by Bryan Mealer
After three hours, Benjamin assured Coach Z he was still undecided. Getting back into his truck, Azzanni was doubtful, but not defeated.
“I felt like we’d certainly taken a step back,” he said. “But by no means did I think I’d lost him.”
The win over American Heritage had earned the Raiders a trip to the state semifinals game, putting them only one date away from the ever-desired rematch with Cocoa, who’d also won the previous week and were very much alive.
For the first time in two years, the Cocoa Tigers were traveling for a postseason game—this time to the state’s northern border to meet the Madison County Cowboys, the fierce defensive squad that had fallen to the Raiders in the 1998 state championship. Even the name of their stadium, Boot Hill, sounded ominous.
Although the Cowboys were undefeated and executing their signature swarm defense that had carried them to five state title games, there was a psychic understanding among the coaches and players in Belle Glade that Cocoa would prevail. It was how the ending had always been written, they felt—the two teams meeting once again on the cold and empty plain.
In fact, the entire postseason schedule had become an exact replica of last year’s run: Cardinal Gibbons, followed by American Heritage. And now, once again, the Raiders would face Robinson High School in Tampa as the last obstacle before reaching the Citrus Bowl. Hester would not even acknowledge the coincidence, never once brought it up in practice or in meetings with his coaches. On his ever-sensitive radar of superstitious activity, this was bleeding red off the scale.
Like Cocoa, the Raiders would also be traveling—this time across the state to Robinson’s home turf. In last year’s semifinals game, the Raiders had embarrassed the Fighting Knights 33–0 on Effie C. Grear Field. But Hester knew the Raiders would be facing an entirely different team this year, one bent on revenge behind the support of its own fans. The Knights were coming in with a 10–2 record and running Glade Central’s same spread offense. They’d scatter the defense with receivers Frankie Williams and Ruben Gonzalez, who’d combined for fourteen touchdowns that season, then slice the soft middle with their running back, J. J. Hubbard.
Hubbard was nimble and downright slippery. Only five foot eight, he weaved and shimmied through defenses like a small deer before streaking across the open field. He was the Class 2A leading scorer, with twenty-seven touchdowns on 1,450 yards, averaging a first down with every carry. He’d killed Tampa Jesuit the previous week with 177 yards and two TDs, not including a seventy-yard burst to the end zone that was called back on a penalty.
“When I see daylight,” he’d told a reporter, “all I think is touchdown.”
But for its part, Glades Central was coming in ranked one of the fastest defenses in the state, allowing opponents just nine points a game with five shutout victories. In their last meeting with Tampa Robinson, the Raiders had allowed the Knights only twenty-eight total yards, not only stopping Hubbard but crushing his running game for negative fifty.
Even so, you could never overestimate a scorned team who sought redemption at home. “Trust me, guys,” Hester warned his squad that week, “these people want this badder than yall can understand. They want this. We need to make sure they don’t get it. We need to bring that grit from the Glades.”
• • •
GRIT WAS ABOUT all the quarterback had left in his bag. After Mario had been knocked unconscious in the game against American Heritage, he’d faked his way into being let back in the game. Just to be safe, the team trainer had ordered Mario to the doctor to check for a concussion. Mario didn’t go, yet told everyone the doctor had cleared him to play. “What’s the point?” he said later. “All he’s gonna do is tell me something I don’t wanna hear.”
Hester remembered Mario being cleared on the sideline. Regardless, for several days, Mario practiced despite blinding headaches. The concussion was helped a bit by an early-winter storm that blotted out the sun and eased the pain. But the damp, cold weather just made his shoulder hurt worse.
On Friday, after lunch and prayers, the Raiders boarded two charter buses and hooked north around the lake, through the fields of burning cane and orange groves of LaBelle, then west toward the Gulf, where the wind whipped against the window and turned the glass crystal-cold. A winter chill was settling over the state. Hester sat in the front seat suffering through a cold, his first in a decade. His eyes were puffy. He couldn’t breathe. His whole delicate constitution was under siege.
