With the score 56–10 and the stands just about empty, Tom got a surprise when Coach Cruikshank walked over to where he was standing with Jason—who hadn’t blocked another kick, in large part because there wasn’t any real need for the desperate move he’d made the previous week, but also because a blocker was assigned to him on every punt and on the two South Hill place kicks.
“What do you think, Roddin? Wanna go in and finish up?” the coach asked.
Billy Bob, who was also standing there, looked a little bit surprised, but said nothing.
Jason glanced at Billy Bob, then nodded. “Sure, Coach,” he said. “As long as Billy Bob doesn’t mind.”
“Anderson doesn’t have a vote in this,” Coach Cruikshank said—though he was smiling when he said it. “Go on—run the fullback dive, and try to stay out of trouble.”
Jason went in with 2:11 on the clock. He handed off to third-string fullback Emerson Snell three times and, on third and three, Snell just barely picked up the first down. At that point, the coaches ordered “victory formation,” since only one more play was needed to run out the clock. Jason took the snap with the entire backfield lined up deep behind him and dropped to one knee. He flipped the ball to the referee and jogged to the sideline to join Tom, Billy Bob, and Anthony for the postgame handshakes.
“After that performance, you might start next week,” Tom joked.
“Probably play ahead of me,” Billy Bob said—not smiling.
“Well, you’re all playing a lot more than I am,” Tom said. He was smiling, even if he didn’t mean it.
* * *
The locker room was subdued, with very little celebrating, because the players understood the win didn’t mean very much.
Coach Johnson told them, “The season begins Monday at practice.”
The game against Culpeper Prep the next Friday would be the first of eight straight games in the Virginia 5-A Prep School League—the VPSL in jock vernacular.
Since this was TPG’s first year in the league, it was also the first year it would be eligible to win a state title. But it would have to win the league to qualify for the playoffs.
The media contingent was tiny compared to the week before. Tom, Jason, Billy Bob, and Anthony walked past the handful of reporters without anyone so much as glancing in their direction.
“Guess your fifteen minutes are over,” Tom said.
“Fifteen minutes?” Jason asked.
“Andy Warhol, famous artist,” Tom said. “He once said that in the future everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame. Looks like your time is up.”
“Guess so,” Jason said, laughing.
“Yeah,” Billy Bob added. “If only you’d blocked their field goal, we could have won fifty-six to seven, and then they’d have been all over you.”
Tom was about to point out that it would be some sort of record to block two field goals in two attempts when his phone started buzzing. Figuring it was his parents checking in, he pulled it from his pocket. It was David Teel.
“Did you get in at all?” the reporter asked when Tom answered.
“Nope,” Tom said. “But Jason got four snaps at quarterback.”
“How much did Billy Bob and Anthony play?”
“Anthony a lot—every other series until the starters got pulled. Billy Bob, not so much.”
The others were looking at Tom quizzically. He held up a finger and indicated they should all keep walking.
“Yeah, figures,” Teel said. “Bobo isn’t going to admit he’s playing the wrong quarterback until he has no choice.”
“Which could be next week,” Tom said.
“True that,” Teel said. “Listen, Robinson’s come up with a pretty good idea for us to see you on Sunday without raising suspicion.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s going to write a story about a week in the life of a sudden hero. How was last week different for Jason at TGP as opposed to the first two weeks?”
“Very,” Tom said, not realizing the question was rhetorical until he’d already responded.
“Yeah, exactly. So Robinson’s going to need to talk to Jason, to his roommate, and to his closest friends to do the story.”
“What about you?”
“No,” Teel said. “Robinson and I can’t keep writing the same story. I’ll meet you guys at lunch like last week, but they don’t need to know I’m involved at all.”
“They like Tom Robinson.”
“They dislike him less than they dislike me. They don’t like any of us.”
“So what do we do?”
“Nothing. Robinson will make the request tomorrow and point out it needs to be Sunday because he’s covering UVA tomorrow. I would imagine it won’t be a problem. They like puffy-sounding pieces. He’ll pick you up the same as last week. He’ll borrow my SUV so there’ll be room for Anthony.”
“Good,” Tom said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Teel said. “Stay out of trouble the next couple of days.”
He hung up. Tom caught up to the other three and reported what Teel had said.
“So,” Jason said, laughing, “I guess my fifteen minutes aren’t quite over yet.”
“Don’t get carried away with yourself,” Tom said, giving him a look.
“Not much chance of that,” Jason said.
Tom knew that was true. Although it occurred to him that if they continued with their investigation they might all be in for a lot more than fifteen minutes of fame.
Or infamy.
PART 3
18
Jason woke up the next morning to find an e-mail from Ed Seaman, the TGP communications director, telling him that Tom Robinson had requested an interview with him for Sunday to talk about his “week as a hero.”
“As always, it is up to you whether to accept the invitation,” Mr. Seaman wrote. “He has also requested that Mr. Anderson and your friends Jefferson and Ames join you for a group interview. He can pick you up at one o’clock since, of course, we don’t allow nonfamily onto the campus on Sunday until then.”
