“You think Coach Johnson will put Billy Bob in soon?” Tom asked. He had watched Thompson overthrow open receivers on three occasions already—all throws he was certain both he and Billy Bob would have made with ease. Heck, he thought, even Jason could make those throws.
“As long as they don’t show any sign of being able to move the ball on our defense, I think he sticks with Thompson,” Anthony said. “But he’s got to put Billy Bob in at some point. We’re not beating anybody good with Thompson at QB.”
“We might not be beating these guys if Joey Wootten was playing,” Jason said. “Their backup is—”
He cut himself off just as Thompson overthrew Bobby Richardson so badly that the ball went right into the chest of a DeMatha cornerback, who quickly returned it from his own 5-yard line to the TGP 45.
“He’s awful,” Tom said, disgusted.
“Hey, Jefferson,” someone said, coming up from behind and grabbing him roughly by the shoulder. “If you think you can do better, prove it in practice. If not, shut up and show some support for your teammates.”
It was Coach Reilly, the receivers coach.
“If I had the—” Tom started to answer, but Anthony reached his long arm around his roommate and clapped his hand over his mouth.
“You’re right, Coach,” Anthony said. “We all just want to win the game, right?”
Reilly glared at Anthony. “Let him go,” he said. “If he has something to say, let him say it.”
Reluctantly, Anthony dropped his hand from Tom’s mouth.
Tom was calmer now, but he still wanted to tell Coach Reilly he could go in the game right now without having taken a single snap at quarterback and play better than Thompson. He stood there, staring at the coach, saying nothing.
“Well, Jefferson? What did you want to say?” Reilly said.
“Nothing, Coach,” Tom said. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Coach Reilly said. “Last thing we need around here are mouthy freshmen.”
He turned away, and Anthony grabbed Tom again, just in case.
“I’m fine,” Tom said angrily, pushing Anthony away.
“No you’re not,” Jason said, stepping in front of Tom—also just in case. “You want to slug him. And I don’t blame you.”
“Let’s pick our fight in a way we can win,” Billy Bob added. “Right here, right now, we’ve got no shot.”
“Sort of like Ronnie Thompson at quarterback,” Anthony said—and the tension broke.
He was, of course, right.
* * *
The score was tied 7–7 at halftime. In the locker room, Coach Johnson tore into the offensive line, insisting they had to give their quarterback better protection.
Coach Johnson pointed at Coach Marco Thurman, one of the four African American assistants, who served as the offensive line coach. “Coach, you need to get your boys back on track for the second half. Thompson needs more time to make good decisions.”
Tom almost smirked when he heard that. Thompson had been given plenty of time. Tom thought that the guy could have been given an hour to make a decision on each play and it wouldn’t make much difference.
“Why’s he so obsessed with not blaming Thompson?” Tom whispered to Jason, their cleats clattering against the concrete as they headed from the locker room back to the FieldTurf playing surface.
“Because he made the decision to keep us on the practice field Wednesday and he made the decision to start Thompson tonight,” Jason hissed back softly. “He’s never wrong, remember?”
“He’s going to have to make a decision to put Billy Bob in at some point if he wants to win this game,” Tom said.
That point came midway through the third quarter. DeMatha couldn’t do much against the Patriots’ defense, which, Tom knew, had nine serious Division I prospects among the eleven starters, but it didn’t have to—courtesy of TGP’s offense.
The Stags got the ball on the TGP 8-yard line when Thompson threw behind slotback Andy Thurston—who was in the game because of Kendall Franklin’s departure—and the officials ruled that he’d thrown the ball backward, making the pass a lateral and, thus, a free ball. One of the DeMatha players fell on it instantly.
Coach Johnson raged first at the officials and then at Thurston for somehow failing to catch a ball that looked to Tom as if it had been thrown two yards behind him.
“Am I nuts or was that pass completely uncatchable?” Tom said to Jason as Coach Johnson continued to poke his finger in Thurston’s chest, screaming something about the slotback’s “alligator arms.”
