by Mike Lupica
Or possibly it was just as her mom had told her all those years ago, and Alex would have to be older before she understood.
All she knew for now, no matter how many questions and doubts she had, was that she was going to be on that field tomorrow night, in helmet and pads.
Not trying to be a superhero.
Just there to show them that she belonged, whether they wanted her there or not.
There was an old Dr. Seuss book Alex loved when she was little called Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Her mom used to read it to her at night before bed. It was maybe the thing she remembered best about the time before her mom left. When she was still in the house, and really in Alex’s life.
She could hear her mom’s voice inside her head right now, telling her that today was her day, that she was off to great places.
Off and away.
Not today, Alex told herself in her room.
Tomorrow.
6
In the car on the way to tryouts, Alex practiced wearing the mouthpiece attached to the side of her helmet.
She had never worn a mouthpiece before. She asked her dad if it was absolutely necessary that she wear one on the field tonight. He insisted that it was.
“But I have a facemask,” she argued.
“You’ve mentioned that already,” he said.
“Isn’t a facemask supposed to protect, well, your face? Which includes your mouth?”
He smiled at her, then lightly tapped one of his front teeth with his index finger.
“Fake,” he said. “And I wore a facemask, too.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Oh indeed,” he said. “I’d prefer if my football girl didn’t end up with a hockey player’s smile.”
They were in the parking lot outside the football field at Orville High. Since Coach Mencken taught at the high school, and was there during the day for Teacher Planning week, it was easier for the players to meet him on campus for tryouts. Jack Carlisle had come home from work early so he could take Alex to the five o’clock tryouts. Alex told him he didn’t have to stay.
“Like I’m going to miss this,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking . . .” she said.
“Don’t overdo the thinking,” he said. “You’re going to be great.”
“I’ve mostly been thinking that just because I think I’m good enough doesn’t mean I am good enough.”
“Attitude,” her dad said.
“But what if I mess up?” she said. “The boys will never let me forget it. By the time I get home tonight, I might be the laughingstock of Orville Middle before school even starts.”
He made a snorting noise.
“Anything but that!” he said. “Do you think you might go viral, too?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said. “You’re not here for them. You’re here for you, and to prove something to yourself. If you start feeling a little wobbly out there, I’ll be up in the stands. You just look for me.”
“You might be the only one rooting for me,” she said.
“Only one you need, pumpkin pie.”
He pulled her close to him, smiling at her, showing her all his teeth, including one that she hadn’t ever known was fake. Then he kissed her squarely on the facemask.
“Never kissed a quarterback before,” Jack Carlisle said to his daughter.
7
Alex only thought she was early.
When she walked out onto the field, though, a lot of boys were already out there warming up. She saw that none of them were wearing their helmets and quickly took off hers. She didn’t want to do anything to attract attention, at least until she got her chance to show them her stuff.
She looked around for Gabe but couldn’t spot him. Jeff Stiles was on the other side of the field, soft-tossing to Lewis Healey. She knew from Gabe that Lewis had been one of the other wide receivers on the sixth-grade team last year. Alex could see why. He seemed to be the tallest boy out here.
A big target, Alex thought, then smiled to herself.
Already thinking like a quarterback.
Alex watched Jeff throw. He was just warming up, so there was no need to be airing it out yet. But he didn’t appear to Alex like a natural-born QB. From the time Alex had started throwing with her dad, long before there was even the seed of an idea about playing football, he had talked about how natural her over-the-top motion was.
Jeff Stiles didn’t have that kind of motion. He seemed to drop down when he threw. Not sidearm, exactly. More three-quarters. It was the way NFL quarterbacks threw the ball around pass rushers. Only Jeff wasn’t being rushed.
But this was the guy who was supposed to be QB 1 just by showing up.
Alex stood by herself, trying to decide if she should join a group on the field, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw it was Gabe. Jabril Wise was with him. Alex remembered him from the couple of games she’d watched of the sixth-grade team last season. Jabril had played middle linebacker then and was likely going to be the middle linebacker now. When Alex had watched him play, Jabril had seemed to be everywhere on the field at once, whether sacking the quarterback, bringing down ball carriers in the open field, or knocking the ball away from a receiver when he’d drop back into coverage. She’d left the game thinking that the Steelers could use him.
From what she’d heard about Jabril from Gabe, Alex knew she was going to like him a lot. For one, he was smiling at her now, which was more than she could say for the rest of the guys. He was about Alex’s height, with a lean, athletic build. He wore his black hair in tight cornrows against his dark brown skin.
“You owe me a dollar,” Jabril said to Alex now.
“How do you figure?”
“I bet Gabe a dollar you wouldn’t show,” he said. “Since it’s technically your fault, I figure you’re on the hook for it.”
Alex grinned. Then she turned to look at Gabe.
“So you bet that I would show?”
“I never bet on anything unless I know I’ll win,” Gabe said. “And I know how stubborn you are.”
