Game Changers

by Mike Lupica

  He was halfway to the end zone from there before the guys trying to cover the punt for the Eagles realized how fast the play — and maybe the game — was going the other way.

  The punter was the last guy with a chance as Ben angled toward the right sideline, the kid maybe thinking he had the angle on Ben now.

  He didn’t.

  Because Ben cut back on him now, at full speed, saw the kid fall down when he realized he was being dusted that way. From there Ben could have run backward into the end zone with the score that made the game 12–12 at The Rock.

  This time they tried to run a quarterback draw for the conversion. But Coop and Shawn messed up on the snap, the ball ending up on the ground between them. By the time Shawn picked it up, there was no chance for him to think about running the play as called. He nearly got to the outside, using his own great speed, going for the pylon at the front corner of the end zone. But one of the Eagles linebackers shoved him out of bounds before he could make it 14–12.

  Coop was the first one over there, putting a hand out to help Shawn up, saying, “My fault, man.”

  Shawn ignored Coop’s hand, just got up and walked past him, Coop’s hand still hanging there in the air.

  The way you did when you didn’t want an opponent to help you up sometimes.

  It didn’t matter whose fault the bad snap was, not to Ben, anyway. All that mattered was that it was 12–12 and they still had a quarter left to play. The season really had started now. Big-time.

  The Eagles got the ball back, made a couple of first downs. Had to punt. Same with the Rams. Two first downs, moved it into Eagles’ territory. Sam had to punt.

  There were three minutes to go when Midvale punted again, Ben having to make a fair catch because this time the kid had kicked the ball short and insanely high. Ball on the Rockwell forty-nine-yard line. All that green in front of them.

  Tie game.

  Ben looked over into the stands and saw Lily sitting with his parents. She smiled and pointed at him with both her index fingers. He quickly did the same, back at her, hoping nobody saw. Wanting to tell her she’d been right again, it really did feel like Christmas morning now.

  As the rest of the offense came out on the field, Coach O’Brien came about ten yards out with them, telling them that Darrelle and Kevin Nolti, the other fullback, would be bringing in the plays. Telling them to run the plays like they did in practice. Telling them there was plenty of time to win the game.

  “This is why anybody ever goes to the trouble of putting on all this equipment in the first place,” Coach said.

  He put his hand out. They put theirs in on top of it.

  Coach said, “Do I even have to ask who wants it more?”

  On the way out for first down, Coop said, “That was what Mrs. McCloskey would call a rhetorical question in English, you know.”

  Ben said, “Coop, no kidding, you’re like half a genius.”

  “We might as well go ahead and win this sucker,” Coop said. “Right?”

  “Another rhetorical question,” Ben said.

  Coop said, “You think anybody else in town is having this much fun right now?”

  “Not,” Ben said, “if they’re playing for Midvale.”

  Ben took a pitch from Shawn and ran eight yards before getting knocked out of bounds. Kevin ran for three. First down. Ben again, running right behind Coop this time for five. Then three more, off tackle.

  The Eagles were still bigger. They could see that the Rams were running it on every down, whether they were in a pass formation or not.

  But couldn’t stop the Rams now. It was as if Coach wasn’t going to start throwing again, or try to start throwing again, until the guys on Midvale’s defense showed they could stop the run.

  Coming back to the huddle after his second-down carry, Ben shot a look at Coach O’Brien, who looked like the calmest guy at The Rock, as if this was exactly where he wanted to be, too.

  Or maybe, Ben thought, he just looked like somebody who had been here before.

  Darrelle ran for the first down on third and two. The Rams at the Midvale twenty-five-yard line. Minute and a half to play. Coach decided to call one of the two time-outs he had left, motioning Shawn over to where he was standing on the sideline, then staring back at the clipboard with their plays on it.

  When Shawn got back to the huddle, Ben said, “Any words of wisdom from your dad?”

