The Rise of Rachel Stark

by J. A. York

"Football is not just a game!" he shouted.

  "OK, coach, sit down, please sit down," Mr. Peterson said, "before things get out of hand."

  The coach sat down. He loosened his tie.

  "Well," Mr. Peterson said, "we have listened to you boys this morning, Coach O'Connor and I, and I think we heard your message loud and clear. You stated your case very eloquently.

  "Unfortunately, I think your case also was badly overstated. I don't think what you call bullying is nearly as bad as you make it out to be, and I certainly don't think it is nearly as widespread as you would have us believe."

  "Sir, that's just not true," Sheldon said. "We can cite you many incidents of bullying if you want to hear them."

  "Actually, I have heard quite enough, Sheldon. I have seen a clique form at Chante High that involves you boys, maybe a few others and a couple of girls. I think you trying to protect that clique, and nothing more.

  "Now, you boys might think that what you are doing is a noble thing. But I'm telling you it is a stupid, selfish thing that you would regret for the rest of your lives. Don't embarrass yourselves, your parents, your classmates, Chante High and this town and its people by trying to pull off this utterly ridiculous stunt!

  "Now, Coach O'Connor expects, and I expect, you four to be at football practice today, at football practice tomorrow, and on the field at 2 p.m. Friday for the kickoff against the Rockford Wildcats."

  He stood up. His face grew red, and his eyes narrowed. He pounded his desk and shouted.

  "Do. I. Make. My. Self. Clear?"

  The players looked at him for a moment, and rose from their chairs in unison. Then Rodney spoke for the first time.

  "You and coach can expect all you want. But whether we are on the field Friday is completely up to you."

  They turned and filed out of the room.

  ●●●

  Without a word, the four went to the boys' locker room, removed their game and practice uniforms, cleats and all, from their lockers and took them to the sports equipment room, where they put them in neat piles on a long wooden table.

  There were three methods of communication in Chante in 1965: Telephone, telegram, and tell a student.

  "On to the next phase," Sheldon said to Tabby when he met her in the hallway 15 minutes later. "Peterson didn't budge. Neither did we. We have turned in our uniforms. Spread the word."

  Jimmy, Bull and Rodney dropped the same message here and there around the school.

  Within minutes, the sports equipment manager, a student, went to the sports equipment room to see whether there was any truth to the rumor.

  Sure enough. There the uniforms were. The rumor mill suddenly got hotter, and phones started ringing all over the school.

  Steve Peterson, the principal, heard from Ed Reynolds, the school board president.

  "What the hell is going on, Steve?"

  "There's nothing to it. Coach and I met with them this morning, and they're full of big talk, but there's no way they're going to quit the team."

  "But somebody said they've already turned in their uniforms."

  "It's a bluff. It's not going to happen."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Absolutely."

  Calls to Mr. Peterson from other members of the board followed in quick succession. He gave them all the same assurances.

  Coach O'Connor got calls from the same people, and he stuck to the party line, albeit with considerably more profanity than Mr. Peterson.

  Then the coach heard from Bob Davies, who, as the coach of the Rockford Wildcats, was 45 miles away.

  "Ted," Coach Davies said, "I just heard that we're suddenly favored to beat you guys Friday."

  "Well," O'Connor said. He heaved a big sigh. "I sure hope that's not the case, Bob, but, you know, at this point I'm not sure of anything."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. You know what happened that kind of scared me? When Steve Peterson lit into them and told them, ordered them actually, to get ready to play Friday, that he expected them to do that, they just got right up out of their chairs, one of them said you can expect anything you want, and they walked right out of the room. I think they went straight down to the locker room and turned in their uniforms."

  "Wow."

  More grist for the mill. And it bounced back to Chante with the speed of light.

  Meanwhile, Tabby was calling some of her old contacts at the Neehawk News and the radio and television station in the area. The floodgates now were open.

