The Walk On

by John Feinstein

  “The later it gets in the season, the less you want the extra reps on Thursday,” Matt had said. “You’re tired, you’re sore. Though it’s worse for the linemen than for us because we don’t get hit.”

  As far as Alex was concerned, the more reps the team ran the better, because it meant he had a chance to play. Matt got, by Alex’s count, eighteen plays, then Jake ran the next nine.

  “Okay, Myers, you’re in there,” Coach Hillier said after Jake had badly underthrown a deep pass on his last snap.

  A number of other third-teamers jogged into the huddle with him. The first play was a simple handoff. The second was a pitch play in which Alex had the option to run or pitch the ball as he turned upfield. He decided to pitch the ball, which led to a big run by third-string tailback Eddie Brackens.

  “Nice job, Goldie,” Brackens said as he jogged back into the huddle.

  Coach Hillier was standing right next to Alex. “Okay, fellas, this is it, last play,” he said. Alex tried not to show his disappointment. Three plays? When he heard the call, though, he perked up.

  “X across, Z fly,” Coach Hillier said. “On two.”

  As the players clapped hands and started toward the line, Coach Hillier put a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Don’t force the Z if it’s not there, Alex,” he said. “Take what’s there.”

  It was the first time he had called him Alex during practice. Did that mean something? He’d figure it out later.

  The X receiver was Freddy Watts. He would go downfield about twenty yards and curl back into the middle. The Z was Darrell Winslow. He would run a straight fly pattern deep. Coach Hillier had read Alex’s mind. Of course he wanted to throw the ball deep to Winslow.

  Alex took the snap, made a quick play-action fake to Brackens, and dropped back, bouncing up and down on his toes to stay balanced as he watched his receivers. Brackens had drifted to the right as a safety valve if nothing was open.

  The defense knew it was the last play of the day and clearly had a feeling that on his first day back, “Goldie” might be going deep. No one bought the play-action fake and Winslow had both a cornerback and a safety with him. Alex thought he might be able to fit the ball in between them, but in the back of his mind he heard Coach Hillier’s voice saying, Don’t force the Z.…

  Okay, Coach, he thought, we’ll do it your way. Watts had single coverage and whoever was trying to stay with him simply couldn’t. He was wide open. Alex stepped up in the pocket and fired a bullet that almost knocked Watts over as it hit him in the chest. Watts caught it, stumbled, and then fell backward onto the ground, clutching the ball.

  “Nice throw,” Alex heard Coach Hillier say softly from behind him. He walked up to where he was standing and added, “More important, smart throw.”

  The horn sounded, indicating the last period of practice was over. Everyone jogged to the middle of the field, where Coach Gordon was standing. As Alex started to take a knee, Matt Gordon put an arm around him.

  “Goldie,” he said. “You scare me.”

  Alex was glad he hadn’t taken his helmet off. He wouldn’t have wanted Matt or anyone else to see him grinning ear to ear.

  As soon as Coach Gordon had given his brief post-practice talk about making sure to get enough rest and remembering that the easy games were now over—he’d said the same thing on Monday and Tuesday—Alex looked for Coach Hillier, who was talking to Eddie Brackens. He stood off to the side and waited. Clearly, Coach Hillier was demonstrating a technique of some kind to the running back.

  When they were finished, Brackens jogged off to the locker room and Coach Hillier turned to Alex.

  “That was a good decision on the last play,” he said.

  “Thanks, Coach,” Alex said. “Do you have a minute?”

  Coach Hillier looked around for a moment as if searching for someone. But then he said, “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I actually wanted to ask you a couple questions about the Weekly Roar.”

  “Uh-huh,” Coach Hillier said.

  Alex suddenly realized that both questions he had might be a little awkward for Coach Hillier to answer—the second one for sure.

  “I was wondering,” he said. “Was it your idea or Christine’s to talk to me for that sidebar story she did?”

