by Paul Volponi
I was willing to take any punishment she gave me. My mind wasn’t focused on me anymore, or the pain in my elbow. I wanted to talk to Carter about Alex. Right then, that was more important to me than anything else.
I guess Coach Harkey hoped for the same conversation with Carter. He was sitting in a row of straight-back wooden chairs maybe twenty feet from Mom and me, trying to give us some privacy.
He wasn’t pressing charges against Carter either. In fact, when the campus police asked Harkey what had happened at the complex, he told them, “Nothing, just doing a blocking drill with one of my players.”
Two officers accompanied Carter as he came out from behind a glass partition. I walked up to him before he reached Mom and stopped him from coming forward another step.
“Tell me about Alex. I have to know,” I said.
Harkey appeared at my left shoulder, anxious to hear Carter’s answer.
“I screwed up bad, real bad. I knew that Alex was taking steroids. But I kept my mouth shut about it,” said Carter. “At first, I thought I was protecting Alex. Then I thought I was protecting his memory. But I didn’t do either one of those things.”
I put my hand on the center of his chest, like I could stop the guilt from pumping through his veins.
Part of me wanted to fall to the floor right there and cry like a baby. But another part of me sensed that Carter was carrying even more weight than I was. That I needed to be strong for him.
“What I really did was keep the door open for the same thing to happen to somebody else. And that somebody was almost you,” Carter said. “If I’d have told the truth from the beginning, you never would have even thought about swallowing those pills. What if you hadn’t come to me? What if you’d started doing it in the dark, like Alex? Made that decision on your own?”
“I never would have done that. I came to you because you’re my fam. I knew I could trust you. Maybe it hasn’t always been that way between us. But since Alex died, I felt like you’ve been looking out for me. Maybe more than anybody else.”
But those vials had been right in my hands. I knew I’d felt the same kind of pressure to perform as Alex. It linked the two of us together—double-infinity.
That’s when Harkey leaned in closer and said, “Relationships aren’t easy. Lord, I only wish I’d had a better one with Alex Moore. Maybe he’d be here today if I did. But don’t let anything break the bond that you two have—that bond between brothers. Not football, not anything.”
Nobody had to tell me Harkey was right. I knew it in my heart.
Chapter 30
Detectives from the Alachua PD came to our house later that day. Mom let them inside, and Galaxy was on his best behavior. They took a statement from me about how Walter Henry gave me those steroids. Then they went into my room and confiscated the red-striped vial.
“We’ll send the contents to the lab for analysis and examine the container for fingerprints,” one of the detectives said.
“Will you be able to find Walter guilty over what he did to Alex Moore?” I asked. “That’s all I really care about.”
“Right now, that’s just an accusation by your brother,” the detective answered. “Unless there are others with information, or Mr. Henry decides that he can’t live with his conscience and confesses, it’s probably going to be difficult to prove.”
I guess Walter pushed steroids at us so we’d play better. Then one day he’d cash in on a big commission as our agent. I couldn’t make up my mind how I felt about what he’d done to me. In the end, I was the one who asked to take those vials of pills home. But I hated Walter’s guts for what he’d done to Alex and his mother. And I wished to God I could have been there when Carter beat his behind.
Back in my room, I started thinking about how Alex lost his father too early, and what it had meant to him. I didn’t want to just walk away from mine. I was still mad that Dad planned to stay in California. But I wasn’t going to build a brick wall over it anymore. So I called him.
“I’m sorry, Travis. I let you down,” Dad said. “I put too much trust in that Walter Henry character. I gave my blessing. I couldn’t see him for what he really was—a user.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “We were all blind to it.”
“It’s not going to happen again. I’m going to find a way to be more involved,” Dad said. “I’m not going to let these sharks circle you.”
“We’ll find a way, no matter where you’re living,” I told him. “I’m just glad you’re around.”
Mom made an appointment for me with an orthopedist on Monday afternoon. That meant I wouldn’t be going to football practice. I spent most of the night icing my elbow in the living room. It felt good to drop the act and stop pretending my left arm didn’t hurt.
Before I went to bed, Carter showed up. Without his car, he’d taken the city bus over. After spending all that time down at the police station, he’d gone back to the complex to face whatever fallout was coming.
“Just got out of a meeting with Coach G.,” Carter told us. “He’s suspending me for two games.”
“Why?” Mom asked. “There are no charges against you.”
“Somebody passing by the dealership took a video of me bashing my car doors with Walter Henry inside,” Carter answered, looking depressed. “It’s on YouTube as ‘Grouchy Gator.’”
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” Mom said. “Could you use a hug?”
Carter nodded his head.
When Mom hugged him, I did too.
My brother decided to sleep over that night. With my right arm, I dragged his bed out of the far corner of the room, moving it to where it belonged. We talked a lot about Alex and his life before we fell asleep. I could hear in Carter’s voice how numb he must have been feeling. I wouldn’t put the pain in my elbow within a hundred yards of how he probably felt.
I wondered if any of what had happened would hurt my scholarship. Thinking about it was tearing me apart inside. But I decided that right then, I had to walk away from worrying about myself. And even the next morning, I didn’t mention my scholarship once to Carter.