As they drove, the coach was also handed some unfortunate news.
Earlier in the day, administrators at Cocoa High School confirmed they had just suspended Tiger running back Chevelle Buie. No reasons had been given, but rumors were quickly spreading. Whatever Buie had done, he would not be playing that night against Madison County.
Immediately the thought was, Could Cocoa win at Boot Hill without their superstar? Playing at home, the Cowboys were already the favorites. Even worse, people were saying Buie could be suspended for the rest of the semester. It was Buie who’d sunk the Raiders with two touchdowns in the state finals. And now the much-anticipated rematch was suddenly thrown in jeopardy. The news cast a fog of disappointment over the team. No one wanted to win a championship with an asterisk.
The weather was freezing by the time the bus pulled into Robinson High School. While Hester watched the teams warm up before kickoff, he saw something else that sank his mood even lower, something downright insulting. The Knights were practicing with only three down linemen while stacking the secondary with linebackers and DBs to anticipate the pass. Running such a formation implied that the Raiders were only one-dimensional. Since he was already in a foul mood, seeing that sent Hester over the edge.
“Typically, you know what I like to come out and do,” he told his team as they gathered before the whistle. “Nine-eighty-fuckin-nine. But I aint doin that tonight. I looked out there and saw these cats runnin a three-man front. That irks the heck out of me. Think about that shit. A three-man front. Three guys on five? I mean, I took that personally. They tryin to tell me my dawgs aint got that kind of fight in ’em. Yall about to send the message to whoever we play next week that three men aint gonna work. We gonna hit these boys in they goddamn mouths tonight.”
“All night!” Mario shouted.
“They think we comin out there to pass. Our intent aint by air, aint by sea, it’s by any means necessary to hurt them.”
“Come on, baby,” the quarterback cried. “I’m goin to O-Town.”
“We gone too far for this story to end,” the coach said, now scanning the eyes. “We all know it’s gonna get written either way. So how’s the story gonna be told? Who gonna be the hero this week? Which guy will it be?”
The team grouped in pairs, slid their helmets on, then sprinted down the long sidewalk. They burst through the concession scrum, parting a sea of parents and teenagers with painted faces and balloons, singing a military cadence with Boobie’s warbled voice leading the charge:
Mama, mama can’t you see
Mama, mama can’t you see
What Glades Central doin to me
What Glades Central doin to me
I used to drive a Cad-il-lac
I used to drive a Cad-il-lac
Now I’m beggin for a snack
Now I’m beggin for a snack
During the last stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the capacity crowd began to hiss when the squad ceremoniously held their helmets high and shouted RAIDERS!, all but drowning out the singer.
The Knights, wearing all-black uniforms, set the tone immediately by executing a perfect onside kick and recovering the ball on the Raider forty-seven. Two seamless plays later, Frankie Williams took a handoff from quarterback Blake Rice and zipped thirty-eight yards into the end zone, beating Robert Way and the entire Glades Central secondary.
When the Robinson defense trotted onto the field, they were so tall Mario had trouble seeing the field over their heads. But it hardly mattered tonight. As the Knigh
ts lined up in their three-man front, the coach had just the answer.
Robinson, meet Aaron Baker.
Before Hester had released the Raiders onto the field, he’d laid out his strategy for the three-man front. “We goin 23 Load,” he said, “and we gonna load it till they can’t carry it no more. So yall better bag your teeth, squeeze your nuts. Do whatever you gotta do, goddamnit, ’cause these people gettin up out of this three-man front.”
It was a staple rushing play where the guards pulled left or right and the back shot the opposite gap. And Aaron Baker, at five foot eleven and two hundred pounds, was the load the Knights never saw coming.
All season long, the sophomore halfback had been the great if only. Both his parents were dead, leaving him to stay with relatives in the gang-addled trailer park near the school. He floated with thugs and brimmed with ready violence. The previous season he’d been in constant trouble with teachers and his grades were horrible. Coaches had all privately braced themselves for the phone call saying he was either dead or in jail. As much as he hated doing so, Hester had been forced to kick him off the team, hoping to send a message. Baker was a classic case, a jitterbug time bomb headed for zero.
