Coach Esau and Coach Andrell turned to each other with awe in their faces.
“Esau, that’s not fair,” said Andrell, smiling wide. “That’s not fair! Come on, don’t do that. That’s not fair!”
On the kickoff that followed the touchdown, Oomz booted a dribbler that bounced to a heavy-set boy 20 yards downfield. Naz met the boy halfway and grabbed him around the thighs, unable to take him down. Oomz, sprinting down the middle of the field, recoiled into a crouch then launched himself at the boy. Smack! Their helmets crashed and the boy fell onto his back and immediately put his hands over his face, squirming in pain.
Ooooohhhhh! the crowd boomed.
Esau and the Elizabeth coach ran onto the field and knelt beside the boy.
“What’s wrong?” Esau said to the boy.
The boy pointed at his earholes.
“What’s your name?” the Elizabeth coach said to the boy.
The boy did not answer for several seconds.
Players on both teams took a knee. After a few minutes, the coaches helped the boy to his feet. Parents and players clapped as the boy walked slowly off the field. Oomz got up from his knee and looked over at Coach Vick on the sidelines.
“Coach Vick, I saw you there,” Oomz said. “That was for you.”
THE SUN BEAT down on the bleachers. Isaiah’s older brother, Shaq, held an umbrella over himself and their mother, Roxanne. They sat in the top row so the umbrella didn’t block anybody’s view. Roxanne filmed the game on her iPad, as Isaiah had asked, so that he could review the film that night. The parents a few rows below them provided a running commentary of the action on the field, shouting encouragements before each snap and critiques after the whistle.
“Get that quarterback, son!” shouted Mr. Hart, always the loudest voice in the stands. “Yeah! Yeah! That’s my boy!”
“Good play, Andrew!” Mrs. Hart added after her son’s second sack. “Let’s go!”
“Watch the run, Dorian!” shouted Dorian’s father Dwight. “There it is! Good hit, son!”
“Two hands on the football, Marquis!” Marquis’s father Ramsey shouted. “Run through those arm tackles!”
“Let it loose, Naz!” Naz’s father Repo shouted, as his son dropped back to pass. “Let it loose!”
And when the spiral landed in Chaka’s hands for a long touchdown, Chaka’s uncle John shouted, “You the man Chaka! You the man!”
“Hell of a call, Esau!” shouted Repo.
“Our tax dollars goin’ to good use!” shouted Ramsey.
Roxanne and Shaq watched quietly for most of the game, several rows behind many of the other Pee Wee parents, who sat in a pack in the front rows. They greeted and smiled at the other parents when they arrived before the game, but otherwise kept to themselves. They clapped after good plays and shook their heads after bad ones. Mostly, they talked to each other, with Shaq explaining the nuances of the game to his mother. Whenever her son was on the field, Roxanne leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, eyes locked on jersey number 2. She had been massaging her son’s injured knee most nights, hoping to strengthen it for the beating it would take. She held her breath during the tense seconds when her son had the ball and exhaled heavily when he popped up to his feet after getting tackled. She watched with an intensity that built with each play, and when her son crossed the end zone for a touchdown, she rose to her feet and broke her silence with a jubilant cheer—“Go Isaiaaaaahhh! Yeah Isaiaaaaah!”—before returning to her silent perch.
She had been amused to learn how important football was in America. How thousands of people filled the stands to watch Shaq’s Lincoln High games on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. How television cameras stood on the sidelines and behind the end zone and local news stations replayed highlights of these teenagers running around in jerseys that seemed too big for them. How grown men and women became so angry after a dropped pass or a missed tackle, and how some even cried in the stands after losses in big games. She learned that these passions ran deep across the country and that there were high schools and colleges spending millions of dollars on this sport, for stadiums, coaches, weight rooms, bus trips, and uniforms, instead of on books, teachers, and field trips to historical monuments. She had heard about communities near and far devoted to football as if it were a religion, gathering in parking lots hours before games and investing their emotions into the outcomes. When she thought about those communities, they reminded her of her Seventh-day Adventist friends, who spent their Saturdays worshiping in church from early morning to late evening.
In Brownsville, football was not the end but the means. Football offered a path to escape the neighborhood. Addressing the team one evening, Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams said, “When you’re holding a football, you don’t have a gun in your hand. When you’re running down the field, you’re not running from the police. If you can put a ball through a hoop, you can wear a black robe and sit on the Supreme Court.” To Harry Edwards, the renowned sports sociologist, this mind-set is rooted in socioeconomic reality. Public school classrooms are overcrowded, extracurricular programs are being cut, college tuition rates are rising, grants are limited. Sports, Edwards said, can make a kid think and care about his future. Sports can be the hook that keeps a kid in class and keeps his mind focused on setting and reaching goals. It would be unrealistic to think that without sports in a boy’s life he’ll “focus on everything else,” Edwards said. “You’ve got to fix everything else first.”
