Trent took a deep breath and held it. He let it out in one long hiss.
“What do I need to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know if you’re religious or not. That doesn’t really matter, but there is a little prayer that seems to help me. It’s called the Serenity Prayer. It starts with, ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.’
“Stop focusing on what you can’t control. Focus on throwing the ball,” I said.
“Does that really work?” Trent asked.
“You’re surrounded by players who have been winning games. Trust them to do their jobs, and you just focus on doing yours. If you can complete a few passes and not turn the ball over, we can beat Beverly,” I said, and then smiled. “That starts with you throwing the ball correctly. I know you can do it. I saw you when I came back this summer and in practice last year.”
“What am I doing wrong?”
I saw him relax.
“You tell me,” I shot back.
He gave me a pained expression. Uncle John was probably amused right now that I’d used one of his techniques on someone else.
“What did you do on the last throw?” I prompted. “How did you stride? Where was your release point? And, by the way, how can you miss someone that big?” I asked with a grin.
The last one was to lighten the mood, but Trent started to talk about how he’d released the ball too early and hadn’t done his full stride.
“Get back in there and do it right,” I coached. “You’ve got this.”
He trotted back to Coach Mason. I found my brother standing in front of me. He would be either next year’s quarterback or the year after if Trent got his act together. I guess Coach Mason planned to take full advantage of me. He wanted to get in as much work as possible while I was there to coach them up when they did something wrong.
“What did you do?” I asked.
I wasn’t trying to be smart, I’d been talking to Trent and hadn’t seen why Phil was standing in front of me. My brother gave me a look that didn’t make me happy. Then Dare tapped my shoulder and showed me his phone. He’d been videoing and caught it.
“Go get a football,” I ordered.
When Phil came back, I had him grip it. This was something that wasn’t taught enough. I was surprised I’d never picked up on how my brother held the football.
“I’m about to help you become a much better passer. The grip isn’t normally something that’s taught, but it should be.” I was lucky that Bo Harrington had coached me during my freshman year. There are a lot of things that are taught wrong about how to hold the ball. You’ll see guys put their index finger on the tip of the ball or have the front tip pointed downward on the release.
“The proper way is to have the front tip pointed slightly up,” I said, and had him toss me the ball so I could show him. “How do we do that?”
I paused for his answer. Phil just looked at me, so I continued.
“I want your ring finger’s first knuckle to be just in front of the second lace at the back of the ball. I want your index finger to rest under the laces, and your pinky to rest under the laces,” I said as I demonstrated.
Phil paid attention, and I noticed that Dare had turned his phone on me while I coached the finer points of how to hold a football.
“Now, you want to have your thumb wrap around the ball so that it’s about even with your index finger. You want to make sure that you don’t let your palm rest on the ball. There needs to be a small gap so that when you throw the football, it won’t stick to your hand, and you won’t get what looks like a wounded duck. Your pinky and ring finger come off the ball at the same time, leaving your first two fingers in contact as you flip your wrist. That causes the football to rotate in a tight spiral.”
I had him throw the ball to a receiver a couple of times. He finally let one go that was perfect.
“That just felt different. Thanks, David,” Phil said, and trotted back to get his turn.
In practice, I tried to do what I saw Ridge Townsend, USC’s starting quarterback, did. He was focused on what he did each snap. Ridge said he’d gone to a camp where Tom Brady, the starting quarterback for the NFL’s Patriots, had been. Ridge said that Tom was 100% about the business at hand when he was on the football field. They’d seemed like two quarterbacks I should emulate.
I found I enjoyed stepping back and helping coach. After all, I’d accumulated a lot of knowledge going to camps like Elite 11 and from the personal coaching I’d received from Coach Mason and Coach Harrington. This was an opportunity to pass it on.
I found that Dare paid attention to what was happening around him. If I could ever get him to communicate, he would be a tremendous asset. I’d learned from my uncle that you couldn’t force someone to change. He’d helped me understand that I wanted to change. Once I knew I didn’t want to go through life like I had, it was easy for him to help me decide what I wanted my life to be like. A summer at my uncle’s would do Dare a world of good.
When practice was done, Coach Mason took me aside.
“Thanks. Sometimes they need to hear it from someone else.”
He was right because I knew he’d talked about everything I’d worked on with all the quarterbacks today to make them better. He’d singled me out more than once to show them how to do it right and wrong.
“Funny how that works,” I said.
“I think Trent turned a corner today. He hasn’t looked this good since he realized that he wasn’t going to start in two-a-days. What did you tell him?”
I told Coach Mason about the prayer.
“I’ll hit him with my second favorite saying tomorrow. ‘If it is to be, it is up to me.’ I find that if I focus on those two things, I can accomplish just about anything.”
That got Coach Mason grinning.
“If I heard that from just about anyone else, I would say they were being cocky.”
“How are you feeling?” Jeff, my favorite reporter, asked, startling me.
He and his camera crew were constantly around, and I’d begun to ignore them. Coach Mason rolled his eyes and headed off to the locker room, leaving me to face Jeff.
I glossed over my injuries and admitted that I wouldn’t play this week, but left the door open for the following week. I said we would play it one week at a time and see whether or not I was ready to go. When they were done with the interview, Jeff sent his crew to the truck.
“What’s the real word?” he asked.
I told him three to six weeks and that I could barely get around.
◊◊◊ Thursday October 13
We were eating lunch when Dare jumped up and excitedly showed me his phone. It was an article about this week’s opponent, Beverly. I looked at him, and we both smiled.
“This is never good,” Brook almost moaned.
“Let me guess,” Wolf said. “Hannah Minacci is going to be David’s date to Homecoming.”
“Have you asked anyone to go?” Cassidy asked me pointedly.
I gave her a look. It was just assumed that if Brook was my girlfriend, she would go with me. Right?
“Here I bought a dress and everything. I thought my boyfriend would ask, but he hasn’t. I guess I need to find a date,” Brook pouted.
As I looked around the table, I saw that everyone had an amused look on their face. This smelled like a setup.
“I’ll take you,” Dare blurted. I’d been looking at Cassidy, and the expression on her face was priceless. Everyone must have been in on it except for Dare. I turned to Brook and dared her to turn him down.
She had this fish-out-of-water look.
“I … uh … I … um … would love to go with you,” she said.
Poor Dare realized what he’d done, and I was afraid he might start crying.