Second Impact

by David Klass

  He leaned slightly forward and continued with absolute conviction. “It just doesn’t know it’s dead yet. It may take a decade or two, but it will go the way of gladiatorial combat. The evidence that’s mounting will be impossible for parents and educators to ignore. The private high schools will ban it first, and then the public ones, and then the colleges, and finally the professional leagues will disappear. There’s no way to save it, either. People talk about redesigning equipment or changing the rules about tackling, but that’s bull. The goal of tackle football is to hit people head-on and often headfirst. The game is built around that, and there’s no way to change it.”

  Then his voice got softer and a little thick, and suddenly our old gym went silent as people stopped shifting around or whispering and just listened to him. “I got a boy at home—a good boy, a nice kid—who used to run down the field and jump in the air when a pass came his way,” the man told us. “Now he’s in a motorized wheelchair and he’s learning to work a computer by holding a pointer in his teeth, because he can’t move from the neck down. It wasn’t worth it. It’s never worth it. This game isn’t worth my son’s spinal cord or your son’s brain.” And he looked directly at Mr. Rosewood. “Let’s save our children.”

  He dropped his microphone on the floor, shot Coach Shea a look, and then walked up the stairs and left the gym. Nobody said a word to him. After he was gone, there was a very deep and heavy lingering silence.

  “I guess that concludes our public forum,” Mr. Carson said. And then he paused. Something told me he didn’t want to end on such a sour note. Superintendent Sparks whispered something to him, and Mr. Carson nodded. “Unless one of our football team members would like to make a closing comment?”

  We all looked at each other. “You’re the captain,” I told Danny. “Go for it.”

  “No,” Danny said, “it’s gotta be you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re the quarterback. You killed Jamesville.”

  “Who cares?” I said.

  “They all do,” he told me. And then he put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Please, Jerry. As a favor to me.”

  Now, the last thing I ever wanted to do in my life was to speak at a big public Kendall Board meeting. But the other seniors were kind of pushing me up and people started clapping and the next thing I knew there was a microphone in my hand. I wanted to toss it back and jump off the bleachers and run home and think about the Albion game. Instead, I heard myself say: “Good evening, everyone. My name is Jerry Downing, and I have the great honor to be the quarterback of the Tigers this season.”

  I saw my parents in the audience. I also glanced at Carla, who was watching me with interest, waiting to hear what I had to say. The truth is, I didn’t know what I was going to say, either.

  “Listen,” I continued, “I think it’s time we all went home. I need good sleep this week so that we can beat Albion. I’m no expert on the science of head injuries, and I’m very comfortable leaving all that to the coaches and the doctors, who want the best for us.” I didn’t add, And our principal, even if he thinks I’m a juvenile delinquent. “I just want to play football,” I said.

  Again, I waited for silence and said: “On a personal level, nobody knows better than I do how you can screw up and get into all kinds of trouble. I’d like to thank this town for giving me a second chance. And I’d like to urge you to find that same generosity, kindness, and mercy and show it to my friend Carla, who did something she shouldn’t have done. You heard her apologize tonight. She’s part of our school family, and families don’t kick out brothers or sisters—they find ways to forgive.”

  This time there was no clapping. I felt Coach Shea watching me, and Danny was right there, too. “What happened to me a year ago happened because I got too big for my boots,” I admitted. “I thought I could do anything. I forgot I was just a seventeen-year-old and there were rules I had to follow. And that those rules and laws protect other people, too. I think Carla needs to remember that. There’s no story here, even though she’s trying to create one. Everyone’s done the right thing. She didn’t need to blow this thing up and put football on trial. Not this week. That man was wrong. Football’s not dead, at least here in Kendall. It’s alive and well and we’re going to find a way to beat Albion.”

  Then I was done and I handed the mic back to Mr. Carson as the other football seniors came up and slapped five with me. Danny was right next to me, my right arm around his back. People were cheering and stamping on the bleachers.

