Football Champ (2009)

by Tim Green

  "The winner of the Valdosta Vipers and the Forest Park Titans game," Troy said, looking up at the clock on the wall. "They're playing right now, right, Seth?"

  "Yup," Seth said, taking a swig of his own root beer. "Valdosta's the favorite. They've won the state title three out of the last five years. But whoever it is, we're not going to have the advantage of them thinking they know our plays."

  "But you said we can win this," Troy said. "That we can be the champs."

  Seth offered him a grim smile and said, "Anyone can beat anyone, right? That's why you play. It's just that our defense, well, you saw what Dunwoody did to them."

  Troy's mom crunched a BBQ chip and asked, "Why don't you do the same thing Troy does with the Falcons?"

  Seth nodded his head and said, "I know. I'd like to, but the problem is that I don't have anyone who can learn the kind of signals you'd need to send in and make the calls at the line of scrimmage an instant before the other team snaps the ball. The offense that Coach Renfro put together is actually pretty good. The kids have enough good plays that I can just tinker with it a little and it's no big deal. But he didn't know anything about defense, and we just don't have time to teach all the kids a whole new system."

  "What if Troy played defense?" his mom asked. "Could he learn it all?"

  Seth twirled his soda bottle, thinking a moment before he nodded, looked up, and said, "Yes, I bet he could. Not only that, he'd know where the ball was going, so even if he couldn't get the rest of the defense in the right spot, we'd be a lot better off with him in there."

  "So?" his mom said.

  "He's never played defense," Seth said softly. "It's not something you just do. Most teams protect their quarterbacks, even in a junior league. If you have a good one, you can't afford to get him hurt. And I'm walking, or limping, proof that if you play defense, you're gonna get hurt."

  "I could do it," Troy said. "Play safety or cornerback or something. I know all about pass coverage."

  "I know you know it," Seth said. "And you're a good enough athlete that you could do it. But if we're gonna have you do it, we gotta get started."

  "You don't mean right now?" Troy's mom said.

  "Yes," Seth said, wiping his hands and standing up. "I do."

  "Look at him, Seth," his mom said, extending her open hand at Troy. "He's tired and sore. He hasn't even had a shower."

  "Yeah," Seth said, collecting the round baskets their food came in, dumping their trash, and grinning at Troy's mom, "it's a rough way to make a living. I wouldn't advise it for anyone."

  Troy spent what was left of the afternoon with Seth, going through some simple drills on the spacious back lawn of Seth's gray stone mansion in the Cotton Wood Country Club. Troy's mom helped their efforts by playing receiver, running the routes Seth drew on his palm so Troy could practice his coverage. In the moments Seth let him stop to catch his breath, Troy couldn't help dreaming that one day he'd have his own stone mansion in Cotton Wood. He'd buy a place for his mom, too. He could just imagine the smile on her face when he handed her the keys.

  "Not bad," Seth finally said, tucking the football they'd been using into a mesh bag filled with others, "but the biggest thing is going to be stopping the run."

  Seth circled the large stone swimming pool and disappeared behind some bushes under the deck overlooking the pool and lawn. When he reappeared, he was dragging a huge blue tackling dummy.

  "We gotta get you tackling low and hard and wrapping up with your arms," Seth said. "That's the key. It won't do us any good to get you to where the ball's going if you can't make the tackle."

  "If Tate can do it," Troy said, getting into a ready stance on the lawn, "then I sure can."

  "Hey," his mom said, "don't say that just because she's a girl."

  "Yeah," Seth said, grunting with the dummy, "you'll get us all in trouble."

  "I just mean she's pretty skinny," Troy said.

  "It's not about size," Seth said, peeking out from behind the big blue bag. "You saw that today."

  "I'll let you two bang around," Troy's mom said, wiping her brow. "I'm going to get a cold drink."

  "Today it was about brains," Troy said, grinning at Seth as his mom walked away.

  "But this will be about heart," Seth said, stepping aside after settling the dummy, whose sand-weighted base kept it upright, in the middle of the lawn. "Come on. I probably should have done this first, to see if the whole thing is worth even trying.