  Coach Hillier smiled. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” he said. “Also very smart. Well, this probably isn’t the answer that you want to hear, but yes, it was my idea. I knew what happened to you was something people would be talking about, so I thought it made sense. I gave her your number.”

  He was still smiling. “I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

  Alex smiled too. “No sir, I didn’t.”

  “What was your other question?”

  Alex paused, wondering if he should even ask. He’d come this far, though, so he plunged ahead.

  “It’s about Steve Garland’s column.”

  Alex saw Coach Hillier’s smile fade quickly.

  “What about it?”

  “He was kind of critical of Coach Gordon. You’re in charge of the paper, so I was wondering …”

  “Why I didn’t make him take it out?”

  “Yes.”

  Coach Hillier crossed his arms.

  “That’s a fair question,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And you’re not the first person to ask it today.”

  “So what’s the answer?”

  Coach Hillier looked at him for a moment, as if making a decision. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You’re right, I do have the power to take something out of the paper if I think it’s inaccurate or libelous or unfair. But ninety-nine percent of the time, I let the students make the decisions. That’s how they learn. I try to be especially conscious of not censoring anything where the football team is concerned because there’s an obvious conflict of interest for me as a coach.”

  “Who else asked you the question?”

  “You should be a reporter,” he said.

  “I’m a quarterback,” Alex said. “So who was it?”

  Coach Hillier nodded in the direction of midfield, where Coach Gordon was talking to the two captains.

  “Coach Gordon?” Alex said.

  Another nod.

  “The fact is, you got hurt because Coach Gordon kept trying to score in the fourth quarter. People have different opinions about the value of running up the score in a situation like that. I didn’t question Coach Gordon about it at the time, and I’m the offensive coordinator, so I’m responsible too. What Steve wrote was a fair comment whether you agree with it or not. So I left it in.”

  “What did Coach Gordon say when you told him that?” Alex asked.

  “Nothing,” Coach Hillier said. “Which isn’t good. It means he’s angry.”

  “Does that mean something’s going to happen?”

  Coach Hillier shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll see. But if you repeat what I just told you to anyone—including Jonas and especially anyone who works on the newspaper—something will happen to you and it won’t be pleasant.”

  He smiled when he said it, so Alex smiled too.

  “I hear you, Coach,” Alex said. “Loud and clear.”

  On Friday, Alex found out that something had, in fact, happened in the wake of Steve Garland’s column.

  He had just sat down in his seat for French class, dreading the vocabulary test that was to come, when Christine Whitford came in and made a beeline for him.

  “I have to talk to you after class,” she whispered, looking very serious.

  “Sure,” he said, wondering what could possibly be so important.

  Taking the vocab test would have been tough enough, but his mind kept wandering to what Christine could need to talk about and away from the verbs he was trying to conjugate. He finished just as the bell was sounding and handed the quiz to Mademoiselle Schiff, convinced he had gotten no more than half the questions right.

  “Everything okay, Monsieur Myers?” she asked, surprising him by speaking in English
. She had been the only one of Alex’s teachers who had not asked on Monday how he was feeling.

  “What?” he asked, not really hearing the question at first. “No. I mean, everything’s fine.”

  “You sure? You were looking around a lot during the quiz. Was it difficult for you today?”

  “No, it was okay.… I mean, I hope it was okay. I’m just a little distracted.”

  She gave him a look that indicated she wasn’t buying what he was telling her but wasn’t going to pursue it. That was a relief because he could see Christine standing just outside the door looking impatient.

  “Au revoir, Monsieur Myers,” Mademoiselle Schiff said, then added, “Bonne chance ce soir.”

  It took Alex a split second to translate, but then he got it—or thought he did. She had said, “Good luck tonight.” Did she mean with Christine?

  “Ce soir?” he replied.

  “Oui,” she said. “La jeu de football, non?”

  “Oh—um, oui,” he said. “Merci.”

  “De rien,” she replied.