  I spotted Carla walking out of the gym with her parents. She turned once to look at me, and then her mom put her arm on Carla’s elbow and tugged her away. I thought of going after her, but I never would have reached her through the crush. And what else was there to say? We had both told the truth as we saw it.

  “Tigers, Tigers, Tigers,” people shouted, and stomped and slapped me on the back.

  “Okay, we’re ready to begin the closed-door part of the meeting,” Mr. Carson said into a microphone near me. “I’d like to ask you to all quiet down and leave the gym.” But nobody was listening to him.

  Nor, I think, did too many people pay attention when the news broke online a few hours later that the Board had voted for expulsion and Carla was no longer a student at Kendall High.

  View 6 reader comments:

  Posted by user ExpulsionWasTooGoodForHer at 3:14 p.m.

  Carla has forever damaged our school’s and town’s reputation. To my mind she got off easy given how much trouble she has caused for everyone here in Kendall. She doesn’t deserve to graduate with her class; we’re better off without her.

  Posted by user CarlaFan at 3:25 p.m.

  I had been reading Carla’s sports blog religiously for the past year, and she’s the best sportswriter our school has ever had. I’m betting she goes pro one day and I, for one, will look forward to being able to follow her coverage again.

  Posted by user TIGERFAN at 4:10 p.m.

  The hell with the principal, the hell with the school board and the blog girl, can we just focus on what really matters here and win the damn championship?

  Posted by user @TIGERFAN at 5:11 p.m.

  Amen. I’m not worried about one troublesome student in the halls at Kendall. What really worries me is that the aerial attack against Jamesville was great but football games are won on the ground, grinding out the tough yards, and I just haven’t seen the evidence that we can do that. Where is the blocking up front? Where is the runner who can steamroll in from five yards out?

  Posted by user @@TIGERFAN at 6:44 p.m.

  You’re out of your mind; we’ve never looked better. How can you doubt the up-front blocking capabilities after that play by #19 in the third quarter?

  Posted by user Photog_Sophie at 7 p.m.

  Click here for a photo of my friend Carla speaking up for herself at last night’s town meeting. Carla, I’m so proud of you and we all miss you here at Kendall.

  From: Cjenson@kendallhs.edu

  To: JerryQB@kendallhs.edu

  Subject: Speaking for myself

  * * *

  Hey Jerry,

  Well, that was quite a meeting last night. Turns out you have hidden talents. Who knew you were such an effective public speaker? And then to write it up so quickly. You must really have the blogging habit by now, just one more little piece of my legacy at Kendall High.

  Thank you for trying to defend me. I think. I mean, I think you meant well. You were trying to say, Carla did a crazy stupid bad thing, but the saintly townspeople of good old Kendall should find it in their hearts to forgive her, just the way they forgave you for getting drunk and smashing up a car and a girl’s face. Well, thank you very much, Jerry, I suppose. I know you’ve struggled with the guilt you feel over what happened and what might have happened, and I really do respect that.

  But I didn’t get drunk, I didn’t hurt anyone who trusted me, and I haven’t smashed anything, except my own high school career. So even though I really do apprec
iate that you meant well, no thanks. I did something that was probably stupid, but the one who was at risk of getting smashed up was me. I took on someone much more powerful. I did something that was ethically dubious—and I won’t ever do it again, so I have learned a valuable lesson as a journalist, I guess—but in the end, what you mean by dumb catchphrases like “putting football on trial” is really that I told the truth and I told it too loud.

  Our principal is a bully and a jerk. He doesn’t like me because he thinks I’m a rich princess, and he doesn’t like you, either. I happen to think that he’s wrong about us both and that he shouldn’t be running the school. (And from what my mother says, he probably won’t be running it too much longer. She says that by the time this all plays out, the school board will be happy to cut him loose for all the ways he mishandled this—and for the way he sounded on the tape. It’ll be too late for me to come back to school, but my mom’s pretty good at handicapping these things, and she says he’ll be gone by next September. So there’s another little Carla legacy, if it happens.)