  Reporters and television cameras showed up at Chante's football practice that afternoon, and the first thing they noticed was that Sheldon Beasley, Bull Evenshot, Jimmy Blaze and Rodney Stark, the sophomore phenom from Tennessee, were missing.

  Sheldon, Bull, Jimmy and Rodney took Rachel and left school early and drove up to the cemetery to avoid the media. But Tabby stayed behind to be their spokeswoman.

  "I can confirm," Tabby told reporter after reporter, on camera and off, "that Sheldon Beasley, Bull Evenshot, Jimmy Blaze and Rodney Stark have left the Chante High football team."

  Will they return in time for the game Friday?

  "That depends on the school administration," Tabby said.

  She tried, with only moderate success, to explain why the players had quit.

  "Bullying?" said one reporter. "What's that?"

  Others indicated that one student "teasing" another, or playing a prank, did not seem like a good reason to do what the four Chante players were doing.

  She gave some examples of what was going on at Chante High, but most of the reporters just shook their heads.

  Moreover, Tabby was battling the administration for the hearts and minds of the news media. Mr. Peterson and Coach O'Connor told reporters they were hopeful that the players would return to the team by Friday.

  And the school released this statement to the media:

  "Chante High has a proud history of outstanding academic and athletic achievement. For a few football players, however well-meaning they might be, to suggest that some Chante students are now being 'bullied' by others, is not only misguided, it is patently untrue.

  "The administration and football coach Ted O'Connor are hopeful that these players will soon return to the team. They have been urged to do so. If they do, no punishment awaits them. On the contrary, they will be treated with the utmost respect by their teammates, just as the vast majority of Chante students are treated with respect by their peers.

  "The student body at Chante High is a happy family. Despite this temporary 'bump in the road,' it will continue to be so."

  The entire statement appeared not only in the local media, but in the Omaha and Lincoln newspapers as well.

  Coach O'Connor, complaining that the "defectors" had already hurt the team, ran the reporters off the field and banned them from attending the Thursday practice. Meanwhile, he moved running backs Danny Jackson and Oscar Olney, as well as second-team replacements for Sheldon and Jimmy, into the first-team lineup. Wednesday's practice did not go well, "to say the least," O'Connor told reporters afterward.

  Things were not going so well for the school administration either. An angry school board convened an emergency session, closed to the public, in the principal's office.

  Most of the board members blamed Mr. Peterson for "letting things get out of control." But a late-arriving member said she had been listening to a couple of call-in programs on the radio, and that a wide majority of the callers supported the administration, and that many of the callers referred to the four football players as "spoiled brats."

  Based on that news, the board finally decided the best option for the school would be to "stonewall it," and hope that the players would change their minds at the last minute.

  And yet, the whole town was on edge.

  This, after all, was football.

  ●●●

  The four "spoiled brats" plus Rachel had been monitoring the events on Sheldon's car radio as they sat among the headstones. They alternately laughed, moaned
, cursed, shouted and shook their fists at the radio, cheered when they heard Tabby, and booed when they heard Mr. Peterson or Coach O'Connor.

  "I think," Sheldon said when it seemed that they had heard enough and probably should go home, "that we should all be sick tomorrow."

  There was unanimous – and instant – agreement.

  Rachel, who secretly was relieved when she did not hear her name mentioned on the radio, and Rodney got out of the car and started their walk home.

  Sheldon turned his Ford around and drove back to Chante. He dropped Bull and Jimmy off at Jimmy's grandparents' house. After Bull's parents died in a house fire a couple of years ago, he had lived with Jimmy.

  When Sheldon got home, there was Tabby, sitting on the front steps of her house, which was next door to his.

  "Hi, good lookin'," he said.

  "Hi, Shel," she said. He sat down beside her. She gave him a kiss.

  "How were things up in the cemetery?" she asked.

  "Oh, very interesting," he said. "It was so great, hearing you talk on the radio. We all cheered." She laughed.

  "Well, what do you think?" Tabby said.

