The Lakeside Conspiracy

by Gregg Stutts

  He tried to think. What did he want? To apologize? To tell her he was just trying to hold himself together and had nothing for her?

  “Look Max, if you have something to say, please say it. Otherwise, I’m going to bed. It’s late.”

  But he didn’t even know what to say any more. What did she even want to hear?

  “I’ve got school in the morning,” she said. “Goodnight.”

  “Wait.”

  “What, Max? What is it?”

  What could he say to make things better? Was there even anything left to say?

  Michelle stood up. She looked at him from across the room. And then he watched as she slowly shook her head and walked away.

  “Michelle, wait.”

  She stopped and looked at him.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asked. “I’m sorry?”

  She looked at him. He could see the sadness on her face. He realized in that moment that sad was how she always looked around him now.

  “Do you really want to know, Max?” she said. “I don’t want you to say anything right now. I want you to be with me. I want to know I still matter to you. That you still care. About us. Because for the last few years, you’ve been absent. And I don’t want to be alone any more.”

  “You do matter,” he said. “I do care.”

  Michelle knelt down in front of Max as he sat in the recliner. She took his hands in hers. “Do I matter more than football, Max?”

  He looked away, unsure how to answer. “Do you want me to quit coaching?” he said. “Is that what you want?”

  She took his face in her hands and made him look at her. “I don’t want you to quit coaching,” she said. “I know you love it.” She paused and said, “I just want you to stop hiding behind it.” She gently kissed his forehead and went to bed.

  “You had your chance, Max,” he said quietly to himself.

  CHAPTER 7

  Michelle was in the shower when Max left the house. He could feel her slipping away and there was no one to blame but himself. And yet he wasn’t sure where to even begin repairing the damage he’d done.

  Through the ups and downs, the wins and losses of the past two years, he’d always been there for his team. He’d given everything he had to keep them focused, to keep their spirits up, to keep their eyes fixed on the goal. He was there for the team. He just hadn’t been there for Michelle.

  He knew he’d pulled away during Sarah’s illness. And after she died, he retreated. He’d let Michelle grieve alone. She kept reaching out to him, but he couldn’t help her. He couldn’t go there. He couldn’t think about the year Sarah was sick. He couldn’t go back there. No amount of talking or feeling or processing would bring Sarah back.

  As he drove past the scene of Dante’s accident, he thought about how nothing would bring him back either. Dante wasn’t coming back. Sarah wasn’t coming back. And he was pretty sure his marriage wasn’t coming back.

  Max thought about all those sermons he’d listened to about how God could do anything, how he was pleased by faith, how he delighted in answering prayer. But where was he when you really needed him?

  He used to believe it all. Until Sarah died. And he still believed God existed, he just didn’t want anything to do with him. It made no sense to pray to a God whose actions were so unpredictable and arbitrary. One person gets well. Another dies. There never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to it all. He thought about his friend Jerry who died from colon cancer. Jerry prayed. Jerry had faith. And Jerry left behind a wife and two children.

  Max pushed those thoughts aside. There wasn’t time to go down that path. Not now. Not ever. This was Fayetteville week. He hoped Lakeside fans would turn out in force. There was no doubt Fayetteville fans would show. They were hungry for a third championship.

  Max turned into the parking lot, looking forward to a cup of coffee and an hour of alone time in his office. That would have to wait though. There was a police car waiting in front of the field house.

  Max parked and got out of his truck. He watched as two policemen got out of their car. “Coach Henry, we have a situation,” the older of the two said.

  “Come on inside,” Max said. He led them into his office and shut the door behind them, then closed the blinds. “Can I get you guys some coffee?”

  Both men declined. “This won’t take long, coach,” Terry Cook, the police chief said. Max knew Terry, just not very well. He had played football at NASU a few years before Max. “Like I said, coach, we’ve got a little situation we need to bring to your attention.”

  “Whatever I can do to help,” Max said.

  “Well, we arrested a couple of your boys last night,” Cook said. “They broke into a house and set off the alarm. They were picked up thirty minutes later with some cash, jewelry and electronics in their car.”

  Max could feel his heart sink. “Damnit.” This was the last thing he needed. “Who was it?” he asked.

  “Blake Collins and Jared Wilson,” Cook said.

  Max slammed his fist on the table. Blake was a junior and his starting tight end. Jared was a senior and the starting right tackle.

  “They’ll appear before a judge later this morning. He’ll set bail. They’ll be out by 10:00,” Cook said.

  “What the hell were they thinking?” Max said to himself.

  “We could have taken care of this quietly, but the homeowners are pretty upset,” Cook said. “Sorry, coach, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Alright guys, I appreciate the heads up,” Max said.