“But that’s a good thing in football, right?” Alex said.
Gabe grinned and shook his head, putting a fist out. Alex bumped it with her own. Across the field, she could see that Jeff had stopped throwing to stare at them.
“We’re gonna find out how good it is,” Gabe said.
“Be honest, how many guys on this field want me here?” Alex said.
Gabe looked at Jabril. “You wanna take this one?”
Jabril bristled. “Other than us, you mean?” he said. “Nobody.”
“Why not you guys?” Alex asked.
“Me and Gabe?” Jabril said. “We’re as stubborn as you are. Plus, we’re your friends.”
Alex’s face lit up. She pretty much just met this guy, and already he’d called himself her friend without a second thought. If only the other guys would be as welcoming . . .
A few minutes later, Coach Mencken called them all to the middle of the field. He kept his opening comments brief, reminding them again how many of the players on the field would actually make the team. He said that it wasn’t just some number he’d pulled out of thin air; it was a league rule.
“Two dozen make it,” he said. “By my count, there are four dozen of you on this field. I’m just gonna assume that everybody here doesn’t want to be in the half that doesn’t make my team.”
His team, Alex thought.
He clapped his hands. It sounded as loud as thunder to Alex.
“Now let’s start finding out who is going to make my team.”
Mr. Wise, Jabril’s dad, was one of the parents helping evaluate players as they went through their drills. Alex’s heart sank a little as she realized Mr. Stiles was the other. But because Jeff was trying out for offense an
d Jabril was trying out for defense, Mr. Stiles would be grading the defensive players and Mr. Wise would do the same with the guys going through the offensive drills.
Mr. Wise knew what to look for in offensive players because he’d played two years in the NFL as a linebacker with the Jets before a knee injury ended his career. Jabril had told her this earlier.
“Y’all better be ready to work,” Mr. Wise said as he ushered the offensive players to the far end of the field, Alex among them.
He worked them hard. Coach Mencken would watch for a few minutes, then head to the other end of the field to watch the defense. Both Mr. Wise and Mr. Stiles were carrying clipboards and would occasionally scribble down a note or two.
At first everybody, both ends of the field, was doing ladder drills, to show off their footwork. Rope ladders were laid out in the grass, and players had to make their way through them in various ways, as fast as they could. Sometimes they high-stepped right through the spaces. Other times they had to step in the spaces using only their left foot, with their right foot outside, almost like hopscotch.
Then they ran what Coach Mencken called “gassers.” They all lined up on the goal line. Ran to the ten-yard line. Touched the ground. Back to the goal line. Then to the fifteen-yard line. Touched the ground there. Came back. Then to the twenty.
“Now I know why they call these gassers,” Lewis Healey said. “I’m already running out of gas.”
Alex was tired after they finished. But not gassed. She had always been able to run all day in soccer. Now she was just doing it in helmet and pads.
They took a water break after the gasser drill. Then Mr. Wise laid down two rope ladders side by side. He said two players at a time would race each other. Up and back.
“Might as well start competing now,” he said.
When it was Alex’s turn, she was set to race Lewis Healey.
Mr. Wise would blow the whistle when it was time for them to start.
Alex took her stance.
The whistle blew.
But as Alex took off, she felt a foot on her heel from behind and lost her balance. She fell facedown, five feet before she even got to the ladder. Behind her, she heard an eruption of laughter. But she scrambled to her feet, determined to finish even though there was no chance of beating Lewis.
When Alex finally did finish, she saw that Jeff Stiles had been behind her in line. He flashed her a smug grin. She wanted to say something, but there was just no point. He would never admit that he’d tripped her. If any of the other players had seen, they might even be happy he’d done it.
“Looks like you got brought down from behind by an imaginary tackler,” Jeff said. He slapped a low five to the guy behind him in line as they laughed.
Jeff was getting ready to race Gabe. Alex just kept walking. But she looked up in the stands to where she knew her father was. She caught his eye. He just nodded. Alex wondered if he knew what had happened.
She did.
* * *
• • •
It wasn’t until the end of the ninety minutes that Coach Mencken, working with the offense now, said they were going to do some throwing and catching in the time they had left. When he asked who his quarterbacks were, only one player raised his hand:
Jeff Stiles.
Until Alex raised her hand.
“Really?” Jeff snorted. “You think you’re quarterback material?”
“Unless I trip myself up,” Alex said, alluding to the stunt he pulled back at the ladders.
“You really want to try out for quarterback, Miss Carlisle?” Coach Mencken said.
“Yes, sir,” she affirmed.
“Is it because your dad was a quarterback?” Coach said.
“No, sir.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “It’s because I think I can be one.”
Coach grimaced. “Aren’t you worried about getting hurt back there in the pocket?”
“Pretty sure anybody can get hurt standing in a pocket, Coach,” Alex said. “Unless they’re quick enough to avoid the rush.”