Of course we don’t, Jason thought. He e-mailed back that he’d be glad to talk to Mr. Robinson. He was tempted to ask why Billy Bob rated being called “Mr.” and Tom and Anthony didn’t, but he resisted. His dad had a saying: “Choose your battles.” This wasn’t one he wanted or needed to fight. There were bigger ones ahead.
They passed a quiet Saturday, catching up on studies, staying inside for the most part because it was raining again. The campus felt empty with so many of the upperclassmen gone for the weekend.
Jason wished there was a way to talk to Jimmy Gomez and Juan del Potro before their meeting with the reporters to find out if they knew more about Mr. Gatch’s relationship with David Duke. He had accused Tom of jumping at shadows, but somehow he couldn’t get those same shadows out of his own mind.
* * *
On Sunday, Jason, Tom, Billy Bob, and Anthony skipped lunch in the dining hall since they were going to be eating with Teel and Robinson. Billy Bob and Anthony had changed from their jacket-and-tie church clothes to T-shirts and shorts. The rain had stopped, but it was another warm, dreary late-summer day in central Virginia.
Robinson was waiting for them on the same bench where they had met eight days earlier. Everyone quickly piled into Teel’s car. None of the coaches were working today—or at least none of their cars were there. Again the reporter’s car was the only one in the lot.
They small-talked en route to Charlottesville, Robinson filling them in on Virginia’s overtime loss to Richmond.
“Not a good start for a new coaching staff to lose at home to a I-AA team,” Robinson said. “They were beaten soundly.”
“Don’t they call I-AA something else now?” Tom asked.
He and Jason were in the backseat. Anthony, in deference to his size, was up front, and Billy Bob was in the way back.
“Yeah, FCS, which stands for Football Championship Subdivision,” Robinso
n said. “Typical NCAA. They don’t want anyone to imply that somehow there are different levels of college football—even though there clearly are.”
“So what do they call Division I now?” Jason asked.
Tom knew that one. “FBS,” he said. “Football Bowl Subdivision. Since the power schools play bowl games, they call it that as opposed to FCS, which has an actual championship tournament.”
“Sounds pretty silly to me,” Anthony said.
“You got that right,” Robinson said.
When they arrived, they found Teel holding the same booth in the back that they’d used on their previous trip to the Biltmore.
“I got here early because I figured it would be crowded,” Teel said. “And it was packed. I just now sat down.”
They ordered quickly since it was already one-thirty and the boys, having skipped lunch at school, were starving. Except for Anthony. He’d eaten in the dining hall but was ready, willing, and able to eat again.
“So where do we begin?” Teel asked.
Tom was the keeper of the rooming lists. He pulled them out and went over the numbers.
“Well, we found pretty much the same thing,” Teel said. “We talked to”—he glanced down at his notebook—“a total of twenty-three TGP graduates: eighteen football players and five basketball players. None of them ever roomed with someone of a different race.”
“So where do we think that leaves us?” Robinson said, looking at Teel. “What’s our next move?”
Tom cleared his throat. Jason knew what was coming.
“You guys ever hear of David Duke?” Tom asked.
The reporters looked baffled for a second. Then Teel said, “The KKK guy?”
Tom nodded.
“What about him?” Robinson said. “Don’t tell me that bozo has got some connection to Bobo.”
“No, not that we know of,” Tom said. “But the former grand wizard was, at least once upon a time, some kind of acquaintance of the proud founder of Thomas Gatch Prep.”
Teel and Robinson looked slightly stunned.
Teel turned to Robinson and said, “You remember the famous line from Watergate, when the Washington Post city editor—”
“Barry Sussman,” Tom said, apparently knowing where his reporter friend was going.
“Who’s Barry Sussman?” Jason asked.
“He was Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s original editor when the Watergate break-in happened forty-five years ago,” Robinson said. “At one point, after Woodward and Bernstein had broken one of the first big stories connecting the Nixon White House to the break-in, Sussman looked at them and said, ‘We’ve never had a story like this. Just never.’”
He reopened his notebook.
“Tell us more, Tom,” he said. “Tell us everything.”
* * *
It didn’t take Tom long to retell what he had found in the New Orleans paper.
It was all news to Teel and Robinson.
“You’ve never heard anything about this?” Tom asked, truly surprised.
“Nothing,” Robinson said. “Not a word.”
“Of course, it isn’t the kind of thing you go looking for,” Teel said. “We don’t vet heads-of-schools all that closely to begin with. It isn’t as if they’re running for office.”
“What’s vet mean?” Anthony asked.
“It means you check someone’s background,” Teel said. “When someone applies for a job, they’re vetted. When someone runs for office, they’re vetted in even more detail.”
“Don’t they put that stuff in their application for a job?” Jason said, still curious.
“They do, but history shows that job applicants aren’t always honest,” Robinson said. “A guy named George O’Leary was hired as Notre Dame’s football coach years ago. After they hired him, they found out he’d lied on his résumé about playing college football.”
“What difference did that make if he was a good coach?” Anthony asked.
“None,” said Robinson. “In fact, O’Leary ended up getting hired at Central Florida a couple of years later and was very successful. But the issue was that he had lied.”
