could do all of the jobs! There was no question that Billy now had a place on the team, but the other coaches were so impressed that they wanted Billy to try out for their specialties. They did agree that Billy was not large enough to be a significant factor as an interior lineman, but he still might be useful as a runner or pass receiver.

Well, to make a long story short, after two days of evaluation, Billy was selected to be a halfback and kicker. He wasn't evaluated as a quarterback because the Mayor's son already held the job. However, Billy was selected to be the backup for that job, too. Billy had the physical skills necessary to be a quarterback, but he was assumed to be unready because he had not had time to learn all of the plays in the playbook. Coach Holsmer simply did not know how fast Billy could learn anything he set his mind to.

The first game on their schedule was against a high school not considered to be of the same caliber as Central HS, so Billy was on the roster and ready to be the kicker. Coach Holsmer did figure to use Billy for a few plays as a running back as soon as they had managed to push the score high enough to be safe.

As expected, Central HS was not running away with the game early on, so Billy had no chance to play sooner than expected. Central HS won the toss, and marched down the field to the 28 yard line. That's when the roof fell in. A stupid holding penalty pushed the ball back to the 43 yard line, and three consecutive busted plays made it fourth down and 17 yards to go for a first down.

The kicking coach convinced Coach Holsmer to let Billy try for a field goal. This was really a dumb suggestion, but Coach Holsmer was kind of distracted at the moment, so he agreed. Billy had not warmed up much for field goals before the game, since everybody on the coaching staff figured that Central was so good that they would never need to kick one. He had kicked five FGs (Field Goals) of 30 yards before being pushed out of the way to allow the "real" players to warm up.

Anyway, Billy knew that he didn't have to worry with Genie to help him, so he trotted out beaming with confidence. Suddenly, Coach Holsmer wondered if he had done the right thing; certainly, a punt was much better strategy, even if it did result in a touchback. Oh, well, what the hell? He decided to let the kid make a fool of himself; maybe that would knock that cocky smirk off his face.

The team lined up for the FG, and the referee waved his arm to start the clock. The kid who held the ball for Billy was so nervous that he dropped the ball when it was centered to him. There was a moment of panic among the whole team, but Billy had read the entire football rulebook the night before, so he knew that a drop kick would be just as good for scoring the 3 points. Therefore, he picked up the football as it was lying on the ground and stepped around the onrushing opposition players. Coach Holsmer was flabbergasted as Billy kicked the ball with a drop kick through the goal posts for a successful field goal.

Naturally, the opposing coach called time and charged toward the referee to protest that the kick had not been a legitimate FG because of the manner in which Billy had kicked it. Billy recognized what was going on and ran to Coach Holsmer. "Coach, that was a legitimate kick. Have them check the rule book if they doubt it."

"Hell, kid, I never heard of a modern team using a drop kick for a field goal. Are you sure?"

Billy assured him that a drop kick was acceptable, and cited the page number and paragraph designation where the situation was discussed. Knowing that he had nothing to lose, Coach Holsmer ran out to join in the argument that lasted for a little over 10 minutes. Finally, the referee did look at the rule book and found the reference where Billy said that it would be. He signaled that the FG was good and charged the other coach with a time out!

This time, Coach Holsmer was very confident when he called for Billy to kick off. He instructed Billy to stop the ball as near as he could to the 5 yard line. Billy did his best, but the ball stopped on the 3. Oh, well, you can't have everything!

Cedar Junction was just not up to playing in the same league as Central. This time, they could only manage three plays before they had to punt from their own 9 yard line. Their best player was also their kicker, and he punted the ball very well. It was fair-caught on the Central 47 yard line. John Claiborne went in as quarterback, and got off two plays that netted 13 yards. With the ball on the Cedar Junction 40 yard line, he ignored the coach's instructions and called for a quarterback draw play.

John managed to get 2 yards before he was hit by what seemed like the entire Cedar Junction team. There was no piling on or anything else illegal, but, when the mass of humanity was unpiled, John Claiborne had to be carried from the field with a left leg broken below the knee. Shit, now Central was in trouble! The regular backup quarterback was still at home with a case of measles, so there was nothing to do but to send Billy in with instructions to be damned careful and not to freelance.

The coach went ultra conservative, and called for a running play from the halfback. This should have been a safe call, but the right guard got too enthusiastic with his blocking and was called for a holding penalty. It was now third down and 18 yards to go. The coach called for another running play by the halfback, but Billy was having none of that.

Instead, Billy called for the wide receiver to run as hard and as fast as he could for the end zone. The worst thing that could happen was that Billy was going to have to punt on the next play, but that's what he would have done with the running play called for by the coach. The center snapped the ball, and Billy took a four-step drop to try to give the wide receiver time to reach the end zone. As it was, Billy had to sidestep two would be tacklers before he threw a perfect spiral to the wide receiver waiting all alone in the end zone.

The stands went wild, and somebody had to catch Coach Holsmer before he fainted. The score was now 9-0, and Billy was due to kick the extra point. The kid holding for the kick managed to do his job, this time, and the score was 10-0.