  “He told me he wants Darrelle to stay in for now,” Shawn said. “So he gave me the four plays he wants us to run that he says are going to win the game.”

  “That’s being pretty positive,” Ben said.

  “No,” Shawn said. “That’s just him being Dad.”

  This time Darrelle ran right up the middle behind Coop, for seven yards. They were inside the twenty now. Ben took another pitch from Shawn, running to his left this time, thought he might have enough of an opening to go all the way until their safety broke a block and shoved him out at the ten.

  Minute left.

  But then the Eagles’ middle linebacker just planted Darrelle on first down, behind the line, almost hitting him before Shawn could hand him the ball. Two-yard loss. Shawn called the fourth play his dad had given him, handoff to Ben, with the option of taking it inside or outside their right tackle, Jack Wills. He took it outside. Again he thought he saw an opening. This time somebody tripped him up from behind, Ben going down at the Eagles’ eight-yard line.

  Third and goal.

  Thirty seconds left.

  Coach O’Brien called his last time-out.

  Coach smiling at Shawn when he came over to him, putting both hands on his son’s shoulders, obviously telling him the two plays he wanted Shawn to run, then leaning close to Shawn’s face mask and saying one more thing before he sent him back out on the field.

  “What did your dad say?” Ben said.

  “He told me now I’ve got two plays to win the game,” Shawn said. “But Dad says I’ll only need the first one.”

  When Shawn called out “Sprint Left, Throw Back Right,” Ben thought: Love it. Shawn was supposed to take the snap from Coop, roll to his left like he planned to run, stop, turn, throw it back across the field to Ben, who was supposed to be hanging around pretty much where he was when the ball had been snapped.

  The play was always money in practice.

  Better yet, it was a short, safe throw, and even though Ben knew he’d have downfield blocking if he needed it, Coach counted on Ben not needing it, counted on Ben’s speed being all he needed to win the game.

  “You get it to me,” Ben said, “I’ll get it in.”

  Then, one last time, Cheerleader Ben said to his quarterback, “Relax and just let it happen.”

  Shawn ran hard to his left after taking the snap, selling the run like a champ. He knew he wasn’t supposed to rush, that the defense had to bite, and didn’t have to rush, because he had room and time.

  At just the right moment, he stopped suddenly and threw.

  Just not to Ben.

  To the Midvale safety.

  The fastest guy on their team.

  Ben never saw the kid, No. 8, coming. Neither did Shawn, who’d just turned and thrown without checking the defense.

  But somehow the safety read the play all the way. On TV, the announcers talked about defensive backs “jumping the route.” That was what No. 8 on Midvale had done. Maybe he’d just guessed right. Or maybe he was smart enough to be spying Ben, saw Ben waiting for the ball.

  “Players make plays,” Ben’s dad always liked to say when they’d be watching a game together and something great would happen.

  The kid caught the ball in stride the way Ben had caught the punt he’d returned for a touchdown, already at top speed when he took the ball right out of Ben’s hands. By the time Ben’s brain had processed what had happened, the safety — as tall as Sam, as fast as Sam, which meant as fast as Ben — had at least a ten-yard lead on him.

  Trying to take it to the house.

  Anoth
er thing the announcers liked to say.

  Ben McBain put his head down and ran as hard as he could, as hard as he had all day. As fast as he could. Feeling like he was starting to make up a little ground by the time the big kid from Midvale crossed midfield. Figuring Sam was probably chasing, too. But Sam had started even farther behind the play, in the end zone when Shawn threw the pick, right before the whole day had started going the wrong way.

  Unless Ben could catch the No. 8 in red.

  Knowing that if he didn’t catch him, nobody on his team was going to, either.

  Ben finally got as close as he was going to get just inside the Rams’ ten-yard line, the kid with the ball having just looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was gaining on him.

  Now or never.

  Ben launched himself, trying somehow to make himself longer than he really was, got his hand on an ankle, just enough to knock him off balance.

