False Start

by Paul Hoblin

This is what I was thinking as Jeff left the locker room.

  Chapter 21

  Jeff

  Scooter should have spoken up. It’s as simple as that. He sat there in that meeting and let Coach give him my carries, and he didn’t say anything until we left the office.

  Was this expecting too much? Maybe. But I was mad.

  Not just at Scooter but at the whole situation.

  I’d done everything right. I’d looked after Scooter, just like Coach asked. I’d spent two seasons blasting my body through the teeth of the defense, just like Coach asked. But that’s where I drew the line. If Coach had asked me to give up my carries, I would have said no way.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t ask. He announced.

  These were the thoughts that were rattling around my head as I arrived at Morgyn’s.

  I found her out back.

  She was chopping wood, getting ready for her annual fall bonfire. I went to the equipment shed under the deck and helped myself to work gloves and an ax.

  Morgyn and I didn’t talk. We chopped. This is how it’s always been with us. Morgyn respects my head space. I never have to worry about doing or saying the wrong thing when I’m around her.

  We took turns. When she was the one swinging the ax, I gathered loose chunks of wood and piled them on a sled. Once the sled was full, one of us would drag it to the wood pile about thirty yards away.

  When it was my turn to chop, I brought the ax down with all the power I could muster. It felt good, clenching and then releasing the muscles in my shoulders, back, and legs. I wasn’t just chopping the wood. I was taking my anger out on it.

  “Something on your mind?” Morgyn asked.

  “Is it that obvious?” I responded.

  “I’m pretty sure the wood is actually cowering.”

  She asked if I wanted to talk about it.

  “Not really,” I said.

  Which was good enough for her.

  “My turn,” she said, picking up her ax.

  Chapter 22

  Scooter

  The next day we played South Hill.

  It was an away game, and the South Hill fans were crazy.

  Crazy about football. Crazy about their team. And mostly, crazy about their team’s defense.

  “DE-FENSE!” they shouted over and over. “DE-FENSE!”

  Throughout the first half, they had a lot of reasons to chant.

  The main reason was me.

  Maybe they heard about my long run the week before. Whenever I got the ball, it looked like their entire team was running after me. I did everything I could think of to gain some yards. I’d juke one guy and fake out someone else, only to have four other guys breathing down my neck. Mostly, I ran side to side along the line of scrimmage, trying but failing to find a hole to cut into. By the end of the half, I must have run for a hundred yards. But all of it was sideways.

  “DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!”

  Jeff had more success. He barreled into the heart of the defense. I don’t know how many yards he ended the half with—Thirty-five? Forty? But they were all helpful.

  Thanks to Jeff, we were able to move the chains. By getting first downs, we stayed on the field—even if we didn’t score many points.

  As we entered the locker room at the half, we were down 10–3.

  But for some reason, Coach didn’t seem too concerned.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing, boys,” he told Jeff and me. He was fired up. “That defense has gotta be sore and tired. They can’t last forever—not when they’re overcommitting like that. If we get by that wall, there’s no one left to beat.” He turned to Jeff, grabbed his face mask. “Stoddard, keep blasting away at them, you hear?”

  Chapter 23

  Jeff

  “I hear you loud and clear, Coach,” I said with a smile.

  At the start of the second half Coach sent me back on the field.

  A few moments later, Joey, our QB, handed me the ball. I didn’t bother waiting for a hole to open up. I wanted to make the hole myself.

  Leading with my shoulder, I launched myself forward. The sound of my body smashing into other bodies filled the ear holes of my helmet. My body stiffened, shocked by the collision—but only briefly. In the blink of an eye, my feet were on the ground again. I dug my cleats into the field, pushing, straining, moving forward. More South Hill players joined in. One of them grabbed me by the ankles, stopping my momentum and bringing me to the ground.

  All in all it was a six-yard run. But it was more than that.

  They were softening, giving in. I could feel it.

  They were weakening.

  Coach had been right. Throughout the first half it had felt like I was running into a brick wall. Now that wall was eroding.

  As for me? I was getting stronger.

  On the next play I gained eight more yards. Then four. Then eleven.

  I almost felt bad for them. They didn’t stand a chance against me this half.

  “Stoddard!” Coach yelled. “Take a breather!”

  Are you kidding me?!

  Chapter 24

  Scooter

  Thunder and Lightning.

  Jeff had provided the thunder. Now it was my job to bring the lightning.

  If I could.

  When I got the ball, I hesitated. For the first time, there was a clear running lane in front of me. I darted through it and saw that Coach was right. They had overcommitted—blitzed almost everyone.

  There was a cornerback to my left, but he was still fifteen yards away.

  The South Hill free safety was the only real concern. He was a few yards away, but he was on his heels.

  Big mistake.

  In the YouTube highlights, even NFL players used to make this mistake against Barry Sanders. Once Sanders got in the open field, the only way you had a chance against him was to be decisive. To get where he was cutting next, and hopefully guess correctly.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’m Barry Sanders—just that the free safety was making the same mistake as those guys in the clips. He was waiting for me to make a move. He was bargaining that he’d be able to react to that move in time to stop me from breaking free.

