“You can stop there,” Juan said. “The rest is just background fluff on what brilliant guys Johnson and Gatch are.”
“Well, if they pull something like this off, they’re certainly going to look pretty smart,” Tom said.
“Forget smart,” Billy Bob said. “Rich is better than smart.”
“Yeah,” Anthony said. “We’re all smart, but we’re a long way from rich.”
“So what does it all add up to?” Jason said. “I mean, to us?”
“Nothing,” Juan said. “And everything. It doesn’t change anything going on with the team day-to-day, but I’d say it does make it that much more important that you guys figure out a way to prove that Gatch and Johnson are what we think they are.”
“Because if we don’t, they’re both gonna be very rich, very soon—apparently,” Tom said.
“If going to Alabama means they’re both gone from here, is that a bad thing?” Anthony said. “New guy running the school, new coaches—might be the best thing that ever happened to us.”
They thought about that for a minute.
“Of course,” Anthony added, “there’s no guarantee. Those management companies only care about making money. Who knows what they’d do if they took over?”
“Exactly right,” Billy Bob said. “I read a book once where the writer was talking about agents and he said, ‘The only time you know for sure that they’re lyin’ is when their lips are moving.’”
“Sounds like they’d be perfect business partners for Gatch,” Jason said. “The question is, do we just sit back and watch while these guys walk out of here with millions when we’re all pretty certain they’re lowlifes?”
“Racist lowlifes,” Anthony added.
They all looked at one another.
“We have to let Teel and Robinson know that there’s no more time to waste,” Tom said.
He pulled out his phone and began writing a text.
22
Much to everyone’s chagrin, there wasn’t much Teel and Robinson could do at that moment. Both Virginia and Virginia Tech were starting Atlantic Coast Conference play on the road—Virginia Tech that night at Miami, Virginia on Saturday at North Carolina State—and they had to focus on those stories since far more of their readers were interested in that than a possible controversy, no matter how incendiary, at Thomas Gatch Prep.
The following week the two colleges had their home openers in conference play, and Teel and Robinson had to be all over those games, too. The TGP story would have to be put on hold, at least for a while.
That made for a long two weeks. TGP was in the midst of what amounted to two straight bye weeks, with games against teams that would finish at or near the bottom of the conference: Lynchburg Academy and James Madison Prep, which was located in Harrisonburg, near the college of the same name.
Neither game was close. The Patriots beat Lynchburg 31–7, a late touchdown angering Coach Johnson, who, hoping for another shutout, had left the defensive starters in during the fourth quarter.
A week later, the TGP players got their shutout against Madison Prep, although the offense sputtered through most of a 17–0 win.
Billy Bob never saw the field either night. He wasn’t needed. Anthony was now firmly established as a starter. Jason continued—without anything close to success—to try to block placekicks.
After the win at James Madison, Coach Johnson acted as if they’d lost the game. He still never mentioned the mediocre—to put it kindly—play of his quarterback.
“You’ll play next week,” Jason said to Billy Bob as they dressed.
“You think?”
Jason nodded. “Middleburg is six-and-oh, four-and-oh just like we are. They apparently have a really good quarterback. Ronnie Thompson can’t win that game.”
Tom was listening. “Yeah, that’ll be a real game,” he said. “Meantime, we’ve got to figure a way to talk to Teel and Robinson. Maybe they’ll be around next weekend.”
“About time,” Anthony said.
“Yeah,” Jason added. “Past time.”
* * *
Middleburg Prep was in northern Virginia, a reasonably long bus trip from TGP. The town was in what was referred to as “horse country”—an area about fifty miles from downtown Washington, D.C., that was filled with sprawling estates.
The bus ride to the school was supposed to take a little more than two hours, but, according to the coaches, traffic on a Friday was a potential issue. As a result, the team left at noon and drove not to the school, but to a place called the Salamander Resort.
Jason and Tom had stayed at some nice hotels with their parents on vacation. Jason was especially fond of the Marriott Long Wharf, right on the Boston Harbor. Tom had told him about a trip to Naples, Florida, when his dad had been able to cash in points from his many long nights on the road, and they had stayed at a Ritz-Carlton.
But neither of them had seen anything quite as swanky as the Salamander Resort.
“Place just kind of breathes money, doesn’t it?” Tom whispered to Jason as they walked down a long hallway to a dining room for their pregame meal.
The itinerary they’d been handed after getting on the bus said they’d eat their pregame meal upon arrival at two-thirty, and then they’d take the keys they had all been given as they walked into the lobby and go to their rooms to rest for a couple of hours. The bus would leave for the field at five. After the game, they’d come back to the Salamander and, rather than make the drive home that late, they’d spend the night. After breakfast in the morning, they’d head back to TGP.
When Jason and Billy Bob reached their room—which was about three times the size of their dorm room at school—Billy Bob shook his head.
“They must have gotten some kind of deal to pay for fifty rooms in this place,” he said as he plopped on the bed.
“What do you think a room goes for here?” Jason asked.
Billy Bob shrugged. “More than the Fairfield Inn in Gadsden,” he said. “I’ll guess four hundred.”
