“As you can see, the playbook is dynamic. The hard part was getting it set up. Luckily, I had a lot of help from the audiovisual geek squad here at Lincoln, and the University of Kentucky guys let me upload a lot of their plays. Now for the fun part,” Alan said.
He pointed to boxes with video icons under the play. He clicked on the first one. It was an animated version of the play, with Coach Diamond using a mouse to point to each player and explaining what their responsibilities were. The next button showed our team running the play in a game.
The final thing he showed us was you could flip the play from ‘Dive Right’ to ‘Dive Left’ with just a click of the button.
Alan then backed out of the Playbook section and pulled up Scouting Report. Our opponents for next year were listed. He clicked on our archrival Eastside and smiled.
“We were able to get every team in the conference to exchange game films from last year, all except Eastside. For them, we had to contact their opponents. Under each team, there are options. You can look at game film of them on offense or defense,” Alan said as he showed a play on offense when they played us.
“You can also see their playbook. I won’t waste your time now, because it’s the same as ours. Another section is Situation,” he told us, and then clicked on ‘Red Zone Defense.’ “The key to making all this work is putting in down, distance, time left, our formation and several other factors. You can use this to figure out what’s the most likely defense they’ll be in.”
Alan clicked on one of the defenses and then played the coaching video. It was Alan’s voice telling us what defense they were in and showing us what our keys were to identify it. I could see this helping us prepare for games.
“The final section I want to show is the Game Manager. You select your opponent, down, distance, and yard line. It’ll give you the best three running plays and the best three passing plays to run against your opponent.”
The coaching staff and Alan all had smiles on their faces as the three of us sat in stunned silence. I had no idea they’d been working so hard behind the scenes.
“We’ll be giving you online access to the new offense on Monday,” Coach Diamond told us. “I would hope you’d use the software to learn the plays before the season starts. If you’d happen to get together and practice them on your own time, that would be great.”
Coach Hope assigned us each a coach to be our main contact. Jim was given Coach Stevens and Tim was paired with Moose. I would work with Coach Diamond. Then Coach Hope gave us some great news.
“I have one last announcement: Ty Wilson, from Washington, is transferring in. His parents just bought a house and he’ll be joining us in a few weeks. I hope you guys will welcome him and get him up to speed.”
We would have some serious depth at running back with Bert, Ed, Jake, Mike and now Ty. I wondered if Coach Diamond would move one of them to Bill’s old position so we could get a majority of them on the field at the same time. I was almost positive Jeff would lock down the other wideout slot and Wolf would play tight end. This meant we had five running backs to fill three open skill positions. At the very least, we would be fresh late in the game.
AFTER I WAS DONE WITH the coaches, I went to State and helped Greg and Angie pack and move back home. Greg was really out of shape. Going up and down the three stories at our place just about killed him. We arranged it so Nate was put into my old room. Kyle and Mac were put into one of the rooms across the hall. The remaining third-floor bedroom was made into a playroom. Mom had bought bunk beds with safety rails for Kyle and Mac.
By the end of the day, I was ready to kill my sister-in-law. She was doing a lot of pointing and complaining. I realized she’d just had a baby, but being bossy only goes so far. I started to regret not going out tonight.
Tonight, there was a big graduation bash for the seniors. Cassidy had suggested I skip it because Brad and Tommy were going to be there, not to mention Mitch. I was fine with that since we had a family night. Dad grilled steaks and I was able to play uncle with my niece and nephews.
Sophomore Year: Summer
DESCRIPTION: Seventh book of A Stupid Boy Story series.
Read this coming of age story that takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory.
Schools out for the summer and David Dawson has plans to attend several football camps before his junior year. David’s not your average player, he is one of the best. To complicate his life, his best friend Tami returns from her trip to the UK where she received a scholarship to learn about what she loves. The only problem is that she and David left things on bad terms and they’ve only gotten worse. Tami’s plan to save their friendship is to hang around him 24/7 until her comes to his senses.
Interlude
Jeff Rigger
Word was, Tami was returning from her trip to the UK. Honestly, I don’t know why David put up with her. She’d treated him like crap since high school started. Heck, she treated us all like crap. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to her return.
I remember when David first pulled her into our group. We had been the Three Musketeers: Alan, David and me against the world. Then David goes and finds this stray and pulls her into our group. I never liked the Four Musketeers. The thing was that David liked her, so by default we were friends with Tami too. For a girl, Tami was cool. She was a tomboy and liked to do the things we liked, so she fit in.
Alan was my Tami. Alan and I were neighbors and our moms traded off watching us. Alan was an acquired taste. He had unfortunate hair that made him look like a crazed poodle. His mouth didn’t have a filter on it. Whatever he thought came out. When David and I became friends in kindergarten, Alan was part of the package.
From first grade on the four of us were inseparable. We each had our role to play in our little group. Tami was our information source. If something was happening or we needed to know about it, she knew. She also wanted to be a doctor, so she was our medic when we scraped a knee or tried to kill ourselves. Tami actually taught us sex education before we had it in school.
Alan was our loose cannon. You never knew what he would say or do. I think today they would’ve figured out he needed to be on some kind of medication to curb his spaz quotient. If we got into trouble, Alan was usually the cause. I remember in fifth grade when he talked David into drawing on Miss Broker’s whiteboard with a permanent marker. David was the only one of us who could draw well enough that you could recognize what it was.
We all came back from recess and Alan and David had the giggles. Miss Broker came in and began her lesson and the class all giggled because there was a giant bunny drawn on the board. She finally noticed.
“Very funny ... ha, ha,” she said, and she went to wipe it off so we would focus on her lesson.
“What the hell!” she blurted.
There was a collective gasp as everyone realized what had happened. When she used the eraser to clean the board, the bunny transformed itself into a dick and balls. Son of a monkey! Miss Broker cussed because there was a permanent-marker drawing of a dick on the board!
It took Alan all of a nanosecond to rat David out. Tami got mad and smacked him on the forehead because no one tattled on our group. Alan made a lunge at Tami and I had to tackle him before he hit a girl. Miss Broker was not in a forgiving mood and sent us all to the office. Mrs. Dawson was called to come down to the school to deal with us. Even Alan started to shake when we heard the vice principal announce that.