  "I think," he said, "that we are going to win this thing."

  "So do I," she said. "But I'm glad to hear you say it."

  "And ... and we all decided we should not go to school tomorrow. And I don't think you should either," he said.

  "I'm even more glad to hear you say that."

  She paused.

  "Do you think they are going to give in tomorrow?" she asked.

  "Depends. On how much pressure they get. But I would guess they'll wait till Friday. They're waiting for us to blink, and so they're going to wait until the very last minute. But I can tell you we're not going to blink. Just in case you were wondering."

  "Never for a second."

  "So I think what happens is that they'll wait until Friday morning, and then they'll call an emergency assembly, make up some lame, cockamamie story that they have gotten new information and that they're going to investigate how widespread the bullying problem is blah, blah, blah.

  "If they do that much, then the four of us will suit up and go out and kick the Rockford Wildcats' asses."

  "Yay! Go Lions!" She paused. "I know how much of a sacrifice this is for you, Sheldon. I know how much all of you love to play football."

  "Yeah, well. Like Rodney said. It's just a game. And that's how you have to think of it. It really is just a game."

  "I know. But yet … "

  "Anyway, even if they do back down, that's not the end of it. They'll have to carry through. They can't just say they're going to do something and then not do it. So we'll have to keep the pressure on. They maybe won't do exactly what we suggested. They might even have some better ideas, who knows? But as long as they do something, maybe life will get easier for Rachel."

  "And for a lot of other kids."

  "Yeah. For sure. By the way, I've been meaning to ask, what did your Dad say to you about your little talk with Mr. Peterson?"

  Tabby laughed.

  "Well, he did say that I could have accomplished the same thing without being disrespectful of Mr. Peterson. And he was right, I'll admit. I kind of lost my temper there for a minute. And maybe someday I'll apologize to Mr. Peterson. Dad said I should.

  "But then he also said that now that I had started something I should be sure to follow through with it. And I said I would.

  "I thought sure he would say I shouldn't use his name to bully someone, but he didn't say a thing about that. And I did name-drop to Mr. Peterson, saying my Dad was the mayor blah, blah, blah, which was probably not a good idea, and I'm not going to do that again.

  "But – and this is the best part – Dad said he told Mr. Peterson that I was 18 years old and therefore almost legally an adult. And he said he lost control of me when I was 12 years old, so he sure as hell couldn't control me now at 18."

  Sheldon threw his head back and roared.

  "Really?" Sheldon said.

  "Really. Mr. Peterson probably didn't think it was funny, but I sure did."

  Sheldon laughed again, and Tabby joined him.

  ●●●

  But the day wasn't over.

  Sometime after dark a pickup with its lights off drove slowly up the street and stopped in front of Sheldon and Tabby's homes. Then two figures in the bed of the truck starting throwing raw eggs and lighted firecrackers at the houses.

  "You'd better play ball, Beasley," one of them shouted, "or next time we'll set your house on fire!"

  The pickup then roared off down the street.

  Similar incidents took place elsewhere. Grandpa Simpson's house, where Jimmy and Bull lived, was egged. Crowds rallied in front of Steve Peterson and Tom O'Connor's homes, chanting "Let's play ball! Let's play ball!"

  Demonstrators also showed up at the football field, where they TP-ed the goal posts, and in front of the high school, even though there was no one to demonstrate to in either place.

  Oddly enough, no egg-throwers or demonstrators showed up at the Stark residence.

  Most of the demonstrators appeared to be adults, and in many cases alcohol seemed to be fueling the passion for football.

  Harley Jones, the town cop, and his three part-time deputies didn't have the resources or the qualifications to deal with rowdy crowds. So the state patrol was called in, and preparations were made to make sure that the peace was maintained on Thursday and especially on Friday, game day.

  State police kept an eye on Sheldon's home and the others who drew the attention of the demonstrators.