  Then watched from the ground as the kid stumbled and started to lose his balance, started to go down himself.

  But not until he managed to fall across the goal line with the touchdown that made it 18–12 for Midvale.

  The Rams got in one last play after Ben picked up the squibbed kickoff, managed to return it just past midfield.

  Shawn took the snap and ran around and tried to throw it as far as he could to Sam Brown. But as strong as Shawn’s arm was, even at eleven, he couldn’t throw it nearly far enough. The ball ballooned on him a little bit and came down at the Midvale twenty-five. Sam managed to outjump the three defensive backs around him and come down with the ball. But got tackled right away, what looked like a mile from the end zone.

  Sam was sitting on the ground with the ball still in his hands as the refs blew the whistle that meant the game was over and they’d lost.

  It was usually one of the things Ben McBain loved about sports, how the very next thing that happened in a game — the game you were playing or the game you were watching — could be the one that changed everything.

  But what he’d said to Lily turned out to be right: It wasn’t nearly as much fun when it happened to you the way it had just happened in the Midvale game. Happened to you and happened to your team. When you were that close to being 1–0 and walked off the field 0–1 instead.

  Coach had told them at halftime not to hang their heads. But it seemed as if they were all doing that now as they got into the line to shake hands with the Midvale Eagles. The day had changed to great for them at the very end, they were the ones who had seen a last-second loss turn into a last-second win.

  Ben had looked around for Shawn after Sam caught his Hail Mary pass, but couldn’t find him right away, maybe because the Midvale guys had run out to the middle of the field, celebrating as if they’d won a championship instead of just the first game of the year.

  But Ben, even at his age, knew that sports could do that to you. Winning the game you’d just played, especially the way the Eagles had just won, could make you feel as if you’d just won the Super Bowl.

  That’s what they were feeling in the handshake line after the game.

  While the line kept moving, Ben waiting to shake hands with the safety who’d scored the winning touchdown, tell him what a filthy play he’d made — “filthy” being the highest possible praise — Ben turned his head and finally spotted Shawn.

  Only he wasn’t behind him in the line, he was all the way on the other side of the field, alone on the Rockwell side, sitting at the end of the bench, head down, slapping his hands hard on the sides of his helmet.

  It wasn’t a rule that you had to shake hands with the players on the other team, win or lose. But Ben knew it was just something you did.

  Ben could even see Coach O’Brien now up in front, congratulating the Midvale coach.

  Finally it was Ben’s turn to shake the safety’s hand.

  “Ben McBain,” he said, introducing himself even though they’d just played a whole game against each other. “And hey? Let’s do this again in the championship game.”

  “Brian DeBartolo,” the other boy said. “And about the championship game? I’m totally down with that.”

  Ben knew he was holding things up, didn’t care. “That play you made, it was, like, mad crazy,” he said.

  “Lucky guess,” Brian said. “I just figured that when the game was on the line, they were going to you. And when your QB turned, he was only looking at you.”

  When he’d finished shaking everybody’s hand, telling them good game, there was a moment, as Ben took the long walk back to the Rams’ bench, when he tried to remember what he’d felt like in the morning. Before. But right now he couldn’t, as hard as he tried. Truth was, he felt as bad as Shawn looked, still sitting there, same spot, end of the bench.

  Even Coach O’Brien didn’t go over there, as if he knew this was a time to leave his own son alone. Ben knew with his own parents: It was one of the things parents seemed to know. Not always. But sometimes they just seemed to know when there was a force field around you.

  So he just motioned the rest of the guys to gather around him in front of the bench, as if Shawn wasn’t even a part of the team in that moment. Or maybe Coach just knew he could say whatever he wanted to say to Shawn later.

  “Listen, guys,” Coach said, “losing the first one this way will just make winning the first one next week even sweeter.”