  Christine was practically tapping her foot by the time he got through the door.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Mademoiselle Schiff—”

  “Forget it,” she said, taking him by the arm. “Come on. We have to find a place to talk.”

  There was no pep rally that afternoon. According to the other guys on the team, Coach Gordon would play that card only three times during the regular season: the opener, the conference opener, and the finale against Chester. Christine walked briskly down the hall, poked her head into a break room—too crowded—and finally walked outside, where she found a spot under a tree that seemed to suit her.

  “What’s going on?” Alex said, truly baffled by now.

  “Steve has been banned from tonight’s game,” she said in what would best be described as a screamed whisper.

  “Steve?” Then he got it: Steve Garland, the sports editor. “Banned? What do you mean banned?”

  “Coach Gordon told Mr. Hillier that Steve couldn’t have a press pass for the game to sit in the press box or to talk to the players or coaches after the game. He said that if Steve wanted to act like a big-shot sportswriter he should get a job at the Inquirer or the Daily News.”

  “That sucks,” he said. “But there’s not much I can do about it. I’m the third-string quarterback.”

  “I know,” she said. “But you can get some of the players to talk to Steve after the game.”

  “I thought he was banned?”

  “From the press box,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Coach Gordon can’t keep him out of the stadium. Tell your friends on the team to talk to him.”

  Alex had seen several of the starters talking to reporters after practice, so he knew they were around, but he didn’t really know how it all worked. No one wanted to talk to him.…

  “So you want guys to talk to him outside the locker room, even though Coach Gordon has banned him?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Or maybe get me some of their cell numbers so Steve can call them over the weekend?”

  “Do you know what kind of trouble guys will get in if they do that? Coach Gordon would kill them.”

  She put her hands on her hips, a move that instantly reminded Alex of his mom. He knew he was now officially a dead man.

  “I know that,” she said. “They can talk to him off the record. He won’t use their names.”

  “How can they be sure of that?” he asked.

  The hands were still on the hips. “If he uses their names, they can say they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to talk to him and they’ll never speak to him again. He won’t want that to happen.”

  Alex sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. I don’t know why, but I’ll try.”

  She smiled at him. Which reminded him why he was willing to help.

  The game that night was marginally more competitive than the Mercer game had been. Alex could see during warm-ups that Cherry Hill Academy had bigger players than Mercer, but their skill level, once the game began, wasn’t that much better.

  The score was 7–7 after one quarter, and Coach Gordon called the team around him at the quarter break to let all the players know how disappointed he was in their performance.

  “If you expect to be a good football team,” he said angrily, “you can’t let a team like this think it can play with you!”

  Whether it was their coach’s angry words or just the inevitable fact that Cherry Hill didn’t have enough players to compete with them, the Lions scored three second-quarter touchdowns. Matt Gordon ran for two and found Jonas wide open on a thirty-two-yard post pattern for a third.

  That seemed to relax everyone a little bit, although Coach Gordon rambled on at halftime about the need to not let up in the second thirty minutes. They didn’t. The final score was 42–14, with the second-stringers giving up a late touchdown to make it that close. The fourth-quarter play-calling, especially once Jake Bilney came into the game at the end of the third, was much more conservative than it had been a week earlier—mostly straight handoffs. Bilney threw one pass, on a third and fifteen at midfield, and it was intercepted.

  He trotted off the field to where Alex was standing next to Matt Gordon.

  “I’m not sure why Dad called that play,” Matt said. “That’s not the kind of throw you’re comfortable trying to make.”

  “You mean I’m not any good at it,” Jake responded. “It’s the kind of play I might have to make if you ever get hurt. Give your dad credit for knowing what he’s doing. I just need to be better.”

  Matt Gordon said nothing in response. He just patted Bilney on the shoulder and said, “Don’t be so tough on yourself, Jake.”

  Jake was tough on himself—frequently. Alex wondered how much of it had to do with feeling pressure from him as third string. Jake had already commented on that a couple of times.