* * *
The news about me and Walter and the steroids hadn’t broken in the press. Outside of Carter and Mom, I kept it to myself. I didn’t need anything else to explain to people, any other potential problems. For starters, on Monday, I had to face everyone at school over that interception.
Lots of kids were cold to me. I walked through the hallway with my eyes straight ahead, but I ran into Cortez in the bathroom.
“You’re a quarterback. You’re all about yourself. I shouldn’t have expected anything more,” he said, crumpling up a paper towel. “I wouldn’t care, except it cost us the game.”
That stung like anything to hear, and I couldn’t argue against it.
“I get it,” I said, trying not to show any emotion.
“Do you really? Or will you forget it the second you see yourself in that mirror?” said Cortez, pointing over the sink.
After Cortez had gone, and I’d finished my business, I washed my hands without ever looking up.
Damon was waiting for me outside one of my classes. I wasn’t sure where he was headed next, but he hung around even after the late bell rang.
“Hey, I just wanted to tell you to stay strong,” said Damon. “You’ll get through this.”
“Thanks, that really means something to me.”
Even when I didn’t have a football in my hands, Damon was still watching my back. I felt grateful—and promised myself that one day I’d be there for him too.
During PE, I’d told Pisano I couldn’t make it to practice, explaining everything I’d been keeping from him about the elbow.
“Doctor’s note,” he said in a short voice. “Bring me one tomorrow without fail.”
Then he stalked away, still angry over that audible I’d called.
The orthopedist Mom brought me to had a dozen photos in his office of him standing beside NFL players. So I knew that he’d treat
ed the best.
He bent my elbow back slowly. “I can tell by the tension in the surrounding tissue what kind of pain you’re in,” he said. Before he even took an MRI, he added, “At best, it’s my opinion that you shouldn’t consider throwing a football for at least three or four months to let this heal.”
That marked the end of my freshman season. And I had to admit, I was relieved to put that weight down.
-Epilogue-
Once I stopped throwing a football, the pain in my elbow really eased up. It was hard to feel almost healthy but still not be playing quarterback. I stood on the sideline for our home games wearing a sling on my left arm, signaling to the crowd that a doctor had grounded me. We got blown out in the first two games I sat out, with my backup playing horribly. Even though I wasn’t on the field, some kids at school and guys on the team looked at me like I was to blame for the losses. That really spun my head around. So I talked about it with Ms. Orsini.
“When you’re in the public eye, and you certainly are around here, people feel they know you,” she said to me in her office. “They decide you owe them something for the attention they give you. But is it them you really owe something to, Travis?”
“No. I owe more to myself.”
After our conversation ended, I started to wonder how much I owed Coach Goddard. He had practically made me who I was. Without Coach G. in my life, I’d have been somebody totally different.
But there was a time I felt like I owed Walter too—owed him something big. And I was completely wrong about that.
I was just getting a handle on all that when my entire world got kicked upside down again.
After Carter called the police on Walter, detectives investigating Walter’s connection to Alex started looking at the dealership’s sales records, including how many relatives of Gainesville Gators bought cars from the dealership. That all came out in the open when Karen Wolfendale wrote a story about those special deals for the Sentinel. Her story mentioned that the police were investigating Walter for supplying PEDs and his possible connection to Alex’s death. Near the bottom, there was a whole paragraph about me and those two vials of pills. At the end, she put two and two together, explaining why Carter went off at the dealership.
I was worried about how Coach G. would react. Maybe the publicity backlash would make him walk away from me.
The article made Mom fume: “That reporter must have seen the police record. That’s an invasion of our privacy. Travis is a minor. She shouldn’t be allowed to print things like that. It could seriously hurt his future.”
I was steamed over it too. Only Carter didn’t have a problem with Wolfendale’s story.
“I’ve had enough of sitting on the truth, trying to hide it,” he said. “I’m not going to hold a grudge against somebody for getting the facts right.”
“Think there could be trouble over the car I bought you?” Mom asked Carter.
“That’s probably coming,” he answered. “But I won’t complain when it does. Not after the price Alex paid. You know what his mother said to me, after I told her everything? ‘I’ll let God judge my son’s mistakes. That’s what keeps my heart full of love, not anger.’”
The very next day, the NCAA announced a second investigation into Gator football players receiving illegal benefits. I thought the news couldn’t get any worse. But it did, a few days later, when Mom showed me the headline on the front page of the paper:
GODDARD RESIGNS AS GATORS COACH.
I was shattered.
“I’m so sorry, Travis. Maybe Gainesville’s athletic department will stand by the scholarship offer,” she said, before I broke down crying in her arms.
An hour later, when I finally pulled myself together, I sent in a tweet, thanking Coach G. for the two national championships. But I got a message back from the media department at Gainesville saying the account had been shut down.
It was official. I was no longer @TravisG_Gator.
Carter called our house that afternoon and said, “Coach G. is gone. He didn’t even speak to the players. He just walked out. We heard he’s talking to the Carolina Panthers about an NFL job as quarterback coach.”