  "Let's see what you've got."

  Troy took a running start and unloaded on the dummy with all his might. Seth just shook his head. Troy hit it over and over, but Seth merely grunted and kept shaking his head.

  Troy rubbed his shoulder and finally asked, "What?"

  "You gotta hit it better than that," Seth said, "and wrap your arms around the dummy when you tackle. You hit like that and they'll run right through you like you're a wet paper bag."

  Troy's stomach knotted tight. He felt his face go hot. He backed up and went at it again.

  "Man," Seth said, still shaking his head.

  "What?" Troy demanded, getting up and brushing off the grass.

  "This ain't offense," Seth said. "You're on defense now. Hit the thing, will you?"

  "I am," Troy said, fuming.

  "Really hit it," Seth said, barking at Troy with the gruff edge to his voice he used when he coached the Tigers. "Not like some tap dancer. Come on. Get mad."

  Being compared to a tap dancer made Troy see red. He coiled his body and launched himself at the dummy with all the fury he possessed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "SO," TATE ASKED, "HE thinks you can play defense or he doesn't?"

  Troy and Tate sat together, dangling their feet off the iron railroad bridge that crossed the Chattahoochee River not too far down the tracks from the back of Troy's house. A fat white moon glared down at them, its light buttering the slab-sided ripples in the water below. Above the river, black wings flickered, darted, and dove--bats searching for a meal.

  "He said I got the basics down," Troy said, "and I finally made a tackle he liked."

  "Sounds like he was pretty rough on you," Tate said.

  "Well, he's our coach," Troy said. "I want him to treat me like everybody else."

  "Why wouldn't he?" Tate asked.

  Troy felt something boiling up inside him he couldn't really explain, an anger squeezed tight, making it fester. His hands gripped the cool, rusty metal girder above his head.

  "You think they're going to get married?" he asked.

  "I don't know, do you?" Tate asked quietly.

  "They kiss each other a lot," Troy said, swatting at one of the few mosquitoes still alive this late in the fall. "But that's not it. It's the way they sometimes look at each other."

  "That wouldn't be a bad thing, right?" Tate asked. "Seth Halloway for your dad? I mean, Seth marrying your mom."

  Troy clenched his teeth and expelled hot blasts of air through his nose, shaking his head.

  "You don't know what it's like," he said to her. "Your father is sitting on the couch with your mother right now watching a movie."

  Tate put a hand on his leg. "You're right, I don't know, and I'm sorry, but Seth's a great guy. Look how he helped you get the job with the team."

  "I'm helping him, too," Troy said. "I'm helping the whole team. My mom says ten thousand a game is a great deal for the Falcons, but as soon as it looks like someone might find out, I'm the one who has to go into hiding, like I'm doing something wrong. But I'm not. I've got a gift; that's what Gramp says it is. Why do adults always have to pretend? That's why you never know what they're really thinking."

  Troy hopped up and started down the tracks for home. Tate scrambled after him.

  "Don't get mad at me," Tate said, catching up to him and yanking on his arm to slow him down.

  "I'm not," Troy said, his shoulders sagging. He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. "I'm sorry, Tate. You're the best friend anyone could want.
I can't talk like this to anyone else. Heck, I shouldn't even be feeling like this. You're right. Seth is nice to my mom, to me, to our whole team. So why do I feel like this?"

  Tate sighed and turned, starting down the tracks at an easy pace before she said, "The thing with your dad, not knowing him, not ever meeting him, I'm sure that makes it hard."

  "My dad abandoned me," Troy said.

  "But you don't want to abandon him," Tate said. "That's what I think this is. You really like Seth. Maybe you see him and your mom getting along and you can see Seth being a part of your family. That makes you happy on one side, but you kind of feel bad about it on the other side."

  "The stupid side," Troy said, grabbing a stick from the edge of the bank and switching it back and forth between his hands.

  "It's not stupid," Tate said. "It's just complicated. But liking Seth doesn't have to mean anything bad about your father. If your father is anything like you, he'd want you to have Seth around."