  It was a bad bargain.

  I faked with my head and hips to the left, then cut to the right.

  His body mirrored mine, or tried to. Instead, he just fell down.

  One move. That’s all it took. Two, if you count the hip shimmy.

  The next thing I knew, I was in the end zone. And the South Hill fans had stopped chanting. And all my teammates were piling around.

  Except Jeff.

  He stood there on the sideline, head down, refusing to look up.

  Chapter 25

  Jeff

  I created the hole Scooter ran through. Me.

  We won the game, 17–10.

  So why, in that moment, did it feel like I had lost?

  Chapter 26

  Scooter

  I get it. Jeff was furious. And he had good reasons.

  Because here’s the thing about thunder and lightning.

  You only see the lightning.

  Fans don’t pay attention to the four-yard run, even if it set up the forty-yard run.

  That next week Coach tried to explain to the local reporters how well Jeff had played. But they didn’t want to hear about it.

  All my life I’ve been shy, but that week I forced myself to speak up. “The real hero of the game was Jeff,” I said. “When you’re done talking to me, you should talk to Jeff.”

  Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. He’s all I talked about.

  All they heard, though, was a kid trying to say all the right things.

  We all like it when the star player says the right things. But we find it boring too. We give them credit for spouting clichés. But we also treat their words as a waste of time.

  By mid-week, I’d given up and gone quiet again.

  Honestly, I felt bad for Jeff, but what’s the point of speaking up if no one’s listening?

&n
bsp; Chapter 27

  Jeff

  Sure, a few people asked me questions about the game. But it never took them long to get to what they really wanted to talk about: Scooter.

  What’s he really like?

  Does his soft-spoken presence have a calming influence on the locker room?

  Coach told me over and over again that I was just as important as Scooter. He pointed out that I was making Scooter’s life easier every time I touched the ball. And I knew he was right.

  But nobody else seemed to.

  Based on all the questions I was getting, people seemed to think that having Scooter around was making my life better. And I didn’t see how that could possibly be true.

  Thunder and Lightning. How dumb.

  Look, I was trying. I was doing my best. But I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up.

  Don’t any of you know ANYTHING about football? I wanted to ask.

  Has a single one of you noticed that I’ve had two consecutive one-hundred-yard rushing games?

  Then, two days before our next game, Coach called Scooter and me into his office. Someone, it turned out, had taken notice of me.

  And that someone was a college scout.

  Chapter 28

  Scooter

  Coach Douglas was pleased but trying not to show it. For my benefit, I think.

  “I told him we had another running back named Williams who was raw but talented,” Coach assured me. “I said you weren’t ready to play college football yet, but that they should consider letting you walk on. You had that much upside.”

  “Thanks, Coach,” I said.

  Coach had just learned that a scout from Huntington College was interested in Jeff. He’d be in the stands on Friday.

  Coach had called both of us into the office to announce the good news. Once he told us, though, I think he felt bad for dragging me in there.

  But I didn’t feel bad. I’d only been playing for a month. I definitely didn’t expect scouts to come flocking.

  “Stoddard, you’ve been unusually quiet,” Coach said. “What’s on your mind, son?”

  “Just surprised, Coach,” he said. “I thought that ship had sailed. And then I spent all week hearing about how great Scooter is. No offense, Scooter.”

  No offense was taken. He hadn’t really been saying much to me all week, so it was cool to hear him concerned about my feelings.

  “I’m just . . . surprised,” he repeated.

  I was happy for him. That’s the truth.

  After all, this was a dream come true for him.

  Or at least it seemed that way.

  Chapter 29

  Jeff

  As furious as I am now, I felt the opposite when Coach told me about the scout. I was on top of the world during the next game.

  I’d been working nonstop since I was in middle school, doing everything I could to get bigger, stronger, faster—better. Football is a physical and even violent game. So I made myself into a human battering ram who could take any and all abuse.

  My teammates and Coach—even my school—cheered me on.

  But the rest of the world?

  Not so much.

  I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s how I felt. I knew I could play college football, but for some reason, colleges didn’t seem to agree.

  Football may be violent. But people don’t seem to pay as much attention to the ones who take and deliver this violence. They’re much more interested in the ones who run away from it.

  That’s how it felt, anyway, until I learned about the scout.

  It turned out that someone was paying attention to me.

  And maybe it makes me selfish to care about this. Maybe it makes me vain to want that kind of attention. But when you’ve gotten and given as many bruises as I have, at some point you have to ask yourself whether it’s worth it.

  For the first time all season, it seemed like it was.

  Chapter 30

  Scooter

  That Friday Jeff was unstoppable.

  Every time it looked like he’d been tackled, he’d add another three yards to the run by dragging whoever was trying to bring him down.