“What about Travis?” Mom asked him on speaker.
“Harkey said that without Goddard here, there is no scholarship.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“Coach Harkey had a message for you, though.”
“Yeah, what?”
“He said for you to close your eyes and feel those raised letters on the weight room sign.”
“Blood, sweat, and tears,” I said, with the fingers on my left hand moving on their own.
“He didn’t want you to forget that’s what it takes,” Carter said.
I couldn’t believe Coach G. was out of my life.
* * *
Later that night, Dad called.
“There are ups and downs to everything worth having in life,” he said. “You have to take the setbacks in stride, keep focused.”
Calmness and execution jumped into my mind. But I wasn’t going to talk over Dad with any words from some coach’s mouth.
“I hear you, Dad,” I said, actually meaning it for a change.
* * *
I didn’t want to walk through the front door of Beauchamp High School without that scholarship. It defined who I’d become. Part of me felt like an absolute nobody. All those haters, everyone who’d ever been jealous of what I had, would line up to dump on me. And after the way I’d acted sometimes, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to pump themselves up at my expense.
“You’re exactly who you were before the scholarship,” Mom told me as I left for school that first morning. “A great kid with a wonderful personality who loves football. And you’re my son.”
My entire body was on pins and needles as I swiped my ID card and entered Beauchamp. Ms. Orsini stood waiting for me outside my first-period class.
“You and I are going to meet twice a week during your lunch period,” she said, handing me a schedule. “I want to know what’s going on in your life on a regular basis—the good stuff, the bad stuff, the pressure, everything. Nothing held back. Deal?”
“Sure. And maybe we can start talking about what it’s like to apply to colleges. The scholarship at Gainesville isn’t going to happen,” I answered, hearing myself say it out loud inside those walls.
“Not a problem,” she said. “It’s something we can work on together.”
I thanked her. Then, as she was walking away, I called back to her and said, “Ms. Orsini. I really mean thanks.”
She just smiled and said, “I know.”
If Mrs. Harper was anything, she was consistent.
“Good morning, Mr. Gardner. I’m glad to see you here and healthy,” she told me as I entered her classroom. “I hope you have your math homework completed today.”
I nodded to the part about the homework, happy to have escaped any kind of lecture from her on absolute value.
Later on, I sat with Lyn in the cafeteria. She didn’t mention football until I did.
“Now that I’m not playing for a while, I’ll need something else to do around school,” I said.
“There’s lots of stuff you could join,” said Lyn. “Ping-pong, drama, book club.” Then she flashed a wide smile. “Maybe you could even become one of Mrs. Harper’s mathletes.”
I smiled at that myself before I took another bite of my sandwich.
When Pisano started talking to me again, instead of at me, he said, “Seems Goddard’s resignation is the end of a dream for both of us.”
I felt like popping off at Pisano, asking him what it was he’d lost. But I didn’t. He was still the Bobcats’ coach. And if my elbow let me, I might even be back at QB next season. If that’s what I wanted.
* * *
Walter Henry pleaded not guilty to supplying me, a minor, with a controlled substance. He made bail, easy. After months of legal delays by his high-priced lawyer, the judge on the case still hasn�
�t set a trial date. The DA hasn’t charged him yet with anything connected to Alex’s death. Meanwhile, that loser made a brand-new car commercial, one where he’s the judge and jury. I’ve never seen it from start to finish because I change the channel every time it comes on.
The NCAA investigation hasn’t concluded either. The newspapers said it could take another year before the process ends and people get their penalties. Carter cooperated fully with the investigation. He wouldn’t tell me exactly what he’d said to them, just that he admitted making mistakes.
My elbow’s coming along pretty good, feeling almost one hundred percent. I haven’t thrown a pass in more than ten weeks. But every day, I spread my left hand across a football and grip the laces, to keep my strength up. Gainesville’s athletic director barred me from the football complex, so I’ve been working out part-time with Damon to keep in shape.
One day in December, we took Galaxy on a jog through the park where we used to play football, running right by a game between a bunch of younger kids.
Their football got loose and bounced our way. Galaxy pounced on it, stopping it from rolling with his nose, but he moved aside as I picked it up off the ground.
I smiled at Damon, then turned to the kid waiting for me to throw it back.
“Don’t just stand there. Go deep.”
Afterword
Top Prospect was inspired by several real-life cases in which football players received high-profile scholarship offers from major college programs before entering high school. Among those players were quarterbacks Chris Leak (Wake Forest) and David Sills (University of Southern California) and defensive back Evan Berry (Tennessee).
In 1998, Coach Jim Caldwell offered North Carolina native Chris Leak a non-binding scholarship to Wake Forest University. Leak was an eighth-grader at the time. He went on to lead his high school team to three consecutive state championships before choosing to attend the University of Florida instead. In 2006, Leak led the Florida Gators to a National Championship. One year later, he played his first professional season with the Chicago Bears of the NFL. Leak then played for several teams in the Canadian Football League before ending his career in the Arena Football League. Leak later took a position on the sidelines, working as a wide receivers coach for his alma mater, UF.