But with a mature, strapping physique and legs like timbers, he also had the potential to be a special athlete who succeeded beyond the Glades. After the game in Dallas, when Coach Randy had made both Baker and Page a season-long project, getting them out of Belle Glade and just being a friend, Baker began to thrive. So much that he even made the honor roll. In practice, he began to listen and learn: “Don’t stop pumping your feet, Aaron,” they told him. “Don’t run with your eyes closed, Aaron!”
Most of the season, Randy had rotated Baker with Likely, Page, and Neville Brown, leaving in whoever got hot. But the past few games, the coaches had started building their postseason rushing attack specifically around Baker and Likely. Likely, who played both directions, had been the ace in the blowout against Suncoast, running over a hundred yards for two touchdowns. But tonight, one victory from O-Town, Baker was stepping into the light.
The vertical runner went headlong into the Robinson defense with a confidence and power never before seen. In three plays he drove the team to midfield to set up a pair of quick strikes to Jaime and Oliver for the touchdown.
Running off the field, Baker appeared as surprised as anyone. “It’s working, it’s working,” he shouted to Hester and Randy. “The pumping of my feet!”
Baker’s coming-out performance proved the perfect opening for a flashy scatback such as Hubbard. Two plays into Robinson’s drive, the Knights were poised on the Raider twenty-three. Rice flipped Hubbard a shovel pass and the disappearing act began. As he crossed the line of scrimmage, he came face-to-face with Robert Way, faked to his right, and blew past, flying down the sideline headed for the end zone. As Hubbard crossed the five-yard line, three steps from glory, Way—having sprinted nearly twenty yards in pursuit—suddenly pounced on him from behind and smashed the ball from his hands. It took a bounce before Way could throw his body atop it and secure the fumble.
It would be Hubbard’s longest run of the game. After that, the show belonged to Baker. The running attack provided a much-needed respite for the battered Mario, who’d been in no shape for forty-eight minutes of run-and-gun football. The inclement weather had grounded the flyboys, anyway. The wind coming off the bay was bitter and turned the football as hard as ice. The leather had no give, and Mario’s hands were suddenly too small to get a grip.
Denied by air, the Raiders went by train, and Baker’s engines were steaming hot. He lowered his shoulder carry after carry, and moved the Raiders across the plain. Halfway through the second quarter, he broke two tackles and hit the open field for forty yards, dragging two black jerseys across the goal line. That made the score 21–7, and the Knights could never rally.
Just like the previous meeting, the Raider defense stifled Robinson’s fight for life. They walled off the Knights’ receivers and intercepted them twice. Play after play, they stormed the offensive line, and sandbagged the quarterback five times. Two of those sacks came courtesy of Way, who flattened Rice so hard before the second half that Way’s own face mask was crushed like a beer can. One of the coaches later had to use a hammer and a pair of pliers to straighten it back.
Hubbard would finish the game with only four carries over four yards. Meanwhile, Baker had the game of his life, finishing with 142 yards, two touchdowns, and the undying knowledge that he’d given his team a second chance against Cocoa. Before the whistle ended the game, giving the Raiders the 35–10 win, word spread that the Tigers had scraped out a narrow victory at Boot Hill, defeating Madison County by the score of 17–15. Even without Buie, Cocoa had prevailed.
The rematch was on.
“Straight gutsy effort,” Hester told his squad as they gathered in the end zone. “We got that ticket to the dance. That girl said yes. And when we get her to the dance …” He left the sentence open for the boys to bark and howl.
Just then, Ruben Gonzalez, the Knights receiver, crashed through the huddle and stood huffing in the middle. A wide stream of blood dripped from his bottom lip and painted his teeth and chin. He looked insane. He’d been crying.
“Yall take that shit, dawg, yall take that shit.”
He was all messy adrenaline, but the boys in the huddle were rapt. He was talking about Cocoa.