“He could have Michael Phelps’s arms and he couldn’t have caught that ball,” Jason said, referring to the swimming superstar who was six foot four but had the wingspan of someone six nine.
“It ain’t never the white guy’s fault ’round here, remember that, boys,” Billy Bob said, helmet in hand, emphasizing his Southern twang intentionally.
Tom was about to agree when they heard Coach Cruikshank’s voice cutting through the night air.
“Anderson!” he yelled. “Cut the talk and warm up. You might be in, next series.”
“Yes, sir,” Billy Bob said. And then to Tom he said, “Come on and play catch with me.”
The two of them went behind the bench and found a football.
“I guarantee you,” Billy Bob said as they began to walk away from each other, “that I’m only in if they score.”
A moment later, focused on tossing the ball back and forth with Billy Bob, Tom heard a roar from the small pocket of DeMatha fans seated on the far side of the field. He looked up in time to see the DeMatha players celebrating in the end zone.
“Looks like it’s your turn,” Tom said to Billy Bob—happy for him but intensely jealous, too.
DeMatha was lining up for the extra point when Tom and Billy Bob both heard Coach Cruikshank’s voice again.
“Anderson, you ready?” he said.
“Yes, Coach!” Billy Bob answered.
“Next series,” Coach Cruikshank said. With that, he turned away.
11
Almost from the minute Billy Bob stepped into the huddle, the tone of the game changed. Even from the sideline, Tom was convinced that the other ten players stood up straighter when he joined them, as if knowing the finger-pointing was about to end.
On the very first play, Billy Bob took the snap, sprinted right and, at the last possible second, pitched the ball to Andy Thurston. Not only did the pitch lead Thurston just right, but the timing was equally perfect—two defenders taking Billy Bob down just as he released the ball. Thurston picked up twenty-three yards—TGP’s longest gain of the night so far—rumbling across midfield to the DeMatha 48.
The crowd on the TGP side of the field came to life, the offense finally having given them something to cheer about. From there, the Patriots moved the ball steadily downfield. Twice on third down, Billy Bob faked a handoff to fullback Tad Edling and completed quick, two-step drop passes that picked up first downs.
Finally, on third down from the 1-yard line, he faked again to Edling, then followed him to the left into a huge hole. He scored standing up just as the third quarter ended. The extra point made the score 14–14.
“That’s the way to block,” Tom heard Coach Johnson say as the offense came off the field. One of the blockers on the series had been Anthony, who had gone into the game along with Billy Bob and another freshman lineman, center Billy Bryan.
“Miracle, isn’t it?” Jason said to Tom.
Billy Bob came over, taking his helmet off. “Now that was fun,” he said with a big grin.
“In case you didn’t hear Coach Johnson, it was all the blocking,” Tom said. They were standing far enough away from the coaches not to be overheard.
“You better believe it was the blocking,” Anthony said, joining them.
“Yeah, you’re right, Bryan did a great job opening up the middle,” Billy Bob said.
“Who’d you run behind on the touchdown?” Anthony
said, trying to suppress a grin.
“Tad Edling,” Billy Bob said, which was true, although they had run right into the left tackle hole—a hole cleared by left tackle Anthony Ames.
At that moment, Tom heard a sound he hadn’t heard very much in the past several days: laughter. It was coming from all four of them. It sounded pretty sweet.
* * *
The game wasn’t decided until the final minute. It looked as if TGP would take the lead on another long drive midway through the fourth quarter, but Tad Edling fumbled a handoff that was right in his stomach on the 11-yard line. He came off apologizing profusely. No one yelled at him. This wasn’t a good time for pointing fingers.
After the defense held, Billy Bob led a steady drive down the field, but again the offense stalled—this time because of a dropped pass and a ball that Billy Bob intentionally threw over everyone’s head in the end zone because no one was open.
Kicker Nick Stover came in to try a thirty-two-yard field goal. Nick was the nephew of Matt Stover, who had been one of the best kickers of his era with the Baltimore Ravens. He was already being looked at by colleges—Tom knew this from Billy Bob because the two had ridden to church together the previous Sunday—and Tom had seen Nick make fifty-yarders in practice. With almost no wind in the stadium, Stover boomed the kick through the uprights for a 17–14 lead with 2:31 to play.
