After thirty minutes, Rick was sorely tempted to pull Sam aside and explain a few things. He was the quarterback, you know, and quarterbacks, at the professional level, are not subjected to the same drills and boot camp banalities required of the regular players. But Sam was far away, at the other end of the field. Then Rick realized he was being watched. As the warm-up dragged on, he caught more glances from his teammates, just checking to see if a real pro quarterback could grind it out with them. Was he a member of the team, or a prima donna just passing through?
Rick kicked it up a notch to impress them.
Usually, wind sprints were put off until the end of practice, but not so with Alex. After forty-five minutes of bruising exercises, the team members gathered at the goal line, and in groups of six sprinted forty yards downfield, where Alex was waiting with a very active whistle and a nasty insult for whoever brought up the rear. Rick ran with the backs. Sly easily raced away, and Franco easily thundered in last. Rick was in the middle, and as he sprinted, he remembered the glory days at Davenport South when he ran wild and scored almost as many touchdowns with his feet as with his arm. The running slowed considerably in college; he was simply not a running quarterback. Running was almost prohibited in the pros; it was an excellent way to get a leg broken.
The Italians chattered at each other, offering encouragement as the sprints dragged on. After five they were breathing heavily and Alex was just warming up.
“Can you puke?” Sly asked between breaths.
“Why?”
“Because he runs us until someone pukes.”
“Go ahead.”
“I wish I could.”
After ten forties, Rick was asking himself what, exactly, he had been expecting in Parma. His hamstrings were on fire, his calves ached, he was straining and gasping and soaked with sweat, though the temperature was hardly warm. He’d have a talk with Sam and get some things straight. This wasn’t high school ball. He was a pro!
Nino bolted for the sideline, ripped off his helmet, and delivered. The team yelled its encouragement, and Alex gave three quick bursts on the whistle. After a water break, Sam stepped forward with instructions. He would take the backs and receivers. Nino had the offensive linemen. Alex had the linebackers and defensive linemen. Trey was in charge of the secondary. They scattered around the field.
“This is Fabrizio,” Sam said, introducing the rather slim receiver to Rick. “Our wideout, great hands.” They acknowledged each other. High-maintenance, high-strung, God’s gift to Italian football. Sam had briefed Rick on Fabrizio and suggested that he take it easy on the kid for the first couple of days. There had been no small number of receivers in the NFL who’d had trouble with Rick’s bullets, at least in practice. In games, the bullets, though beautiful, had too often sailed high and wide. A few had been caught by fans five rows up.
The backup quarterback was a twenty-year-old Italian named Alberto something or other. Rick threw soft sideline routes to one group, Alberto to the other. According to Sam, Alberto preferred to run the ball because he had a rather weak arm. Weak it was, Rick noticed after a couple of passes. He threw like a shot-putter, and his passes fluttered through the air like wounded birds.
“Was he the backup last year?” Rick asked when Sam got close enough.
“Yes, but didn’t play much.”
Fabrizio was a natural athlete, quick and graceful with soft hands. He worked hard to appear nonchalant, as if anything Rick fired to him was just another easy catch. He big-leagued a few catches, snared them with too much cocky indifference, then committed a sin that would have cost him dearly in the NFL. On a lackadaisical quick-out, he snatched the ball with one hand simply to show off. The pass was on target and did not need a one-arm grab. Rick simmered, but Sam was all over it. “Let it go,” he said. “He doesn’t know any better.”
Rick’s arm was still slightly sore, and though he was in no hurry to impress anyone, he was tempted to gun one into Fabrizio’s chest and watch him drop like a rock. Relax, he said to himself, he’s just a kid having fun.
Then Sam barked at Fabrizio for running sloppy patterns, and the kid sulked like a baby. More patterns, longer throws, then Sam brought the offense together for a review of the basics. Nino squatted over the ball, and to prevent jammed fingers, Rick suggested they practice a few snaps, slowly. Nino agreed that this was an excellent idea, but when Rick’s hands touched his backside, he flinched. Not a radical jerk of the rear, nothing that would cause a referee to flag him for illegal procedure or offside, but a distinguishable tightening of the gluteus maximus much like a schoolkid about to receive licks from a thick wooden paddle. Perhaps it was just a case of new-quarterback jitters, Rick told himself. For the next snap, Nino hovered over the ball, Rick bent slightly forward, eased his hands just under the center’s rump, as he had done since junior high school, and upon contact Nino’s glutes instinctively tightened again.
The snaps were slow and soft, and Rick knew immediately that hours were needed to improve Nino’s technique. A full step would be wasted waiting on the ball while tailbacks broke for their holes and receivers ran to their spots.
On the third snap, Rick’s fingers grazed Nino’s zone ever so slightly, and evidently such a soft touch was far worse than an outright slap with the hands. Both cheeks arched painfully at the delicate contact. Rick glanced at Sam and quickly said, “Can you tell him to relax his ass?”
Sam turned away to keep from laughing.
“Is problem?” Nino asked.
“Never mind,” Rick said. Sam blew his whistle, called a play in English, then Italian. It was a simple tailback off-tackle to the right, Sly taking the handoff with Franco plowing through the hole first like a bulldozer.
“The cadence?” Rick asked as the linemen settled into place.
“Down, set, hut,” Sam replied. “In English.”
Nino, who evidently held the unofficial position of offensive line coach, inspected the guards and tackles before squatting over the ball and preparing his glutes. Rick touched them as he yelled, “Down!” They flinched and Rick hurriedly added, “Set,” then, “Hut.”
Franco grunted like a bear as he lunged from his three-point stance and lurched to the right. The line moved forward, bodies jolting upright, voices growling as if the hated Bergamo Lions were over there, and Rick waited an eternity for the ball to arrive from his center. He was half a step back when he finally grabbed it, turned, and thrust it at Sly, who had already run up the back of Franco.
Sam blew his whistle, yelled something in Italian, then, “Do it again.” And again and again.
After ten snaps, Alberto stepped in to run the offense, and Rick found some water. He sat on his helmet and was soon drifting away to other teams, other fields. The drudgery of practice was the same everywhere, he decided. From Iowa to Canada to Parma and all those stops in between, the worst part of the game, in whatever language, was the numbing tedium of physical conditioning and the repetition of running play after play.
It was late when Alex assumed authority again, and with his quick shrill whistle the forty-yard sprints began with a fury. The jokes and insults were gone. No one laughed or yelled as they ran down the field, slower with each whistle, but not so slow that Alex might get upset. After each sprint, they trotted back to the goal line, rested for a few seconds, then off again.