  So that’s one truth: Bamburger is a bully and a jerk, and he’s not very smart, either. But there’s another truth here, too, and you know it, I think, Jerry Downing. Your friend Danny is at risk. And no matter how much the town cheers you when you do your shucks-folks-I-just-want-to-play-football act, you’re no fool. You know this game is dangerous. I don’t know how I feel about that guy who said high school football is dead, but I bet he’s at least right that we’re going to be hearing more speeches like that in the next few years. And you know that Danny isn’t telling the truth, whether he knows it or not, about what happened to him, and you know that the coach is worried, and you know that the principal doesn’t care, and you know that he’s pressuring the coach to play him. And the funny thing is that I think you knew all that even before Carla the Criminal taped that conversation and posted it.

  So, sure, football is on trial, but that’s not my doing. That’s something that everyone who cares about the game is going to have to face and think about. And who knows how it will come out? But I will tell you this, Jerry, even though I’m pretty pissed off at you right now, I cannot stand to think that if you took a few unlucky hits in these games that I love to watch and love to write about, something might happen to you. I could joke and say, “Maybe you’d get that nonsense about eyes flashing knocked out of you,” but that’s not what I mean, and you know it. You have a way of thinking and writing that’s yours and nobody else’s. I make fun of you sometimes and I think you have a lot of growing up to do, and it makes me really mad when I think about you standing up in front of that meeting and saying I created this issue for no reason, but when I think of the possibility that you could get your brain banged up, again and again, till your thinking was dulled and you couldn’t form the same kinds of sentences, and you just weren’t the same you … Well, I have to tell you, Jerry, like the guy from Connecticut said, it’s just not worth it.

  Which doesn’t mean I won’t be out there cheering for you against Albion. I hope you have a great game and nobody gets hurt and Kendall wins the championship. Really I do. And I’m no coward—I’ll be at the game, even though I don’t go to the school anymore. And I’ll shout your name and cheer, really I will, and I’ll even mean it.

  Go Tigers,

  Carla

  P.S. I guess I’d better say, don’t worry about me too much. It looks like I’ll be all set to finish out the year in private school. I suppose that would prove Bamburger’s point about the spoiled princess, or your silly view of my McMansion and all the money we have to waste, but what the hell are you supposed to do when your principal gets you expelled in the fall of your senior year? My mom says we won’t fight the expulsion directly—it would take too much of my school year (though I know she’s already gotten an injunction and filed three lawsuits, and I gather it’s going to cost Kendall quite a bundle, speaking of wasting money)—and instead we just use it to take Bamburger down. And sure, I hope this doesn’t do me too much damage with my college applications (I’ve already started writing the new essay, and believe me, it’s a doozy. And I got to use some of that great stuff on head trauma, too). But I think I’ll be okay, just kind of sad about the way this all played out. But I’m still hoping to see you beat Albion.

  ALBION

  Posted by user JERRY on December 20 at 8:09 p.m.

  It’s taken me a few weeks to write this up, and I think it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written. But, hey, it was the biggest game of my life, and they’ve expelled the best sportswriter we had at Kendall, so I guess it’s up to me to finish this story, just like it was up to me to finish the season. So here is the story of my championship game.

  All week long, it was stormy. Not just the weather, though we had strong wind gusts and freezing temperatures and more than six inches of snow. Starting with the board meeting on Tuesday night, bad news seemed to whistle down on us from the gray skies. Carla was expelled. Coach Shea’s brother—who lives in Boston—had heart trouble, and Coach Shea had to rush to a hospital there and miss practice on Wednesday. Coach Horton ran the show while he was gone, and he took us outside to get us used to the subzero temperatures. Granger busted a finger sliding on an ice patch, and on Wednesday night I came down with the flu.