Though Roxanne had learned to like football, she did not like everything about it. The violence worried her. She’d read about the scientific research on brain damage and about the NFL’s assurances, in response, regarding the sport’s safety. But while she was unsure about the exact dangers of football, she was absolutely certain about the benefits her son would gain if he went to a good high school and then college after that. Because football was important in America, she recognized that Isaiah’s skills made him valuable in the eyes of those who could help him.
Many of the parents in the stands felt the same way. Dwight, Repo, Ramsey, and Mr. Hart all said they’d be thrilled to see their sons rise through a big-time Division I college and into the NFL. But they all also said they’d be thrilled to see their sons rise through an Ivy League college and into law school or medical school or whatever profession the boys chose. These were middle-class men who had risen from low-income households and, like every parent, they hoped to see their own children reach even further than they had. It wasn’t that they believed football was necessary for their sons to find that success; they simply believed that football could help propel their sons forward through an environment where every advantage might be the one that makes the difference.
Beyond that, these men loved the sport and were happy to see that their sons shared that love. It was a tough sport that taught a boy to do his job right even if that meant taking a hit. It stripped away fear, or at least instilled the courage to fight through fear. Proud to see their boys exhibit these virtues, the fathers shouted their enthusiasm from the front rows.
Just in front of them, standing alone on the walkway, leaning against the fence, Big Oomz was seeing his son play for the first time. He watched intently and calmly, the expression on his face stoic and unchanging. When his son broke a tackle and hammered up the field for an eight-yard run, the men behind him cheered.
“There you go, Oomz!”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ bout, Oomz!”
“Keep poundin’ ’em Oomz! They can’t stop you!”
Big Oomz, though, stayed quiet. He slowly nodded his head. A small, slight smile crept up his face.
BIG OOMZ WAS happy that his son played football and that he was a smart, respectable boy who did well in school. He credited his son’s mother and grandmother for this. But he also believed there were some bits of wisdom that only he could pass along to his son. He taught the boy to keep his shoulder pads low and accelerate at the point of contact. He taught him to keep both hand
s on the football when running through traffic because there was nothing more shameful for a running back than fumbling.
He had repeated these and many other lessons earlier that day as they stood in front of the bleachers before the game. Big Oomz crouched into a running stance and held out his left arm, his open palm smacking an imaginary defender’s helmet. “When you stiff-arm, you gotta push off and not just hold your hand there,” he said. His son looked up at him, nodding, eyes focused and intense. “You gotta punish ’em for tryna tackle you,” Big Oomz said.
Oomz had spent most of the week at his mother’s apartment in Fort Greene. He’d been admitted to the new charter school a few blocks away. Big Oomz didn’t have the final say on where his son went to school, but here, beside a football field, was his jurisdiction. Here, he could teach his boy the lessons he needed to become a man. And, to his eyes, his boy had a long way to go.
Late in the third quarter, as Mo Better continued to dominate Elizabeth, Big Oomz watched with a look of contempt on his face. He was not impressed with Mo Better’s performance. This was a weak opponent, and in his day, Mo Better would have dropped 50 or 60 points by the end of the third quarter. The boys he saw on the field were skilled, yes, but they were not so tough and not so passionate. They had nothing on the Boogeyman, Pup, and the rest of his guys. Back in Big Oomz’s day, every boy in a Mo Better uniform could bring the lumber. They took pride in their hitting and the fear they instilled in their opponents. Big Oomz felt a shiver of nostalgia thinking about those days, when he was the best player on a great team. He scored four touchdowns some games. One game, he scored on a run, an interception, and a fumble recovery. “We were always playing these big white boys upstate,” he said, “and we would always whoop them.” It wasn’t just that his teammates were tougher and faster than those white boys; he believed he and his guys were so good because they loved football and took it more seriously than anybody else. “We played football every day,” he said. “Not a day went by I wasn’t playing. After practice we’d go out to the projects and play.” They played in the courtyards, in the streets, on the blacktops, in alleyways, and in narrow, dimly lit, paint-chipped hallways.
It wasn’t the same these days, he believed. “These kids, they inside with the computer all day,” he said. “These kids not getting out as much.” He saw his son spending free time playing video games and watching TV. No wonder his son wasn’t as fast or as tough. Big Oomz pondered if the coaches were to blame. He had doubted these coaches since his return to Brownsville.
The win he was witnessing now meant little. Big Oomz clapped and nodded, without much enthusiasm, when Chaka caught a touchdown in the fourth quarter. He clapped and nodded some more when his son burrowed through the line for the point-after conversion. (After a touchdown in Pop Warner, teams could try for an extra point by punching the ball into the end zone, or go for two points by kicking it through the goalposts, though few teams at this level had any boy skilled enough to do so.) Because of the lopsided score, 33–0, the referees had the mercy rule in effect through the second half, which meant the game clock didn’t pause for any reason. After the game finished, the Pee Wees gathered at midfield, peeling off their jerseys and shoulder pads, smiling and giggling, recalling the day’s highlights.
“I saw that block!”
“They couldn’t touch you!”