Jason thought that might be low. “Even if it’s five hundred, that’s still only about twenty-five grand. That’s less than one-half of one kid’s annual tuition. They can handle it.”
“Long as they have to handle it and not me,” Billy Bob said, laughing.
Because the team was spending the night at the Salamander, the original plan to talk to Teel and Robinson had changed. Rather than be rushed and worried about people noticing them talking, Teel and Robinson were going to pick them up at the hotel thirty minutes after the team returned there.
This idea had been hatched during a pre-breakfast phone call between Tom and Teel. Tom had decided to go for an early run since there were no classes post-tests that morning. Everyone had a free day—except for those on varsity teams.
Tom had run to the far side of campus. From there, with no one around, he’d called Teel. That was when Teel had told him what he and Robinson wanted to do. The boys would leave their rooms and exit through a back door of the hotel and then circle to the parking lot, where Teel and Robinson would be waiting in their cars. From there, Teel and Robinson had scouted a place that was a couple of miles away from the hotel that stayed open late on Friday night.
“He said we should leave by twos, not all together,” Tom had reported. “Maybe five minutes apart.”
“What if there are coaches in the lobby?” Billy Bob had asked.
“Just say you can’t sleep and you’re going for a walk,” Tom said. “Teel says there’s a lot of places to walk in the back of the resort.”
“How in the world does he know that?” Jason asked.
“Apparently the ACC held their preseason football media days up there a few years ago,” Tom said.
“Nice life those guys live,” Billy Bob said, about two seconds before Jason could say it.
“Well,” he said, “at least for one night, we’ll be living it, too.”
* * *
Middleburg Prep, according to the all-knowing Tom Je
fferson, had traditionally finished near the bottom of the Virginia Prep School Conference.
“Lotta rich white kids,” he said. “They’ve never really recruited much like the other schools do.”
Technically, high schools were not supposed to recruit. But it was a little bit like jay-walking in New York City. Everybody did it, and no one got ticketed for it.
That had changed in the past two years, though, after Middleburg hired a former University of Maryland assistant coach named Bill Hamer as their new coach. Hamer was known, according to Tom’s research, as a great recruiter. A year earlier, Middleburg had gone 4–3 in conference play—the first time it had ever had a winning record against its prep school rivals.
The Colts were also 6–0 and 4–0 coming into the game, which would explain why Coach Johnson had said all week, “You older guys, this is not the Middleburg team you’ve played in the past.”
For once, he wasn’t exaggerating. Middleburg had a quarterback named Drew Whitlock, whom the D.C.-area media had labeled “the Flash.” He was a blur on most plays, getting to the edges so fast he almost didn’t need blockers. With Whitlock carrying the ball on nine of eleven plays, the Colts scored on their first possession to lead 7–0 and then, after TGP’s offense had stalled near midfield, Whitlock had taken off on first down from his own 12-yard line and had simply outrun the entire TGP defense to the goal line.
Seven minutes into the game, the Patriots trailed 14–0.
“He can’t wait until the second half to put Billy Bob in tonight,” Jason said softly to Tom after returning to the sidelines following another futile attempt at blocking an extra point.
In response, Tom just nodded in the direction of the coaches—Johnson, Ingelsby, and Cruikshank, who were talking intently to one another up near the 50-yard line. Coach Cruikshank was clearly animated, gesturing with his hands and raising his voice—though not loud enough for Jason and Tom to hear.
Finally, Coach Johnson pointed a finger directly at Coach Cruikshank and leaned into him. A moment later, Coach Cruikshank shook his head in apparent disgust and walked away.
“How’s your lipreading?” Jason asked Tom.
“Don’t need to read lips,” Tom said. “Coach Cruikshank wanted Billy Bob in the game now, and Coach Johnson said no.”
“And a few extra words for emphasis,” Jason said.
A moment later, Billy Bob strolled up, a smile on his face. He had been standing a few yards away from the heated conversation.
“So what happened?” Jason asked.
“Let me quote the esteemed Coach James ‘Bobo’ Johnson for you boys,” he said. “‘He’ll go in the blanking game when I say he goes in the blanking game. When you get a head coaching job, Cruikshank, you can have the blanking final word. But blanking not until then.’”
“Well, at least he made himself clear,” Tom said.
They heard a roar go up from the crowd. Ray Solo had fumbled the kickoff, and Middleburg had recovered.
“You better be ready,” Tom said. “They score again, and he’s not going to have a blanking choice.”
Except that Coach Johnson did, it seemed, have a choice.
The Colts needed only three plays to punch the ball into the end zone. Whitlock carried on every play. Even though the TGP defense knew he was going to keep the ball, no one could catch him.
After the extra point there was no sign of Coach Cruikshank trying to convince Coach Johnson to change quarterbacks again and, at least as far as Jason could see, no one had come close to Billy Bob to even suggest he get warmed up.
* * *
By halftime, the Flash had scored his fourth touchdown of the night and, when he led his team down the field in the final minute to the 15-yard line to set up a buzzer-beating field goal, the halftime margin was a stunning 31–0. A chant of “Overrated!” came from the Middleburg crowd, alluding to the fact that TGP had been ranked fifth that week in the USA Today national high school poll.