  Max walked them out to their car. Just before they left, he said, “Terry, are you familiar with the investigation into Dante’s accident?”

  “What about it?” Terry said.

  “I was just wondering about the cause of the accident. I heard on the news that Dante lost control and hit a tree.”

  “Yeah, that’s what happened,” Terry said. “Must have fallen asleep.”

  “Oh, okay,” Max said. “So the damage to the rear end of the car didn’t mean anything?”

  Max saw the officers exchange a quick glance. “There was only front end damage, coach,” Terry said.

  Max didn’t press it further, but knew he’d just been lied to.

  CHAPTER 8

  Max had no choice but to suspend both players. They hadn’t been convicted of anything yet, but he couldn’t play two guys who’d been arrested for burglary. How would that look?

  Not only would it look bad in the community, but it would send a terrible message to his team. Max had always stressed integrity and representing the team well on and off the field.

  Max called the two players to his office at noon and informed them of the suspension. At a minimum, they would miss the first four games. Depending on the outcome of the legal proceedings, they might be off the team permanently. They’d be lucky to even stay in school. Both boys apologized and understood the decision. Max instructed them to not come to practice until they heard from him.

  After school, while the rest of the players dressed out for practice, Max met with the coaches to begin adjusting the game plan to account for their starting tight end and right tackle not being available.

  Most of the team had heard already, but Max needed to talk to them himself. They’d overcome adversity before. This time would be no different. He’d always told his teams that getting knocked down was part of football and part of life. Staying down was a choice. So was getting up, getting stronger and moving forward.

  Max pulled the team together before heading out to practice. He was about to update them on the situation with Blake and Jared when Jack Murphy came through the door at the back of the room. “Got a minute, coach?” he said. All eyes turned toward Jack.

  “We’re in the middle of a meeting, Jack, and then we have practice. It’ll have to wait,” Max said.

  “Let’s meet in your office,” Jack said, ignoring what Max had said.

  “I said it’ll have to wait” Max replied with an edge to his voice.
>
  “Well, alright coach, I thought I’d let you inform the team, but I’ll just do it myself,” Jack said. “The charges against our boys were dropped thirty minutes ago.” Jack paused for affect, then said, “Come on in boys.”

  Blake and Jared stepped into the room to wild applause from their teammates. They looked a little sheepish at first, but were soon enjoying the attention like they were returning war heroes rather than two guys who’d just been arrested for burglary.

  Max looked at his coaching staff who seemed just as stunned as he was. When the room settled down, Max was too angry to even talk to Jack. He led the team outside to the practice field. Blake and Jared followed five minutes later.

  Practice went on as if nothing had ever happened. Max felt conflicted about playing them, but without any charges against them, he didn’t have grounds to suspend them.

  As usual, Max was the last one left in the field house that evening wrapping up the plan for tomorrow’s practice. Something was off though. Something didn’t feel right.

  His chest felt tight. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead. His office felt oppressive. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. He was either having a heart attack or was letting the stress get to him. He took several slow, deep breaths.

  Ten minutes later he didn’t feel any better, but was pretty sure he wasn’t having a heart attack and concluded it was stress. He tried to think calming, relaxing thoughts, but his mind was swirling. One thought led to another, which led to another. He wished he could just shut his mind down and re-boot.

  Maybe he just needed to call it quits for the night. Tomorrow was a new day. He summoned the strength to make his way to his truck and head home.

  It was almost 8:00 p.m. when he shut off the light to his office and heard himself say, “You’re a failure, Max.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Dante’s funeral was at noon on Thursday and was held in the school auditorium where they would have normally been having a pep rally. The room had seats for six hundred people and Max didn’t see an empty seat anywhere.

  A dozen teammates talked about what a great friend and role model Dante had been. Even though he’d only been on the team for a year, Dante had made a great impact. A student from the university who volunteered with Young Life, an outreach to high school kids, talked about how hungry Dante was to learn about God. And Max talked about the great attitude and work ethic he always displayed at practice and in games.

  After the service, as Max was walking back to his office, he saw Jack Murphy, Bill Jackson, the athletic director, and Donnie Black, the executive director for Northern Arkansas State’s athletic foundation in a heated conversation in the parking lot. He wasn’t close enough to hear what they were arguing about, but it looked serious. Bill had to step between Jack and Donnie.

  He guessed Donnie had come to represent the university since Dante had already given a verbal commitment to play football there. Max couldn’t imagine what issue Jack and Donnie could possibly have with each other.

  CHAPTER 10

  Like every head coach he’d ever known, Max adhered to a certain routine and rituals on game day. A local restaurant always catered the pre-game meal. Tonight’s meal was pasta with meatballs, bread and salad. The meal wrapped up at 4:30. Players started getting dressed at 5:15. Kickers and kick returners took the field at 5:45. Backs and receivers at 5:55. Linemen at 6:05.