  So when Sheldon woke up Thursday morning, he was surprised to see a state patrol car sitting on the street in front of his home. He and Tabby spent the day picking up egg shells and other debris on their lawns, and trying to clean the raw egg off their houses.

  Thursday passed without incident. But in Steve Peterson's office at Chante High, the air crackled with tension. When the school board convened for another emergency meeting at 9 p.m., there was not a dry brow in the place.

  After considerable finger pointing and unrestrained profanity, plus a complete lack of civility, the board decided that if the four blankety-blank football "traitors" did not change their minds by 10 a.m. Friday – a scant four hours before the scheduled kickoff – Steve Peterson would call a special assembly at the high school and give in to the traitors' demands.

  He would do so, of course, in a way that did not seem like he was giving in to the traitors' demands at all, but only that he was responding to "new information" that the administration had uncovered that showed that bullying, indeed, was becoming a severe problem at Chante High.

  There was not a single soul in Chante, or in the state of Nebraska for that matter, who believed a single word Mr. Peterson said. But they didn't care, so long as the four traitors rejoined the team and the game was played.

  Which is exactly what happened.

  Peace and order were restored.

  Football was once again king, and all was right with the world.

  And the final score was Chante, 48, Rockford, 3.

  ●●●

  And so all was forgiven. As most people predicted, the Chante Lions were runaway conference champions. They were undefeated and never scored fewer than 40 points in any game. At the beginning of the season they were ranked the No. 1 team in their class in the state, and they were ranked No. 1 when the season ended.

  The Lions piled up a number of individual honors as well. Sheldon, Bull, Jimmy and Rodney were first-team All-Conference selections, and were first-team All-State selections as well.

  Rodney, even though he was only a sophomore, was named Running Back of the Year in the Chante Valley Conference. He also won the Brogan Trophy, given annually to the Chante Valley's best football player of the year, as voted by the conference coaches. Rodney beat out Sheldon, who placed second in the voting, for that honor. Sheldon couldn't have been happier for him.

  Progress was made on the bullying front as w
ell. The school made plans to hire a psychologist to teach the students how to recognize bullying, what to do about it if they witnessed it, and how to get help if they were victims of it. Every student would be required to take 30 hours of training. And a set of materials also would be created for students to take home to their parents.

  Chante's anti-bullying program was the first of its kind in the state, and in fact was the only such program in Nebraska for decades.

  And even though the anti-bullying program was not to get its official start until the beginning of the 1966-67 school year, Steve Peterson organized a group of volunteer ministers, doctors and educators to give weekly lectures on problems that often arise for high school students as they interact with their peers. The lectures began immediately, and student attendance was mandatory.

  Whether it was the lectures, the promise of an anti-bullying program for next year, or Mr. Peterson's bully pulpit, life for Rachel and other kids at Chante High who had been victims of bullies, became easier.

  In fact, Rachel got Tabby, Sheldon, Bull, Jimmy and Rodney to go with her to Mr. Peterson's office one morning to thank him for his anti-bullying efforts.

  "I'm the one who should thank you, and I do thank you," Mr. Peterson said. "You woke me up to a problem that I didn't want to admit existed. I owe you a huge debt. All Chante High students, present and future, owe you a huge debt."

  It was a feel-good morning. Tabby even apologized for the disrespectful way she talked to Mr. Peterson during their first meeting.

  "No need to apologize. I had it coming," he said. "It was part of the wake-up call. Please don't worry about it."

  When their meeting ended and the kids were walking out the door, Mr. Peterson called to them.

  "Oh, Rachel?"

  Rachel turned to him.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Thank y'all for coming."

  The kids laughed. Mr. Peterson gave them a wide smile.

  Later, the kids decided Mr. Peterson was a pretty good guy after all.

  Chapter Eight

  The Rape

  After the final football game of the season in mid-November, the first night game in Chante High's history (lights had been installed at the football field just days earlier), Rachel and Tabby joined Sheldon and the guys for a hamburger and fries at Larry's Diner.