“Come on. Let’s get you fed,” he said.
The boosters did themselves proud. Someone had made chili, and they had all the fixings to go with it. Then they did a bunch of appetizers. I had jalapeño poppers, mini meatball sandwiches, Buffalo wings, and for dessert, they made us peach fried pies.
I had just finished when several people sat down with me. I smiled when Bo Harrington (Alabama), Don Berta (Kentucky), Coach Bailsman (Michigan State) and Wes Casey (Ohio State) joined me at the table. There was one last seat at the table and Jeff Delahey, my favorite reporter, joined us.
“Who are you guys here to see?” Jeff asked as he ignored me.
“We have our eye on a couple of guys. I want to see Lincoln’s big tackle play tonight,” Bo said.
“Their tailback is pretty good. I want to see how he does tonight. We might make an offer if he has another good game,” Coach Casey said. “Then we always want to see their big wideout.”
“I wonder when they’ll get smart and play him at tight end?” Coach Berta asked.
I let them have their fun as they pretended I wasn’t there. I had a blast when they started to make fun of other schools that weren’t here tonight. The Big Ten recruiters roasted Michigan. According to them, anyone would have to be a dumbass to go there. Someone mentioned the muffed punt, which made me groan. Michigan had lost their game to Michigan State on a last-second failed punt attempt that resulted in a Michigan State touchdown. The reason I groaned was that I’d lost a game on a late fumbled snap my freshman year. I felt for the Michigan punter who messed up. I was sure that, given a chance, Michigan would have some good things to say about Ohio State and Michigan State.
◊◊◊
When we came out for the coin toss, I had Jim and the rest of the seniors as my co-captains. St. Joe came out, and the trash talk started.
“How about we make a side bet? If we win, we all get a piece of your baby momma. At least she won’t get abused with us.”
They thought it was funny. Jim grabbed me before I decided which one to kick the shit out of first. There were six of them. I would keep track of each one of these smartasses, and they would think differently by the end of the game. I gave them a feral grin that made them shut up and the referee step in between us.
“We’ll have none of that,” the referee said.
All through the coin toss, I glared at them. Now that the referee had protected them, they were back to acting like idiots, and all had smirks on their faces. We won the coin toss and deferred to the second half. Jim had to pick me up to move me from the center of the field. I walked backward to the sideline and never took my eyes off them.
“What happened out there?” Coach Hope said.
“They said some things to David. I think they just motivated him to unleash the hounds of hell on their butts. You might want him to play some defense to get it out of his system,” Jim said.
Jim was suddenly my best friend in the whole world. Coach Hope saw me light up with a huge grin, and he just dropped his head and shook it.
“If I let you play defense, you have to promise no cheap shots. Everything has to be within the rules of the game. Do you think you can do that?” Coach asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and you owe me one,” he said with a smirk.
I thought about it for a moment and tried to imagine what he might want, but at that moment, I couldn’t care less. I stepped forward and shook his hand. He had a deal.
Our kicker managed to kick the ball through the end zone, so St. Joe had the football first and ten at the 20 yard line. Because Jim was a senior, he started at defensive tackle, with Johan Bauer at the other tackle. With both of them in the game, I had no doubt we would control the center of the line. I didn’t see how their center and two guards would be able to handle them. Everything starts there, and it would force St. Joe to try to run outside. That was to our advantage because of our team’s speed. On top of that, it would free up Yuri and Jake at linebacker. The interior linemen couldn’t get off the ball if they had to double-team our defensive tackles.
I scanned the field to see if any of my targets were on offense. I spotted three of them: their quarterback, tailback, and one of their wide receivers. As they lined up, I was aquiver with anticipation as I prepared to release all the frustration that had slowly built up over the week. I felt myself drop into the zone and the sound of our crowd faded in my head. My heart pounded in my ears as I focused on the field. St. Joe lined up in a basic ‘I’ formation with their quarterback under center and a fullback and tailback stacked behind him.
I saw Ed, at cornerback, take an extra step inside to support the run. The receiver he was to cover looked inside and shook his hand. Their quarterback nodded when he saw that.
“PASS, PASS, PASS!” I yelled as the football was snapped.
I watched as Johan exploded past their guard because they decided to double-team Jim. I will give their fullback credit, he at least tried to block our runaway farm boy. Johan hit his shoulder pads with his open hands and stood him up. Once the fullback was standing, he didn’t have the leverage he needed to stop the freight train. Their fullback stumbled back and landed in the middle of the quarterback and tailback as they were in the process of faking a handoff. Johan’s big paw reached for their quarterback, but he spun away as Johan became tangled in the pile and landed on both the fullback and tailback.
Ed cheating to help the run had cost him. The receiver he was supposed to cover sprinted up the sideline and had a step on him. My job was to make sure nothing got behind us, so I had broken into a full sprint at the snap of the ball to prevent an easy score. Once I saw Johan hadn’t taken out their quarterback, I put my head down and ran as fast as I could to support Ed.
“Ball!”
That told me the ball was in the air, and the receiver turned his head and reached forward. It looked like their quarterback must have overthrown it when he got excited. I saw the football out of the corner of my eye and made the split-second decision not to level my nemesis, but instead, make a play on the ball. I reached up with one hand and snatched it out of the air. My momentum carried me into their receiver-turned-defensive back. There was a tremendous collision as we were both running at full speed when we came together. Thankfully, we hit each other at an angle. If we had hit head-on, both of us might not have gotten up.
As I stood up, I tossed the ball to the side judge and trotted to the center of the field to huddle up the offense. It felt good to get the first hit out of the way. I was about killed as both Jim and Johan decided to almost tackle me, they were so excited.
“That just happened! He caught the ball with one hand and crushed their receiver. Wow! Just wow!” Johan said as he hugged me.
“Don’t kill him,” Brock said, and Jim and Johan let me go.
“Huddle up,” I ordered, which seemed to settle them down.
We were in their territory on their 32 yard line. This was an excellent opportunity to score and take an early lead. I looked up and saw Trent Buchannan, our backup quarterback, running out. Crud! I’d forgotten that he would start today because I hadn’t practiced all week. I wanted to throw a fit because I felt I was ready to have an epic game, but put on my big-boy pants and went to the sideline.
It was absolute torture to watch our offense go three-and-out and have to settle for a field goal. Granted, we were up 3–0, but I felt we should have scored a touchdown. I was further dismayed when I wasn’t allowed to go back and play defense on the next series.
Neither team did much the rest of the first quarter as each team traded punts. At the start of the second quarter, I got the call I’d been waiting for.
“Dawson, you’re in for Buchannan,” Coach Diamond called out.
As I ran out onto the field, it took the crowd a moment to realize I was in the game. Then the damned cowbells began to ring as if we’d just scored. It was almost deafening when we lined up for our first play. I called an option run play to the right. I’d seen the other three of my other tormentors: one was their linebacker, and another played defensive end. The third was their punter. I had no idea how I would get to their punter but vowed to find a way.