“The DeMatha offense hasn’t done a thing all night,” Jason said to Tom. “That should be enough.”
Only it wasn’t that simple. Afraid to get burned by a deep pass, defensive coordinator Gerry McGee went to a prevent defense—dropping all the defensive backs deep and only rushing three linemen. When Tom and Jason and their dads had gathered on Sundays to watch the Jets play, the dads had called the so-called prevent defense the “prevent victory defense” because it seemed as if whenever the Jets went to it, the other team promptly marched down the field to score.
This was no different.
Given plenty of time because there was very little pass rush and with receivers open underneath the backpedaling TGP defenders, Donny Ferry all of a sudden looked like Tom Brady. Starting from his own 24, he began moving the ball steadily downfield in chunks of six, twelve, nine, and eleven yards. He had two time-outs left, and twice, after passes down the middle, he used them to stop the clock.
With twenty-seven seconds left, Ferry completed a quick out to one of his receivers, who picked up five yards and moved the ball to the 17-yard line. But Alan Inwood made a critical play, getting the receiver down before he could step out-of-bounds to stop the clock.
With time running down and no time-outs left, Donny Ferry quickly lined his team up and spiked the ball—stopping the clock—with six seconds left.
Tom was about to comment to Jason, Billy Bob, and Anthony that DeMatha had to go for the tying field goal on third down because even on an incomplete pass, they risked having the clock run out, when he saw special-teams coach Rich Gutekunst stalking in their direction.
“Roddin!” he yelled, pointing at Jason.
Jason must have thought that Coach Gutekunst was talking to someone else, because he stood rooted to the spot, not responding.
The coach walked up to Jason and screamed, “Where’s your helmet?”
“Um, on the bench,” Jason said, pointing to the far end of the bench, where the helmets that hadn’t been used by all the last-stringers were lined up.
“Get it!”
At that moment, as the DeMatha field goal unit was taking the field, Tom heard Coach Johnson call for time-out. That wasn’t unusual. It was standard practice at every level of football to try to freeze a kicker in the final seconds by making him wait before attempting a critical field goal. It was Coach Gutekunst screaming at Jason to get his helmet that Tom didn’t understand.
Jason grabbed the helmet and squeezed it onto his head as Coach Gutekunst put his hand on his shoulder.
“I know we haven’t practiced this at all,” the coach said. “But you’re the fastest guy we’ve got. I want you to line up on the outside left and, as soon as you hear the snap, run right at the kicker’s foot and block the kick. Have you ever blocked a kick?”
“No, sir.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Gutekunst said. “This kid hasn’t missed a kick inside the forty in two years. Get in there and block this one.”
To say that Jason looked like a deer in the headlights would have been a vast understatement. He looked more like a guy tied to the railroad tracks with a train bearing down on him.
Tom heard the referee’s whistle, signaling the end of the time-out.
“Get in there!” Coach Gutekunst screamed.
Jason answered by racing onto the field and lining up wide left as he’d been told. Tom, Billy Bob, and Anthony looked at one another.
“It’s actually a good idea,” Billy Bob said. “Worst case, he doesn’t block it. No big deal.”
The ball was snapped. Tom saw Jason sprint around a DeMatha player—who made a halfhearted attempt to block him—and dive, as instructed, right in front of where the holder had placed the ball to be kicked.
The ball came off the kicker’s foot and hit Jason’s outstretched hands. It spun wildly to the left, losing momentum not long after it crossed the line of scrimmage. It fell harmlessly to the ground, with several players scrambling to fall on top of it.
The clock was at zero. The ball was on the ground. The game was over. Tom heard screams of celebration around him and started onto the field to be part of the welcoming committee for Jason, the sudden hero.
But Jason wasn’t being welcomed by anyone. He was lying on the ground, facedown, not moving. The DeMatha kicker and holder were both kneeling next to him. Tom hustled toward his friend, with Billy Bob and Anthony right behind him.