  Then: “I’m not looking to give you a pep talk right now. Mostly because you don’t want one. And I’m not gonna lie to you, it stinks having one get ripped away from us that way. But it’s one game. Be proud of the way you fought back today, be proud of the way you took it down the field the way you did at the end. I knew we had talent with this group. Now I find out how much character you’ve all got. See you Monday at practice.”

  Ben wanted to go over and say something to Shawn, felt like he ought to say something. But before he had the chance, he watched Shawn stand up, take off his helmet, start walking by himself toward the parking lot.

  And Ben knew what he wanted to say: That they won as a team and lost as a team, and not to be too hard on himself, they could all probably go back and find something, a play or two, that could have had them ahead before they tried to drive the ball down the field at the end.

  Too late. Ben didn’t want to make a show out of running to catch up with him. So he let him go, watched him take the long walk across the soccer field at The Rock and then the baseball field on the other side of that, to the parking lot where his dad’s SUV was, Shawn getting smaller the farther away he got from the game he’d just played.

  Looking to Ben in that moment as if he’d lost more than a football game.

  The next thing Ben saw was Shawn’s helmet flying through the air, bouncing high off the concrete in the parking lot, like that was his last bad pass of the game.

  Ben couldn’t stop thinking about how mad Shawn looked after the game. Like he was mad at the world. He thought about calling him Saturday night, just to see how he was doing, decided to leave it alone.

  But after church on Sunday morning he told his mom that he was going to take a ride over to Shawn’s house on his bike.

  His mom said, “Don’t you want to try calling him first?”

  Ben said, “I’m afraid that if I do, he’ll tell me not to come.”

  She smiled. “Like that would ever stop you.”

  “He makes it rough to like him sometimes. Really rough. But I just feel like I gotta do something, just to be a good teammate.”

  “Not ‘good,’ pal. Great. You’re a great teammate.”

  They were both at the kitchen table, Ben having gotten out of his church clothes as though somebody had a clock on him, and having just polished off two bowls of cereal. His mom was cutting up fruit for the big fruit salad she made every Sunday to go with lunch.

  She stopped for a moment, looked over at Ben. “I have to say, though, sometimes I think sports is way too important to you boys.”

  Ben shook his head. “Sports are important, y
eah, I hear you,” he said. “But I don’t think too important. You know how much I hate to lose, but it’s not like I come home and you can’t get me to come out of my room.”

  “That’s just because no one would want to stay in that room for an extended period of time,” she said, smiling at him. “The smell of the dirty socks alone …”

  “Good one, Mom, no kidding, never heard that one before.”

  “Go on over there before you change your mind,” she said. “And make sure you’re back in time for lunch.”

  But when he got up he said to her, “Before I go, we need to do one more thing. So turn around.”

  “We just did this yesterday.”

  Ben said, “I’m feeling taller today.”

  Beth McBain turned around. So did her son. They got back-to-back and then Ben put his palm flat on top of his head and moved it back until he touched his mom’s head. Measuring his height against hers.

  “Getting closer,” she said. “Definitely getting closer.”

  “Not close enough,” he said.

  “Go try to be Shawn’s friend,” she said. “You know what your old mom says about random acts of kindness.”

  “They turn us all into giants,” Ben said, and then went to get his bike out of the garage.

  Ben had never been to Shawn’s house, but he knew where it was, a few blocks from where Coop lived at the north end of Rockwell.

  Coop had seen the house, said he and his dad had walked over there to check it out one night after the O’Briens had moved in, having heard how big the place was.

  “My dad,” Coop had said, “said he wanted to go inside sometime just to see where the gift shop is.”

  And every kid in school had heard about the fifty-yard turf field at the back of the property, with goalposts and yard lines and, according to Shawn’s buds who had seen the field, even an electronic scoreboard.

  But as big as Coop said Shawn’s house was, it was even bigger to Ben’s eyes. If there was anything bigger than this in the whole town of Rockwell, Ben sure hadn’t ever seen it. There was a gate near the road, where you had to be buzzed in, and what looked like a driveway that stretched nearly all the way to Darby.