  They walked for a while, passing the spot where the path led up through the pine trees to Troy's house but not coming to a stop until they were even with the Pine Grove Apartments, where Tate lived.

  "Okay," Troy said, patting her shoulder, "see you in the morning."

  "You're sure it's okay that Nathan and I go with you?" Tate asked.

  "My mom told me that Mr. Langan said he'd be happy to have you guys," Troy said.

  "The owner's box," Tate said, staring into the glow of the streetlights scattered throughout the apartment complex. "Wow."

  "I'd rather be on the field," Troy said. "I see it clearer down there. I don't know, I think it's something to do with being up close, little things like the way a quarterback licks his fingers if it's a pass, or how a running back will tighten his shoulder pads if he's getting the ball."

  "But you've called the right plays from the stands before," Tate said. "You can do it. I know you can."

  Tate started down the path and Troy stood there, watching her go.

  "Tate," he said.

  She stopped and turned.

  "If that guy catches me tomorrow, I'm not running, and I'm not hiding anymore," Troy said.

  "How's he gonna catch you?" Tate asked. "You'll be in the owner's box."

  "I know," Troy said. "He probably won't, but if he does, it makes me feel better to know what I'm going to do."

  Tate stood for a moment, then shrugged, letting her arms flop to her sides, and said, "I don't think that's a good idea."

  "Probably not," Troy said, "but that's what I'm going to do."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE NEXT DAY, TROY, Tate, and Nathan rode to the Georgia Dome with Troy's mom and Seth. Troy couldn't help comparing the Tigers' upcoming championship game with the Falcons' position in their own league. A win today could put the Falcons in first place in their division, and they would begin to think realistically about a championship of their own. Before Seth left them for the team locker room, he pulled Troy aside.

  "Hey," Seth said, "about yesterday."

  "I know, you do what you have to," Troy said.

  "Within limits, yes," Seth said, nodding his head. "But I got a little carried away yesterday. I'm sorry I pushed you so hard. Defense is different, you know. You've always been a quarterback, but I know you've got that mean streak under the surface, that thing you need to play defense. I was just trying to bring it out. I only want to help you, Troy. You know that, right?"

  Troy looked up into the big player's eyes and saw real concern. Troy was afraid his own eyes might start to water, so he looked away and nodded and said, "Sure, I do. Thanks, Seth."

  Seth mussed Troy's hair and they wished each other good luck. Troy's mom took Troy and his friends up the elevator and let the three of them off at the door of the Falcons owner's box before she hurried off to her job. Bob McDonough, Mr. Langan's security guard, a tall, silent former Secret Service agent, stood just inside the suite. When McDonough saw the three of them, he held out a hand and Troy, Tate, and Nathan all slapped him five on their way in. The sitting area was decked out in dark granite and wood, with couches, chairs, a bar, and a huge plasma TV screen. About a dozen adults dressed in blazers and pants or dresses milled about, along with a handful of kids, all eating, talking, or watching the pregame show on the big TV.

  Nathan headed right for the buffet table, where he loaded a plate with four hot dogs, heaping them with mustard and sauerkraut and biting into one before he even sat down. Behind the bar, two servers dressed in white shirts and black pants busied themselves preparing food, pouring drinks, and refreshing the buffet. Kneeling on the floor with his back to the suite, a third server loaded bottles of soda into a refrigerator. Behind them, another door led into a kitchen with its own entrance for the workers out in the hall.

  Mr. Langan appeared and shook hands with all of them, raising his eyebrows when his fingers came away from Nathan's mitt with a smear of mustard.

  "Sorry," Nathan said through a mouthful of food.

  "No, I'm...glad to see you kids eating," Mr. Langan said. "Get some sodas, too."

  "I'm on that," Nathan said, hopping up from his spot on the couch, attacking the silver tub of iced drinks, and scooping up a handful of peanut butter cookies on the way back to his seat.

  "Troy? Tate?" Mr. Langan said. "Hungry? There's more than just hot dogs."

  Tate blushed and shook her head, and Troy said, "Thanks. I ate lunch before I came."