“Last year yall lost. For real, take that shit. Yall beat me and I wanted that shit bad. For real. Go get that shit, dawg.”
“We got ya, bro,” the boys said, then applauded their fallen opponent.
Hester squeezed the receiver’s shoulder as he left. “We appreciate that,” he told him. “What that cat’s tryin to say is that if they lose, they wanna lose to the champions. What we got ahead of us is Cocoa, baby. This is what we wanted. This is what they wanted. They got us. Those kids are the champions and that means we have to dethrone them. We have to go to Orlando and take it. Monday, we go back to work.”
The Raiders’ return to the state championship sent a jolt of excitement through the school campus that week, helped in part by some other encouraging news. The state had just released the new school grades, and Glades Central, for the first time since opening its doors, had scored a C.
For most schools, such a grade would not be cause for celebration, but in Belle Glade it was monumental. A passing school grade sent a ripple of optimism throughout the embattled community: property values could rise as a result, businesses could be lured, residents might think twice before packing up and moving to the coast.
The minute the news was conveyed, a collective hallelujah erupted through the halls of the administrative building. Vice-Principal Angela Moore, who’d driven that school bus through the migrant quarter picking up kids on test days and ironing their clothes, raced to the school’s PA system and made the grand announcement, at one point becoming so emotional she broke into song.
“It IS a good morning, in fact,” said Ms. Rudean Butts as she answered the school switchboard. “Glades Central is now a C school.” The news was not lost on anyone who called.
“We knew it could be done,” said Anderson, emerging from his office looking like a man who’d just enjoyed the best sleep of his life. “This truly demonstrates the progress students can make once they get to Glades Central. The monkey is finally climbing off our backs.”
There was a small caveat, the principal said. For the first time, the state had determined the schools’ grades by considering more than just FCAT scores. The school’s graduation rate, students’ overall success in AP classes, and their scores on SAT and ACT exams now factored into the grading process. But when it came to the FCAT, Anderson’s students still struggled, especially with reading scores. They also needed to find a better way to advance the group of kids most at risk. In fact, the sluggish rate of improvement in the school’s bottom 25 percent had narrowly kept Glades Central from earning a B grade.
“There’s still more to do,” he
said. “But this sends the message to our teachers and students that their sacrifice and effort have not been in vain.”
• • •
THE RAIDERS WOULD not be the only team from Belle Glade traveling to Orlando. Glades Day had beaten Victory Christian Academy 45–27 in the Class 1B semifinals for a championship game in the Citrus Bowl to be played on Friday. Mucksteppers from across the Glades would soon be on the move.
The cold snap that had blown in the previous week now dropped temperatures into the low thirties. The wind off Lake Okeechobee was damp and settled in the bones. As the Raiders prepared for the biggest test of their young careers, many practiced while numb in their fingers and toes. Most spent the majority of the time with their hands tucked down their crotches to keep warm. Mario clenched his teeth and said nothing.
The freezing temperatures were also ravaging crops throughout the Glades. The big farms from Moore Haven down to Belle Glade began sending fleets of helicopters zipping low across their fields of beans and corn to keep the frost from settling. It was a decades-old practice. The blades pushed down warmer air that hovered some forty feet off the ground, where the difference in temperature could be as much as ten degrees. But there were risks in flying low and often before the sun. On December 8, three choppers went down in the freezing fields near Pahokee, all in the same morning.
Along with the cold, the month of December ushered in college recruiters by the dozen. Now permitted to visit schools, they arrived from programs far and wide: Buffalo, Kansas, Iowa State, Syracuse, and Toledo, just to name a few. But the big news that second week was that Urban Meyer was stepping down as the University of Florida’s head coach, throwing into question the future of every kid from Jacksonville down to Naples who’d already given the Gators his commitment. Weeks earlier, the Miami Hurricanes had fired coach Randy Shannon with the same results. After Davonte got hot in November, Miami—his dream school—made an informal offer. But in the days after Shannon’s exit, the calls stopped coming. The recruiting coaches, too, had been sacked, their words of honor meaningless once the swinging doors hit them on the way out.