We were in first place and raced back to start the second round. It was total gut-check time. My shoulders were killing me. My downfall was the rowing machine. It was something I had never done before, and it was attacking all my muscles at once. I was going to have to get one of these contraptions for my workouts. I had a newfound respect for people who participated in this sport.
It wasn’t so much the rowing that caused me problems, it was the effect it had on my body. This time when I did the dumbbells, I failed miserably. I consistently worked with heavier weights with similar exercises, but after rowing, man!
“Can you do it?” Flee asked.
I could tell he was worried. The only good news was that the other teams were struggling, too. I swung my arms around to loosen up my shoulders, and then I shook my arms. I went deep within myself and willed myself through the minute of torture. When I finished, I felt my shoulders wanting to cramp up. I needed to rehydrate or I was going to be in trouble.
“I think we need some Gatorade,” I said.
There was a drink station that everyone seemed to be ignoring. Flee agreed and we drank a couple of cups. I felt better when we went back and finished the second round.
Flee helped me do the rowing for the third round. I thought the poor boy was going to drop on me. We decided I’d do the rope climb because he went second and needed to catch his breath.
I ran into serious trouble at the dumbbells. My shoulders were shot. I looked over and Coach Trent was watching me to see what I was going to do with this adversity. Bo had warned me they would try to push me out of my comfort zones and see how I reacted. I had always worked hard and never thought I would be in this position. I figured I had an edge with my conditioning and strength work. I knew this exercise was meant to cause us to fail and to see how we faced this failure.
I was surprised when I wanted to give up. My shoulders were on fire. This felt like sixty minutes of hell, and when I realized that, just like that, I relaxed. I closed my eyes and focused on getting my breathing under control. I took deep steady breaths and centered myself. I had learned this from Cassidy doing Tai Chi. When I felt my control return, I reached down and lifted the dumbbells to my side. I felt my shoulders begin to quiver, but I didn’t give up. My right shoulder felt like it was cramping, and the pain was excruciating. But I didn’t give up. I focused on my breathing and tried to ignore the pain. When time was called, I would’ve done a fist pump if I could have raised my hand over my shoulder. I looked over to Coach Trent and he nodded to me. Everything counts.
When we finished, we were in fourth place. Flee convinced me that lying in the grass was okay. I wasn’t able to contradict him. I just looked up into the dark sky and was happy we finished.
COACH FREDRICK WAS in charge of the next event, tug-of-war.
“I know you’re all tired. It’s time to separate the men from the boys. I’m sure you’ve all tested yourselves playing tug-of-war. This time there’s a reward at the end. The winning team gets to pick their receivers first for the session-ending seven-on-seven tournament.”
Now we were talking. Getting the right receivers could make a huge difference in how you did. I wished I had Bill here to make me look better. I was having happy dreams about what it would mean when Flee and I heard our names called. We were going up against Wes and Doyle. They had nearly fifty pounds on us.
Bo had told me to think everything through. I took Flee aside.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then I remembered what my uncle had taught me when dealing with a cow.
“They’re going to try and overpower us right at the start. My uncle taught me when dealing with a difficult cow to square your feet and dig in. Squared up, you use both your legs instead of having one behind the other. Our advantage will be that our legs are stronger than their upper bodies. We dig in and get their initial momentum stopped. Then we work together to start walking backward,” I said.
When we lined up, I saw Wes and Doyle had their feet staggered and they were leaning forward. I expected they would try to jerk us towards them when we started. I was behind Flee, so I took the rope and hooked it around my waist so my right hand was on the rope and my other hand held the rope tight to my waist. Flee looked back.
“Remember to stay low,” he suggested.
Good point. I squatted down and dug my heels in. Everyone had gathered around and was cheering us on. I could tell everyone expected Wes and Doyle to make short work of us. On “Pull,” they did as I expected and tried to jerk us off balance. What they ended up doing was standing straight up. They didn’t have any leverage. All they could do was lean back.
“Now!” I called out.
Flee and I took one step back. This unbalanced the much bigger team, and we began to move back. When the tide turned, the crowd got behind us. Everyone loves an underdog. When we won, Flee wanted to celebrate, but I warned him: everything counts.
We went over and shook hands with the vanquished. Wes took the loss in good spirits. Doyle was incredulous and refused to shake our hands. I saw Coach Trent talking to the other coaches, and I felt we were being evaluated on how we handled each situation. I got the feeling it didn’t matter if we won or lost, it was how we acted. You had to be a leader regardless of whether you won or lost.
We ended up winning this portion of the competition. No one figured out our biggest advantage was squaring up and being able to use both legs equally.
THE FINAL TASK WAS running sprints. I was glad I had taken it easy and gotten plenty of rest today. It was nearly three in the morning when we got back to the campus. There was a sign in the lobby that said breakfast was open at six a.m., the training staff was available at seven, and the bus left at eight-thirty.
When I got back to my room, Doyle wouldn’t talk to me. He was still pissed he lost the tug-of-war. I dug into my duffle bag and found a jar of my trainer’s analgesic rub. I worked it into my shoulders and neck. I wanted to be able to throw tomorrow and not be stiff. I set my phone alarm for six and went to sleep.
Monday July 6
I WOKE UP AFTER LESS than three hours sleep and dragged my ass out of bed. I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack truck. I guess I wasn’t in as good of shape as I thought I was. My thighs and butt hurt from running up and down the hills. My shoulders felt like I was an eighty-year-old man. My hands ached from doing the pipe.
I quietly left the room so I could go stand under the hot water in the shower. I smiled when Flee joined me.
“Why are you up so early?” he asked.
“Everything counts,” I said, repeating what was becoming my mantra for the week. “Why are you up?”
“I have to do more than anyone else to stand out,” he said, referring to his size.
We went down to breakfast. The coaches were surprised when we walked in. I didn’t know about anyone else, but I was a growing boy who’d burned off a week’s worth of calories last night. I was starved. I wasn’t really surprised when Flee’s plate was packed like mine.
“What now?” Flee asked.
“We go see the trainers.”
I went back up to my room and got my rub. The trainers gave the two of us massages. The combination of the rub and the work the trainers did on us made us feel almost human again. At eight o’clock I went back to my room.
I debated whether to wake up Doyle or not. I thought it would be petty if I didn’t.
“Doyle, DOYLE!”
“What?”
“You have twenty minutes to make the bus,” I warned him.
He just grumbled and rolled back over.
DOYLE DIDN’T MAKE THE bus. It left at 8:30 sharp. We started the morning in the classroom. Coach Allen was going over the playbook. He had software displayed on a big-screen TV.