  We were playing Woodgrove. They were small—individually and as a team. We had over sixty guys on our roster; they had twenty.

  It would have taken all twenty to stop Jeff that day.

  Coach abandoned his “Thunder and Lighting” plan and stuck with the thunder—mostly, I think, to give the Huntington scout a good look at Jeff.

  We spent the first half marching down the field in seven- to ten-yard chunks.

  We scored four touchdowns on four long drives. Instead of kicking extra points, Coach opted to give the ball to Jeff for the two-point conversion. He bullied his way into the end zone each time.

  The second half was more of the same.

  The nice thing about running so much is that the clock doesn’t stop like it does for an incomplete pass. That means the game was mercifully short for Woodgrove.

  In the fourth quarter Jeff was taken out of the game. He got a loud ovation from our home crowd.

  “Williams,” Coach said, grabbing my face mask, “let’s not run up the score, okay?”

  “You want me to let them tackle me, Coach?” I asked.

  “I didn’t say that. I just said don’t get in the end zone. As for getting tackled, the longer you can avoid that, the fewer plays we need to run.” To my surprise, he smiled. “Have you ever played old football video games, Williams?”

  “How old, Coach?”

  “Old,” he said. “In the oldest video games, the good players are so much faster than the bad ones that they can literally run circles around them. Think you can do that, Williams?”

  Now I was the one smiling. “I’ll try, Coach.”

  When Joey handed me the ball I ran toward the sideline instead of the line. Then I turned back and ran the other way. I cut and spun; I turned up the field, but then circled back. Woodgrove chased me this way and that. Finally, they brought me down—two yards behind the line of scrimmage.

  I looked at Coach. He nodded his approval, so I did it again on the next play. I zig-zagged, pumped my legs, and changed course. This time I was brought down after gaining four yards but staying upright for thirty-two seconds.

  The crowd loved it; they laughed and cheered. Coach, on the other hand, changed his mind. He was probably worried Woodgrove would feel like we were showing them up.

  I was glad he changed his mind. Frankly, I was exhausted.

  Coach ordered Joey to take two straight knees. Woodgrove got the ball back with less than a minute to go.

  I stood on the sidelines next to Jeff. Even through his face mask I could see he was beaming. I was pretty happy too. Jeff had done really well. And it had been fun to see how long I could stay upright with an entire team chasing me.

  Overall, a win-win situation. Or so I thought.

  Chapter 31

  Jeff

  I watched the clock on the scoreboard tick down to zero.

  Don’t turn around, I kept telling myself.

  I wanted to show the scout that I was a team player, that I was more focused on my team than him. I clapped my hands and shouted encouragement. When guys ran back to the sideline, I slapped them on their helmets or shoulder pads.

  I’m not going to lie though. Every fiber of my being wanted to turn around and find the scout sitting somewhere in the stands.

  What if I never did find him? How did this work? Would he call me or something?

  Luckily, I didn’t have to find him. He found me.

  There was no time left on the clock when I heard someone say, “Jeffrey? Jeffrey Stoddard?”

  I turned and took off my helmet.

  He was on the track that surrounded our field. A small guy, decked out in red and blue. In other words, Huntington College colors.

  “Can I have a word?” he asked.

  You can have as many words as you want, I thought.

  “That was one heck of
a performance, Jeffrey. You’re quite the player. A high school star.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  Now that he was standing next to me, I saw just how short he was. Even shorter than Scooter, who was standing on my other side.

  “No need to call me sir,” the man said. “Name’s Eric. Eric Musselman. I saw your recent box scores and contacted your coach. He told me I wouldn’t regret making the trip to see the game. He was right.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said again. “I mean, Eric. I mean, Mr. Musselman.”

  “Eric’s fine,” he said.

  He was staring intently at me. I remember that. At the time I thought it was a good sign. I thought it meant he truly was taking notice of me. Now I wonder if he was counting down the seconds to talk with Scooter.

  “I’d like you to visit the campus sometime next week. Would that work for you?”

  “I’m sure it would . . . Eric.”

  “Great. Bring your teammate too.” This is when he first turned to look at Scooter. “Scott Williams, is it?” He looked at his clipboard to double check, then back up at Scooter. “We’re always looking for walk-ons.”

  Scooter did what he usually does. He dropped his head and went mute. I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. As much as I hated all that had happened to me since he came to town, it wasn’t necessarily his fault. In any case, it wasn’t worth letting him risk a spot to play on a college team.

  So rather than let him sabotage his own future, I put in a good word.

  “He goes by Scooter, Eric,” I explained. “And he’s got some serious wheels.”

  “I saw that,” the scout said. “We just need to get you to run in the right direction, son, and we might really have something there.”

  He cracked a smile to let us know he was kidding.

  I elbowed Scooter until he returned the smile.

  Eric turned to me. “I’ll tell the coaching staff to expect you two boys soon.”

  “You got it, sir—er, Eric.”

  Chapter 32

  Scooter

  I didn’t want to go.