“It’s almost like Coach Johnson doesn’t care if we win the game,” said Anthony, who had played most of the first half, as they trudged slowly to the locker room.
“If we want to win a state championship, we can’t do it without winning the conference,” Jason said. “We lose tonight, that’s gonna be tough to do.”
“And if he wants that Alabama job, losing a hundred to nothing can’t help him, can it?” Tom added.
“Maybe he’s already got the job,” Billy Bob said. “Where I come from, stories don’t usually leak unless someone wants them to leak.”
There was no chance to discuss that further, because they were all now inside the locker room and Coach Johnson was standing in the front, hands on hips. Behind him was a whiteboard on which he had simply written “1–0, 7–0.” That had become his weekly message: Go 1–0 every Friday and then add up the wins as you went along. It wasn’t looking as if 8–0 was going to be on the board next week.
“I honestly don’t know what to say to you, boys,” Coach Johnson began when everyone had settled down. “Talent is fine, fellas, but what about pride? Have you got no pride?” The questions hung in the air for a moment. “Look, this isn’t all on you players. Coach Ingelsby, Coach Fallon, you both need to regroup during halftime, because what we’re doing out there scheme-wise clearly isn’t working. Captains, you’ve got five minutes with your teammates. You see what you can come up with while we coaches do the same.”
He walked out, followed by the coaches, for their halftime get-together. Jason didn’t think the two coordinators were likely to come up with any new schemes in five minutes—unless one of those schemes included changing quarterbacks. Poor Ronnie Thompson sat in the front row, head down, staring at the floor. He knew better than anyone in the room that the offensive scheme was not the problem.
The captains did what they could, which wasn’t much. They took turns telling everyone that this was a test of their toughness; that if Middleburg could score thirty-one points in a half, TGP could score even more points in a half; and that what they needed wasn’t a change in the schemes, but a change in their attitudes.
The coaches returned a few minutes later to tell them that all eleven defensive players should focus on Whitlock and force him to give up the ball.
“That’s what they figured out?” Billy Bob grumbled as they all began heading back to the field. “That’s like saying, ‘If you don’t let that Brady guy throw the ball, New England won’t score much.’”
The defense did make Whitlock give the ball up more often in the second half, but it didn’t do a lot of good. His decision making on when to pitch the ball was almost perfect. Meanwhile, the TGP offense continued to sputter. By the end of the third quarter, the score was a humiliating 45–0.
At that point, Coach Hamer took Whitlock and a lot of his starters out of the game, seeing no need to further humiliate TGP. Coach Johnson made no move to switch quarterbacks.
“You would think by this point he’d take Thompson out, if only to spare him further embarrassment,” Tom said.
“He doesn’t worry about embarrassing people,” Billy Bob said. “He only worries about proving he’s in charge. This was all about sending me a message.”
“For one act of so-called defiance?” Jason said. “At the expense of the team?”
“What do you think?” Billy Bob said.
“Forget I brought it up,” Jason responded.
The final was 45–0. TGP never came close to scoring, except in the final minute, when a second- or third-string Middleburg running back fumbled on his own 14-yard line. TGP ran four plays from there—two runs and two passes—and never picked up a yard. The last play, a heave into the end zone by Ronnie Thompson that came near no one, summed up the entire evening pretty well.
They shook hands with the jubilant Middleburg players and trudged to the locker room.
“Well, that was about as bad as it can get,” Coach Johnson said. “At least I hope so. As of Monday, we’re back to square one. There are no star
ters on this team anymore. Every job is wide open. Let’s take a knee.”
There were no thanks during the prayer for great pad level. Instead, Coach Johnson said, “Lord, let these young men learn from the mistakes they made tonight.”
There was, Jason noted, no mention in the prayer that he—Coach Johnson—might have made any mistakes.
“Think he means it about the starting jobs?” Tom asked.
“I guess we’ll find out Monday,” Jason said. “But we’ve still got a lot to do tonight.”
23
The buses pulled up to the front door of the Salamander at a little after ten. There had been no lingering at the stadium. Players had gotten on the buses still in uniform for the short ride back, having been told to wait to shower at the resort.
Coach Johnson had stayed behind to talk to the media. No one else from TGP was allowed to talk to the swarm of reporters. Jason suspected few of the reporters would object since at least part of the reason for the large turnout had to be the story about Coach Johnson leaving for Alabama. If Mr. Gatch had made the trip north, no one had seen him.
At 10:25, just as he was putting his shoes back on, Jason got a text from Teel:
Far side of parking lot, to the right if facing front of resort, in 10 minutes.
Jason showed it to Billy Bob, who nodded. He then forwarded the text to Tom, just to make sure he and Anthony knew. A note came back quickly:
Already heard. Ready to go.
At 10:30, Jason and Billy Bob slipped quietly out of their room. Tom and Anthony were to wait until 10:35. They had found a stairway at the far end of the hall that would let them avoid the lobby. They made it down the four flights of stairs and came out on the side of the building. It was very dark, but only a few steps to reach the parking lot. They paused when they got to the parking lot, dimly lit this far from the lobby. Almost immediately, they saw car lights flashing in their direction.
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