  Thursday I was flat on my back, popping Advil, drinking hot liquids, and feeling lousy. I had all the symptoms: weakness, aches, fever, a sore throat, a bad cough, and nausea. Mom stayed home from the clinic to take care of me, and our doctor made two house visits.

  I spent most of the day in bed wondering how I could play in such condition or if I would have to let Ryan Hurley take over. I had put so much work into the season that I couldn’t imagine not leading our team. But it’s also hard to imagine quarterbacking a championship football game when you’re on your knees puking into the toilet.

  By Thursday night I was a little better—I could at least stand up without feeling dizzy. Coach Shea came to visit, and we sat at the kitchen table sipping lemon tea and going over some new plays they had put in. “I gotta tell you, Jerry, you don’t look good,” he said when we’d finished.

  “I’m on the mend,” I told him. “It’s just one game. Two hours of football. When the whistle blows, I’ll be ready.”

  “I hope so,” he said, and I knew he was in a bind. Sick or not, I had thrown for three hundred and forty yards the previous Friday, and newspapers now were calling me the best high school quarterback in the state. We were favored to beat Albion, but a lot of that was due to my passing performance against Jamesville. All the reporters agreed that Albion was a superhot team and they stacked up very well against us in the other phases of the game.

  Danny Rosewood called up after Coach had left. “How are you doing, amigo?”

  “On the mend,” I told him. “I’ll be okay for tomorrow. What about you?”

  “I’ve been practicing with pads,” he said. “They’re still taking it a little easy on me, but I’m good to go. What about our run?”

  I had been thinking the same thing. As you know from reading my blogs, Danny and I had had a little ritual since Pee Wee football. We’d never missed a morning run together on a game day. “Danny, I gotta level with you. I’m gonna need every last bit of energy for Albion.”

  “I figured that,” he said. “No problem. Anyway, it’s supposed to be a real icebox tomorrow. I’d rather be home in my nice warm bed.”

  I spent a little time on the computer Thursday night before turning in. I had a million e-mails from people concerned about my health or wishing me good luck. None of them was from Carla. I hadn’t heard from her since the e-mail she had sent me on Wednesday, the day after the town meeting. I figured she was pissed off, like she said, and was probably busy getting set up in a new school. But I did read over that paragraph where she wished me luck a couple of times, and I hoped she really was telling the truth about coming to the game.

  It’s not good to read press the night before a game, but I couldn’t help
myself. There were several breakdowns of Kendall versus Albion, position by position. Their swarming defense had given up fewer yards on the ground per game than we had, and they were great at sacking quarterbacks. Their running game consistently generated more yards than ours. Their quarterback, Martinez, had only thrown one interception and given up two fumbles all year. He didn’t light it up with long passes, but he was a smart field general and by all accounts a tough cookie.

  I had read somewhere that warriors sleep well before battles, and I always took it as a point of pride that I conked out as soon as my head hit the pillow. Not this time. I lay there, feeling weak and a little feverish, and I kept waiting for the lights to magically switch off. Minutes passed, and then hours started to drag by. I didn’t count sheep, but I did say a prayer asking God to please give me some rest and let me wake up feeling like my old self. I remembered the story of Moses leading the Israelites through the desert to the promised land but not being allowed to set foot there himself. Had I led Kendall this far, only to be felled by a stupid flu bug?

  Finally I drifted off. I dreamed of a car crash. I was at the wheel and the road was icy and I knew we were going to crash but I couldn’t stop. Some teammates were in the car, and we were approaching train tracks. I could see a train coming. I tried to jam the brakes, but it was like we were locked on the road, and then I woke up screaming and drenched in my own sweat.

  Mom was in the room in a few seconds, and I told her it was just a nightmare. She gave me a long look, then took my temperature and said that I was still feverish. “Let’s keep you home from school, at least in the morning.”

  “Mom, if I don’t go to school, I can’t play,” I told her. “School rules.”