  But whatever Bilney’s fears, Alex never saw the field all night. Bilney knelt down twice—without incident—after Cherry Hill’s late touchdown and everyone shook hands when the clock hit zero.

  Alex had already asked Jonas before the game if he would talk to Steve Garland over the weekend and Jonas had said yes, as long as Steve promised not to use his name. Alex thought briefly about asking Matt Gordon but didn’t: it wasn’t fair to ask Matt to betray his father in any way. Matt might have been willing, but that didn’t mean Alex should ask. Instead, he asked Stephen Harvey, who was getting enough playing time to make it worthwhile for Garland to talk to him.

  Harvey gave him a look. “I saw that girl after the game last week,” he said. “And I saw her story on you. She’s pretty, but are you sure you want to take this kind of risk to impress her?”

  He was speaking very softly. They were standing in the freshman corner of the locker room while everyone else undressed to shower after Coach Gordon’s brief postgame talk.

  “I’m not trying to impress her,” Alex said.

  “Really?” Harvey said. “What are you trying to do?”

  Alex hadn’t really thought about that.

  “Okay, maybe I am trying to impress her,” he admitted. “Will you help?”

  Harvey thought about it for a moment. “Sure. Why not? But if the guy uses my name, I’m gonna get mad at you, not him.”

  “Understood,” Alex said, still not sure why he was doing this. Actually, he was sure but suspected it wasn’t a great idea.

  Bilney, already dressed, walked over. “Matt and I are going to Hope’s party,” he said. “I heard you were invited too. You going?”

  “I think so,” Alex said. “Any reason not to?”

  “None at all,” Bilney said. “You’re not the one who can’t complete a pass.”

  “Come on,” Alex said. “Third and fifteen, they were waiting for you to throw.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that shouldn’t have been the play call at 42–7. But you know, I know, Matt knows, and even his father knows that you could have made that play work. You can throw l
eft-handed better than I can throw right-handed.”

  He wasn’t even smiling a little bit when he said it.

  Alex’s mom dropped off Alex and Jonas at Hope Alexander’s house, which was definitely in the McMansion part of town. The house had to be twice as big as any house Alex had ever been in.

  “Why don’t they just move the school here?” Jonas murmured as they got out of the car on the circular drive. It was ten-thirty and Jonas’s mom, who was doing the pickup, had said she would be there about midnight. Alex had mixed emotions about that: part of him wanted to stay late; part of him wondered if anyone would talk to them. He was glad to have Jonas riding shotgun.

  The place was packed. Much to his surprise, Hope Alexander came over to greet them when they walked in.

  “I’m so glad you guys made it,” she said. “Jonas, great playing tonight!”

  “Thanks,” Jonas said, clearly pleased she had noticed.

  “There’s food and drinks all over the place,” she said. She leaned in close for a moment. “No alcohol—my parents are here.”

  Alex was kind of relieved to hear that. He’d told his mom there wouldn’t be drinking, but he kind of thought there might be. The last thing he wanted was someone asking him if he wanted a drink. He had enough on his plate without dealing with that question—much less the answer, whatever it would be.

  They walked into what Alex assumed was the living room—it was massive—and heard thumping music. There was a DJ, and furniture had been moved aside to open up a dance floor. A lot of kids smiled or waved at them, a few shouting over the noise, “Nice game, Jonas!”

  “Let’s go outside!” Jonas yelled in his ear, pointing at some open doors in the back. There were clearly plenty of people out there too. “Can’t hear anything in here.”

  Alex nodded and they walked outside. There was a table piled high with food and drinks. The two of them made a beeline for the food. Alex had just picked up a plate and was setting his sights on a tray filled with buffalo chicken wings when he spotted Jake Bilney standing under a tree.

  With Christine Whitford.

  They were just talking, each holding a drink. But it was the way they were talking that brought Alex up short: Jake was leaning forward just a little and down so he could hear Christine better. Christine was looking up at him as she talked, with that magnetic smile turned up to full wattage.