“On Two, On Two!”
We hoped that the defense thought I was calling out the snap count. The referee uncovered the ball and indicated we could play ball. We lined up in the same formation.
“Down!”
I again heard the lines crashing into each other. I turned and acted like I was handing off to Jake. Instead, I had the ball in my left hand and hidden on my hip. I continued like last time and brought the ball up to my ready position. The play was supposed to hit Bill on a quick slant, but he slipped and went down.
St. Joe quickly figured out I had the ball. “PASS! PASS!” their middle linebacker shouted.
I turned to my right and saw Jeff’s replacement, Trevor, coming free after being jammed by the strong-side cornerback. I put the ball on a rope. It hit Trevor in the hands, and it popped straight up. Trevor kept his wits about him and pulled it down, but the delay allowed the safety to close and make the play after an eight yard gain. It was second and two on their 42 yard line.
We were running the trap, again, and we all ran to the line. Since I didn’t make an adjustment, it was our base trap play.
“Down!”
This time St. Joe was ready, and Jake had to fight for the first down. We now were at their 40 yard line.
“Scramble, Scramble!” I called to get us back into the shotgun.
Bill made eye contact and gave me a ‘hook ’em horns’ sign.
“Down!”
Bill made an aggressive move like he was going long. With his speed, St. Joe had to respect the fake, and both the corner and safety turned their hips to run with him. I had the ball on the way when he planted his foot and turned for it. Bill was disciplined and pulled the ball in before turning to run. The St. Joe players tried to recover, but Bill did one of his nasty jukes, and the race was on. It was over once Bill broke containment. He raced to the end zone, and you could feel the relief from our fans as they cheered and rang their cowbells. We were up 28–21 after the extra point.
On the next series, St. Joe was moving the ball until Lou Davis made an interception on our 42 yard line. We continued to run the hurry-up, but once I had them lined up, we made sure we were running the clock down, too. That was unless they tried to change players; then I’d try to catch them with too many players on the field, or out of position.
The hurry-up offense wore them down, and St. Joe wilted in the final quarter. With less than two minutes to play, we were on their 3 yard line. Coach Hope called for the Victory Formation to run out the clock. That was where I would take a knee and just let the clock run. On the first go-round, one of the St. Joe players tackled me when I was on my knee. I got up a little agitated, as the ref placed the ball on the 4. I called everyone into the huddle.
“Screw them! I want to score.”
They all agreed with me.
“Victory Formation, quarterback sneak,” I called.
We now had second down and goal to go from the 4, with a minute and ten seconds left in the game. The ref had warned St. Joe that if there were any more cheap shots, they could expect people to be kicked out of the game. I lined up under center, with Bert and Jake on each hip to protect me. I made a show of checking my protection.
“Down!”
On the snap, Tim surged forward and engaged the middle linebacker. I kept low, and when Tim hit the linebacker, I pushed them both towards the goal line. I twisted my body and reached. I felt the ball come loose as I slammed onto the ground. There was a mad scramble for the ball, but I looked over and the line judge was indicating a touchdown. We were up 35–21 after the extra point.
Coach Hope gave me an earful when I got to the sidelines, which surprised me not at all. If it had been called a fumble, St. Joe would have recovered the ball. He saw I was unrepentant, and went back to coaching the last minute of the game.
PEGGY MET ME AT THE entrance to the gym in her version of a sexy nurse’s outfit. She gave me a big kiss and we went in. I started laughing when the cheerleaders were all in sexy nurse costumes. Last year it was Catwoman. I laughed even harder when Gina, Cassidy, April and several other girl friends were all wearing similar outfits.
Tracy had one of the yearbook photographers take a picture of me with all of the girls. He sent it out as a tweet so I could get a copy of it.
As we were finishing up, Mitch made a move to talk to Peggy, so I cut him off.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but you’re gonna get your butt handed to you,” I told him.
“Hang on! Peggy and I are just friends,” he started to backtrack.
“I know you are, but if I see you kissing on her again, don’t be surprised when it turns out badly,” I warned.
Peggy came over.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“David is just being a little aggressive about claiming you,” Mitch said. “I explained to him that we were just friends.”
“That’s right, Mitch. I’m glad you said that. We are just friends. I was getting nervous that you didn’t understand that,” Peggy told him.
I don’t think Mitch thought that it would go that way. He thought he could drive a wedge between us. What he didn’t know was that my friend Tracy had worked her magic. Peggy hammered home the point by giving me a kiss that was anything but ‘just friendly.’ When we finally came up for air, Mitch was nowhere to be found.
The dance was a blast. The band was excellent and played a lot of great dance songs. Peggy would claim me whenever she wanted, but when she’d get tired she would allow other girls to dance with me. The only time I came off the dance floor was when the band took breaks.
There was one incident, about halfway through the dance. The freshman cheerleaders decided they were all going to dance with me. It quickly turned into a grope-fest, with me being the one groped. Thankfully, Tracy and Peggy came out and rescued me. I have to say, they were not very good examples for the younger girls.
MONA WAS HAVING AN after-the-dance party. When Peggy and I got there, I was happily surprised to see they didn’t have any alcohol. Mona came up and greeted us.
“Hey, big guy, thanks for coming to my party,” Mona said as she kissed my cheek. “Peggy, I’m glad to see someone finally caught him.”
“Don’t let appearances fool you. We’re just dating. He’s free to go out with whomever he wishes.”
“And I wish to go out with you,” I told Peggy, and squeezed her hand.
“Ah, you two are too cute. Come in and say hi to everyone. Pizza should be here shortly,” Mona said, and then went to welcome Faith and Jim to the party.
Peggy saw Tracy and went to talk to her. I went to talk to Alan and Jeff with Gina.
“Good game,” Alan told me. “Coach Stevens was talking to the St. Joe coach about how you’ve developed this year. They both agreed that you’re making much better decisions. I just thought you should know the coaches think you’re doing a bang-up job.”
I looked over at Jeff who had a lopsided grin on his face. Neither one of us could believe how much Alan was getting into football. He had always liked doing stats, but Jeff had told me that he was breaking down plays at lunch. If our resident genius ever got serious about football, he’d make a good coach. Maybe not a head coach, as he wasn’t really a leader, but he would make a great assistant coach.
I think part of his passion was from our project. Alan was starting to understand there was more to football than he originally thought. Alan was a little bulldog. When he got his teeth into something, he never let go until he figured it out. Jeff and I had learned about his tenaciousness while playing video games with him. He consistently beat us.