“My foot caught him square on the chin on my follow-through,” the kicker was saying. “Didn’t mean it. He was just so close to the ball…”
He trailed off as coaches and the TGP trainers began arriving on the scene.
“We need Doc Mazzocca out here,” Tom heard Dave Billingsley say. “Let’s clear some space.”
That led to the coaches pushing back the players from both teams who had gathered around Jason as soon as they’d seen him not get up. Tom, Billy Bob, and Anthony all moved in a little bit closer with no objection from their teammates, who knew it was their friend on the ground.
Dr. Gus Mazzocca, who watched every game from the sidelines, arrived a moment later.
“Okay, good news—he’s conscious,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “But we need the EMTs right away.”
A trainer radioed for the emergency medical technicians. Tom had noticed the ambulance idling just outside the locker room before the game and knew that there was always an ambulance on-site in case of an emergency. Hearing Dr. Mazzocca call for them was a little bit frightening.
With help from the trainers, Dr. Mazzocca gently rolled Jason onto his back. Tom could see that his eyes were open as Dr. Mazzocca leaned down to talk to him.
Tom looked up as the ambulance came onto the field. He pushed past the coaches. He heard Dr. Mazzocca say, “No, Jason, don’t try to sit up. There’s no need. The ambulance is coming now—”
“Ambulance?” Tom heard Jason say, clear panic in his voice.
“We’re going to the hospital,” the doctor said. “I believe you’re fine, but I want to be a hundred percent sure, not ninety-nine percent.”
The trainer Dave Billingsley turned at that moment and saw Tom standing there, listening. “Get back, Jefferson,” he said, not roughly, but firmly.
“Mr. Billingsley, he’s my best friend. I gotta ask the doctor how he is so I can tell his parents.”
Dr. Mazzocca heard him and looked up.
“The school will be calling his parents immediately to let them know of this development. Standard protocol. Give me his parents’ number and I’ll call or text as soon as I can with more info,” he said.
Tom
gave him the digits, which the doctor scribbled into a pocket notepad.
The EMTs were now wheeling a stretcher up to where Jason was lying.
“Can I talk to him, just for a second?” Tom asked. “Please?”
Dr. Mazzocca gave him an understanding smile. “For a second,” he said.
Tom knelt quickly next to Jason, who smiled weakly at him.
“Did we win?” Jason asked.
“We won,” Tom said. “You’re the hero. I’ll call your parents.”
“Tell them I’m fine.”
Dr. Mazzocca had his hand on Tom’s shoulder.
“You need to give the EMTs some space now, son,” he said. “But you can come in the ambulance. We’ve got room for one teammate.”
“And that will be his roommate,” Tom heard a voice say.
He turned to see Coach Johnson glaring down at him.
Tom tried a bluff. “I’m his roommate,” he said, knowing that Billy Bob wouldn’t contradict him.
“No you’re not,” Coach Johnson said. He turned to the other players. “Who’s Rodding’s roommate?”
Jeesh, Tom thought, he just saved the game and you still don’t know how to say his name?
Billy Bob answered, “I am, Coach, but Tom’s his best friend. He should ride—”
“I’ll decide who rides,” Coach Johnson said. “You go ahead, Anderson. You can let everyone know how he is once he gets looked at in the hospital.”
Billy Bob glanced at Tom to see if he wanted him to argue more. Tom knew it would be fruitless. Making a scene here wouldn’t be a good idea.
The EMTs had Jason on the stretcher. He clearly wasn’t happy about it.
“I’m really okay now,” he insisted. “I just need some aspirin for the headache.”
The EMTs patted him lightly on the stomach and began moving him toward the ambulance.
The DeMatha kicker ran up to the stretcher. “Hey, I’m really sorry, man,” he said. “I didn’t mean to kick you. That was a hell of a play.”
Jason held his hand up so the kid could shake it. Then, with everyone applauding—both on the field and in the stands—he was loaded into the back of the ambulance.
Backfield Boys Page 9