“Man, you really hit that guy!”
Though they were savoring the feeling of victory, the celebration was tempered. The boys had not jumped up and down or pumped their fists or hollered out when the final whistle blew. They had expected this outcome.
Big Oomz walked toward the group. He held a folded black umbrella, which he pressed against the turf like a cane. He lifted the umbrella and tapped its tip on Oomz’s shoulder. Oomz turned and looked up at him.
“I’m leaving,” Big Oomz said. “You ridin’ with ya mama. You coming to the house later?”
Oomz nodded. His father left.
The next week’s game was in East Orange, New Jersey, against the East Orange Wildcats. Two buses would pick up the boys and coaches in front of Betsy Head Park early Sunday morning. Oomz and his father decided that Oomz would spend Saturday night at Big Oomz’s place, which was a short walk to the park. After practice on Saturday afternoon, he went to his grandmother’s house and waited for his father to come by and pick him up. His father didn’t show, so he stayed at his grandmother’s house that night.
SUNDAY MORNING WAS chilly and windy. Oomz got to the park around 7 a.m. He wore his football pants, red and white Air Jordan IIs, and a T-shirt. He’d forgotten to bring his hoodie. He was grumpy.
“Yo, you not cold?” one of his teammates asked him.
“Yeah, I’m cold!” he hissed.
He dropped his bag on the long green bench and rubbed his hands together. A 10-year-old Junior Pee Wee nicknamed Philly, because he’d just moved to Brooklyn from Philadelphia, put his bags down nearby. He looked over at Oomz and said, “Y’all playing today?”
Oomz shot back a look of condescension—lips pursed, eyes dead, head tilted to the side.
“Nah,” he said. “We just got these pants and brought all our equipment and got up early and came over here—”
“All right, all right, all right, all right, all right,” Philly interjected. He paused, and something on Oomz’s face caught his attention. Squinting, he locked in on the scar below Oomz’s right brow, which pushed his right eyelid slightly lower than his left one—an old playground injury. Philly said, “Why ya eye look like that?”
“’Cause it look like that!” Oomz scoffed.
“You mad negative this morning, boy,” Philly said.
Oomz turned away from Philly and walked over to Donnie, who’d missed the last two practices because he’d gotten in trouble at school for an angry outburst after his teacher called him out for talking in class. It was a classic Donnie tantrum: a hard face, lots of shouting, balled fists––the posture of a drunk man at a bar who’d just seen somebody make a pass at his girl. Donnie hated to be disrespected.
“Long as you here for the game, that’s what matters,” Oomz said, nervously counting how many of his teammates were present as he headed for the bus, fully aware that a single absence meant an automatic loss.
Coach Chris stepped on after the players, who had filled the seats and settled into a zone of fidgety excitement, some singing along with the music playing on Oomz’s phone. It had been an eventful week for Chris. The Democratic primaries were on Tuesday, and he’d been campaigning through the summer. In late August, he’d switched his allegiance in the 55th District state assembly race from Lori Boozer to Latrice Walker, a lawyer who specialized in civil rights cases against the police department. He liked both candidates, but he was savvy enough to sense the likely winner. And indeed, on Tuesday, Walker easily won the election, with 40 percent to Boozer’s 23 percent. The week only got better from there. On Saturday, Mo Better alumnus Curtis Samuel rushed for more than 100 yards, and fellow Mo Better alums Brandon Reddish and Wayne Morgan, both defensive backs at Syracuse, had strong games. As Chris stood silently at the front of the bus, waiting for the boys to quiet down, he was smiling. He felt good about the future.
“Yo!” Coach Esau shouted. “Shut up! Stop talking! Turn that shit off! Get in your seat!”
The bus was silent. Chris cleared his throat.
“Yo, anybody know what domestic violence is?” he said.
A boy in the back shouted, “Like Ray Rice!”
A video had recently emerged of the NFL running back punching his fiancée in the face in an Atlantic City hotel elevator. The league had suspended Rice indefinitely, and the story was all over the news.
“Yo, forget Ray Rice,” Chris said. “You think he was the first one? That goes on in stories you don’t hear about, in a lot of families you don’t hear about because the people involved aren’t celebrities. That could go on in some of your families. My father did that to my mother. I’ll never forget what I sa
w. I still remember what it felt like. That could go on in any of our families.”
His voice turned soft.
“What’s the biggest emotion we as men have to control?” he said.
“Anger,” several boys replied.
“Louder!”
“Anger!” the boys on the bus shouted in unison.
“Louder!”
“Anger!”
“Some of y’all sitting here right now know exactly what I’m talking about, ’cause it happens in our families,” Chris said. He spoke slowly, matter-of-factly, as if they were all sitting around his living room shooting the shit after a long day at work. “My dad was in jail during my city championship game for domestic violence. Then he had the nerve to tell me after how I could have played better. All that stuff you go through at your age, it has an impact on your futures. They can predict if you’re going to be a criminal now based on your reading level. How many people we know at Rikers Island right now?”
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