  They stretched and warmed up as a team from 6:10 to 6:20. During the stretching period, Max shook every player’s hand and handed them a piece of gum. His high school coach had done that and he’d continued the practice with his teams. After running through their offensive plays and defensive alignments, they returned to the field house at 7:00.

  At 7:20, the game officials brought out the captains for the coin toss with the rest of the team following at 7:25 for the national anthem. Tonight though, Max had moved everything up ten minutes to allow time for the stadium dedication ceremonies. The school board, principal, athletic director and of course, Jack Murphy, as the booster club president would take their places on the field and be recognized.

  It wasn’t until half way through the Star Spangled Banner that Max glanced over his shoulder to where Michelle normally sat, but she wasn’t there. His heart sank seeing an empty seat where she’d sat so faithfully during every scrimmage and game over the last two years.

  Even as their relationship began to deteriorate, she never missed. It didn’t matter if it was hot and humid or cold and rainy. He could always count on her being at every game and staying until the end. Until tonight.

  The home stands looked to be about three-fourths full. For such a small town, Max thought it was a great turnout. They might have had an even bigger crowd, but Bentonville, who was ranked #1 in the state pre-season poll, was playing Bergen Catholic, one of the top teams out of New Jersey. And Northern Arkansas State had their home opener the following day against LSU.

  Jack Murphy wouldn’t be content with three-fourths. He was sure he’d hear all about in on Monday. If not before.

  The Fayetteville fans had certainly turned out. The visitor stands were full. Their student section was huge. Your fans don’t mind traveling when you win. It was what he wanted for his program. With a win tonight, it would be a major step in that direction.

  Fayetteville won the toss and deferred to the second half, so Lakeside would go on offense first. He gave his kick return team some last minute instructions and sent them out.

  He looked for Michelle again, but didn’t see her. He didn’t blame her for not coming, but it didn’t feel right not having her there. He looked around one more time. Maybe she was in a different section. But he still couldn’t find her.

  The referee blew his whistle and signaled the Fayetteville kicker to start the game. Kick-offs were always unpredictable when playing Fayetteville. Rarely did they give a returner a clean shot at the ball. Most of the time they kicked the ball short or some kind of line drive right at one of the linemen, which prevented big run backs. It usually meant starting with the ball no worse than their own thirty-five yard line, but with little chance of a big return.

  The Fayetteville kicker hit the ball square and sent it high and deep. This time unpredictable meant sending a normal kick-off down to the three-yard line where Joe Taylor stepped under it. Maybe it was the new stadium lights. Maybe it was first game jitters. Or maybe it was the inexperience of a sophomore, but the ball went through his hands and hit him on his facemask.

  Getting hit with the ball knocked him off balance enough that he stumbled and fell. He was scrambling around on his hands and knees trying to find the ball, but it had bounced off his face mask and seemed to hang in the air just long enough to allow one of the Fayetteville players to catch it in mid-air at the eight yard line and run it in untouched for a touchdown.

  Exactly three seconds had ticked off the clock and the score was 6-0. What had been a deafening roar from the home stands just seconds earlier was now stunned silence. Across the field, the Fayetteville players and fans were going nuts. Max encouraged his guys as they came off the field. He reminded them it was early in the game and they could get that one back.

  Fayetteville lined up for the extra point and then ran a fake. The holder flipped the ball to the kicker, who started to run right, then stopped and threw it into the end zone to a wide-open receiver. 8-0. Just like that.

  And that was as close as Lakeside would get. By half-time, Fayetteville led 29-0.

  Max and his staff made some adjustments for the second half. Joe Taylor settled down by the third quarter and ended up with seven catches for over a hundred yards and two touchdowns. It wasn’t nearly enough. Lakeside lost the game, 50-21.

  The post-game talk was tough. Max tried his best to focus on the positives and point them ahead to the Siloam Springs game, but even he had trouble believing what he was saying. They’d gotten whipped. Fayetteville was clearly a better team, but Lakeside made them look even better than they were. They’d
been out-played and out-coached. And Max put the blame on himself.

  After shaking the hand of every player as they left the field house, Max told his assistant coaches goodnight and walked to his truck. He couldn’t stand the thought of being the last one in the building again. Someone else could lock up.

  Of course, leaving now meant having to face the fans who hung around outside the field house after games, most of whom were family and friends of players. Max walked fast and kept his head down to avoid getting into a conversation with anyone. A few people saw him and offered words of encouragement. Max thanked them and kept walking.

  As he got into his truck, he heard someone call out, “You suck, coach!”

  CHAPTER 11