Alex didn’t feel as if she were talking back to him or being fresh. He’d asked her a question. She’d given him an honest answer. He looked as if he wanted to say something more but stopped himself. He might not want a girl on his team. But he had to know that anything he said in front of her and the other players would be the same as saying it in front of her dad.
All he said was this: “We’ve got about fifteen minutes. Jeff, you throw first.”
Before long, Alex got the idea that Jeff was going to be the only one doing any throwing tonight. Receivers lined up to his right and left. They ran ten-yard patterns, making inside cuts and then cuts to the outside. It was clear to Alex—clear as day, as her dad liked to say—that even though Lewis was taller, Gabe was the best of all of them. He made the cleanest cuts. You could see he had the surest hands, able to adjust even if the throw wasn’t perfect.
And not many of the throws were perfect. Far from it.
Jeff Stiles didn’t have a great arm, or a particularly accurate one.
It was a good arm. He wasn’t wild or anything like that. But Alex’s dad said you knew a really good thrower when you saw one. Alex didn’t think she was seeing one in Jeff, even if he acted as if the quarterback job was already his.
But he kept throwing. Alex imagined a scoreboard clock inside her head, with time winding down, wondering if she would even get the chance to show off her arm before it was time to go home.
Finally Coach told Gabe to go deep.
“Turn it loose,” Coach said. “Show me what you got, Jeff.”
He’s Jeff. I’m Miss Carlisle.
Jeff was in the end zone. Gabe was at the twenty when Jeff released the ball. It was high, and short. Gabe slowed down to catch it at the thirty-yard line, making the throw look better than it really was.
“That arm just keeps getting stronger and stronger!” Mr. Stiles yelled from behind Coach’s shoulder.
He’d come down from the other end to watch, along with the defensive players.
Coach turned to Alex.
“We’ve only got a couple of minutes,” he said. “Would you rather wait and get some reps tomorrow night?”
“No, sir,” she said. “I’d like to get some throws in right now, if that’s okay with you.”
He paused and surveyed the other players, as if considering what he wanted to do. Maybe he could feel Jack Carlisle’s eyes on him now.
“Once through the receivers on both sides,” he said. “Then we call it a night.”
Her first throw was over the middle to Lewis Healey. The ball felt great coming out of Alex’s hand. A tight spiral, just as Lewis made his cut.
But Lewis slowed down the last couple of yards, Alex noticed, even if nobody else could, and the ball sailed past him, out of reach.
“Led me too much,” Lewis said as he ran past her, putting his hands out in a helpless gesture.
Alex ignored him and just concentrated on making the rest of her throws. She was nervous, but it didn’t show in her execution. She threw one solid pass after another. Her dad had told her to focus only on herself. But it was hard not to measure herself against Jeff. She couldn’t remember how many throws Jeff had made. But she’d only gotten to make eight.
It was practically like she hadn’t thrown at all.
Coach Mencken blew his whistle and started to walk toward the sidelines, signaling that the workout was over.
“Hey, Coach,” Gabe said.
Coach stopped and turned around.
Gabe would tell Alex later on the phone that he was amazed that the words had even made their way out of his mouth.
“What is it, Gabe?” Coach said.
“Alex didn’t get to throw a deep ball,” he said.
Alex was standing at the goal line, the ball stil
l in her hand. Coach took an impatient look at his watch before glancing back at Gabe.
“One more throw,” Coach said. “And then we really are done.”
Gabe ran over near the right sideline. He looked at Alex and nodded. Alex knew that every other player on the field was watching them now.
“Post pattern,” Alex called to Gabe.
He would take off down the sideline, then break to the middle of the field.
Alex leaned over, as if taking a snap from an imaginary center.
“Go!” she yelled.
Gabe sprinted out. Alex took a three-step drop, the one she’d been practicing in the yard with her dad. When she looked up, she saw Gabe making his cut toward the middle, at the twenty-yard line. Where he’d been when Jeff released the ball on his turn.
Alex waited.
If she was going to air it out, she was really going to air it out.
Gabe was between the thirty-five-yard line and the forty when Alex’s spiral came out of the sky and landed in his hands. For a second Alex thought Gabe might run the rest of the way down the field. But he just turned and came right back.
When he got to Alex, he tossed her the ball.
“Nice throw,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Coach looked at Alex, then Gabe, then back at Alex.
“You’ve got some arm,” he said.
He didn’t call her Miss Carlisle this time.
8
At the end of the night, Coach announced that they were going to scrimmage on the last day of tryouts. Flags, no tackle. But it would be eleven-on-eleven, offense against defense.
“I want to see you competing against each other,” Coach Mencken said.
When he said that Alex thought: All I’ve been doing is competing, as hard as I know how.
* * *
• • •
Two nights later, her mom called. It was the first time they’d spoken since tryouts had begun, and Alex was sore all over from the grueling drills.
“Are you still good with me doing this?” Alex said.