“Central Florida didn’t seem to care, did it?” Billy Bob asked.
Teel smiled. “Winning games makes up for most sins in sports,” he said.
“Witness our coach,” Tom said.
“Not to mention, perhaps, your school’s founder,” Teel added.
By the time they’d finished the hamburgers and french fries they all ordered, their updated plan was in place. Teel and Robinson were going to look further into Mr. Gatch’s background to see if there was anyone still at LSU who remembered him—even though he’d graduated more than forty years ago, meaning that was a long shot. More relevant might be talking to people at Metairie Christian: there were bound to be at least a few people still there who had worked with him.
“Might even be worth trying to talk to David Duke,” Teel said.
“It’s worth a try,” Robinson said. “Long shot, but this whole story started out as a long shot.”
“What do you mean?” Anthony asked.
It was Tom who answered. “It’s the twenty-first century in America, and we’re talking about a high school sports story that might include the words Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party,” he said. “That’s a long shot.”
Jason smiled. As usual, his buddy was exactly right. He hadn’t even mentioned that the story with those words centered on a coach named Bobo.
The waitress returned and they all ordered dessert.
“Before we go,” Billy Bob said, “you guys better ask us some questions about the heroic Jason Roddin.”
“Almost forgot,” Robinson said. He pulled his notebook back out.
Jason couldn’t help but laugh. “You guys gotta admit, this isn’t your typical day,” he said.
“How so?” Robinson said.
“One minute you’re talking about tracking down a guy in the Ku Klux Klan, the next you’re interviewing Jason Roddin and friends.”
* * *
Tom Robinson’s story in the next day’s Virginian-Pilot was glowing enough that Jason received considerable ribbing about it when he walked into the locker room before practice. Ever helpful, Billy Bob had sent the entire team a link to the story as soon as it was posted on the Internet.
When Jason and Tom arrived on the practice field, they found Coach Gutekunst waiting for them—actually, he was waiting for Jason.
“Ever return kicks, Roddin?” the coach asked, throwing an arm around Jason and guiding him away from Tom.
“No, sir,” Jason said.
The seven-on-seven camp hadn’t included any special-teams work. The only kicks Jason had ever returned were in Riverside Park, playing touch football growing up. He’d been good at it—if only because he was faster than everyone else.
“Well, starting today, when we get to the special-teams phase of practice, you’re going to alternate with Solo and Quinn returning punts.”
Ray Solo was the team’s punt returner. Matt Quinn was his backup and usually stood seven yards in front of Solo in case of a short kick. Both were backup wide receivers without much speed, but with excellent hands.
“We want to see how well you can catch a punt,” Coach Gutekunst said. “Coach Ingelsby remembered you had decent hands as a receiver when you were here for seven-on-seven. Given your speed, you might be able to help us.” He paused, then added, “We aren’t going to rush you into anything. Solo and Quinn are reliable. They don’t fumble, which, honestly, is the most important thing for a punt returner. But if you can catch a punt with eleven guys bearing down on you, well, with your speed you might be able to help.”
Jason wasn’t so sure about the “eleven guys bearing down on you” part, but he figured anything that might get him on the field for something other than trying to block field goals or handing off during mop-up time was worth attempting. Then he thought of Tom, who had yet to see the field at all.
“Whatever you s
ay, Coach,” he said. “I’ll give it a shot.”
He jogged over to join everyone else just as they were all lining up to stretch.
“What was that all about?” Tom asked.
“They want to see if I can return punts,” Jason said. “Coach Ingelsby remembered from the seven-on-seven camp that I could catch the ball pretty well.”
Tom grunted. “Did he remember who was throwing you the ball most of the time?”
Jason glanced at Tom to see if he was smiling. He wasn’t.
“Maybe I should remind them.”
“Lot of good that will do,” Tom said.
Then, to Jason’s surprise, his friend did smile.
“What?” Jason asked.
“Nothing,” Tom said. Then he added, “Maybe Tom Robinson’s story next week can be THE LEGEND CONTINUES.”
He was still smiling when he said it, but Jason sensed he wasn’t being funny.
The whistle blew. Jason got into position, but his mind wasn’t on the coach bellowing instructions at them to bend left—now, right! It was on his best friend. He was clearly frustrated and unhappy. But could he also be jealous?
Impossible, he thought. Or hoped.
19
Coach Gutekunst was as good as his word about not rushing Jason into the art of punt returning.
On Monday and Tuesday he was asked to catch the ball and then run a few steps with no one trying to tackle him. It wasn’t until Wednesday that he actually attempted to catch a punt with people running at him. Each returner was asked to catch six punts in a row. After Ray and Matt had finished their turns, Jason took their place.
“Just fair-catch the first one,” Coach Gutekunst told him. “Remember, look up at the ball, take a quick glance at the rush, then find the ball again in the air.”
Jason tried, but when he looked down and then back up again, he had trouble refinding the ball. It sailed over his head. The second time, he found the ball in time to get to it, then dropped it after putting his arm into the air to signal for the fair catch.
Backfield Boys Page 14