  "Okay," Mr. Langan said to Troy, his face turning serious, "we win this one and Carolina loses and we're in first place. Just like that, last to first in four weeks. You feeling good?"

  Troy gave him a thumbs-up.

  "Great. Let me show you what we've got set up."

  The suite was split into two separate sections connected to the lounge area. Nathan and Tate would sit in the bigger section of plush seats with Mr. Langan, his son Sam, who was the same age as they were, and the rest of the owner's family, business associates, and friends. Troy was shown through another door off to the side, a glassed-in area that looked like a small split-level office. Stairs led to the lower level, where three of the team's top executives sat at a long countertop covered with papers and telephones, looking down on the field.

  Above them, in the darkest corner of the space, was a single desk with a high-backed leather chair that swiveled side to side.

  "Right here," the owner said, pointing to the seat. "It's where I sometimes sit. You can use this headset to talk with the coaches."

  Troy nodded, and Mr. Langan let himself out through the door, disappearing into the lounge. Troy sat down and put on the headset. He could see the entire field. In front of him was also a computer, a pair of binoculars, and a gray box with a control for the headset's volume and a mute button. Another plasma TV hung from the ceiling for watching replays. Troy wouldn't, though, because he'd need to look carefully for which players the Seahawks sent on and off the field.

  While he couldn't exactly explain how he knew what the other team was going to do, he did know that different kinds of players meant certain formations and plays. Two tight ends and one wide receiver, for example, made it more likely a team would run the ball than if they had no tight ends and three wide receivers instead.

  Troy heard the voice of Jim Mora, the Falcons' defensive coordinator, on the other end of the headset.

  "Troy? These guys are pretty darn good," Coach Mora said. "We're going to need you today. You all set, buddy? You ready to go?"

  "Yeah," Troy said, locating the coach down on the sideline and returning his wave. "You?"

  "One hundred percent," the coach said, giving a thumbs-up.

  From where Troy sat, he couldn't see his friends or Mr. Langan on the other side of the partition. With the executives busy talking on their phones, taking notes, and conferring with each other in low tones, Troy felt completely isolated--a good thing. He turned the volume knob on the headset all the way down and let his eyes scan the field, floating over the space where the Seahawks sent play
ers in and out from the sideline and huddled on the field. He needed to absorb the entirety of what the Seahawks did. It would take a couple of series--two or three, depending on how many plays they ran--before the patterns would emerge, just like the holograms on the comics page in the Sunday paper. When they did, Troy would see clearly what the Seahawks' next step would be. He'd know the play.

  The first two times he'd done this, Jim Mora had pestered him, asking when it would happen. Then, two weeks ago, before their game against Tampa Bay, Troy explained that the best thing was to just let him be, and he was right. Tampa Bay had run just eight plays and hadn't even completed their second series when it hit him. He knew the coach wouldn't pester him today.

  The Seahawks won the toss, received the kickoff, and drove down to the Falcons' seventeen-yard line on a ten-play drive before kicking a field goal on fourth and six. Troy watched, keeping his mind blank, just letting the information sink in, but for some reason--maybe because he was so far from the field--things seemed fuzzy, like talking on a cell phone with a weak signal. Seth shuffled off the field with the rest of the defense. Several times during the series, he'd been knocked flat by the Seahawks' offensive line. Twice he got to the hole a split second too late to make a tackle, and another time his pass drop was too shallow to keep the tight end from making a twenty-yard reception.

  The Falcons took the ball, sputtering after just five plays, ten yards short of the fifty-yard line, and punted to the Seahawks. Three plays later, Shaun Alexander, the Seahawks' star runner, blasted through a hole up the middle. Seth threw himself in front of the runner, but Alexander lowered his shoulder and plowed right through Seth, all the way to the Falcons' forty-four before being brought down by DeAngelo Hall. Seth got up slowly, barely making it back to the defensive huddle, and was late calling the play that Coach Mora signaled in. The Seahawks snapped the ball and Matt Hasselbeck completed a touchdown pass to an uncovered receiver. The Georgia Dome erupted in boos.