Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (21 page)

Ivory let go of drinking. He let go of hanging out in the
streets. He let go of parties. He let go of cussing. He let go of
every former vestige in his life, except football. It still lingered
as his perpetual, unconquerable nemesis. He tried to let go of
that too, and he talked to Hanson about quitting football altogether because he felt it conflicted with his calling, and he didn't
want anything to get in the way of that. But Hanson gently
coaxed him not to drop football too fast. It was there, and it
had a place in Ivory's life whether he liked it or not. "If playing
football can get you to college, if playing football can get you
an education, then play football," Hanson told him.

And no matter how much Ivory tried to hate it and belittle it
and scoff at it, something took hold of him on game day as
surely powerful as spreading the word of Jesus. Everyone on
the team experienced butterflies, but no one got them as badly
as he did.

It hadn't happened in the first game of the season against El
Paso Austin, because everyone knew that El Paso Austin was a
terrible team. But it did happen in the second game, in a stadium 530 miles east of Odessa in Marshall, Texas.

As assistant coach Randy Mayes went over the list of the
myriad responsibilities of the linebackers one final time, the
drone of his footballese a numbing wash in the bloated air, Ivory's legs began to shake. He started sweating and his complexion turned wan. The more Mayes read from the piece of paper
he had prepared, which was based on hours of review of several
Marshall game films where every play was diagrammed and analyzed for type, formation, and hash tendency, the worse
Ivory looked, as if he was drowning in the expectations of what
he had to do.

The alien atmosphere of everything, the strange space he
and his teammates occupied underneath the decrepit flanks of
the bleachers with its spotted shadows and jutting angles, the
crackling screech of "Anchors Away" over and over again on
the ancient loudspeaker system to an absolutely empty stadium,
the tortuous buildup of heat and humidity like the cranking of
a catapult, only magnified the tension.

"You okay?" Mayes asked him.

"I need to throw up," he said.

"Go throw up."

And off lie went, trying to exorcise the demon of football.

Perhaps it was the distance that separated the two schools
and the fact that Permian, at a cost of $20,000 to the school
district, had chartered a 737 jet to get to Marshall.

Perhaps it was the breakfast at Johnny Cace's Seafood and
Steakhouse, where he sat in the corner with the other black
players and helped himself to heaping buffet-style portions of
scrambled eggs and biscuits and chicken-fried steak.

Perhaps it was how some of the shoe-polish signs on the rear
windows of cars in Marshall rhymed MoJo with HOMO, or the
way the Marshall Mavericks slumped against the doorway of
the locker room in their letter jackets when the Permian players
arrived, their arms folded, the looks on their faces smug and
sullen and smirking, as if to say, So this is big, bad Mojo, the pride
of West Texas. They look like a bunch of pussies to me.

But probably it was the thought of 0-dell, as he had been
called all that week during practice, staring across from him in
the Marshall backfield.

Odell Beckham, the stud duck of the Mavericks, number 33,
six feet, 194 pounds, 4.5 speed in the forty, punishing, quick,
able to take it up and out to the outside, a guaranteed lock for
a major-college scholarship. 0-dell. Everywhere Ivory went, everywhere he looked, that's all he seemed to hear about. 0-dell. Watch him do this on the film. O-dell. Read about him doing
that on the scouting report. O-dell. Listen to this publication
calling him the third best running back in the state. O-dell.
Could any player possibly be that good, that awesome, that intimidating? Were the rumors true that he had walked on water
against the Nacogdoches Dragons and had simply flown across
the field like the Flying Nun against the Texarkana Tigers?

Inside the locker room of the Marshall Mavericks, where a
sign in thick red letters on the Coke machine read THERE'S
NOTHING THAT COMES EASY THAT'S WORTH A DIME. AS A MATTER
OF FACT, I NEVER SAW A FOOTBALL PLAYER MAKE A TACKLE WITH
A SMILE ON HIS FACE, Ivory went through his physical upheaval,
as far removed from the cocoon of the Rose of Sharon pulpit
as he ever could be.

He wasn't preaching now. He was playing football.

II

The Marshall game was only the second of the season, and
since it wasn't a league contest it had no effect on whether
Permian made the playoffs. But the stakes seemed as great as
in a state championship, and the air swirled with the edgy sensation that the two teams on the field wanted nothing more
than to bludgeon the bloody bejesus out of one another.

Marshall came into the game ranked third in the state and
badly desired a hunk of mighty Mojo's hide to prove the Mavericks were for real. That's why the coach, Dennis Parker, had
begged the school principal to schedule the game, the first ever
between the two schools, despite the distance between them.

"I told him, we can have ten merit scholars at school. But if
we beat Permian, we get more publicity."

Permian came into the game ranked fourth in the state with
a reputation of invincibility to uphold. Out on the plains of
West Texas everyone knew how the Panthers routinely bludgeoned opponents from El Paso and Abilene and Amarillo. But
could they handle the pressure of playing in a hot and hostile environment where thousands drenched from head to toe in
Maverick red would he screaming for their heads? Could Winchell hang in if the game got tight and they had to have it?
Could Gaines? Could Ivory Christian?

"They got a sellout in Marshall," Gaines told his players several days before the game. "They'll have eight or nine thousand. A lot of fan interest (town there for this game.

"I want you to to keep in mind why we're going. It's not a
pleasure trip. It's work. We're going to work."

If Permian could survive here, in this rickety stadium hundreds of miles away from home that felt so much like the scene
of some bloody ambush, before the biggest crowd that had ever
watched a football game in Marshall, Texas, it could survive
anywhere. But if the Panthers lost ...

Odell off tackle on the first play with thousands screaming.
Ivory and outside linebacker Chad Payne in his face to drive
him to the ground. A loss of three.

Odell off tackle on the next series. Ivory there again, leading
the swarming charge of a defense coming at him like darts shot
out of a forty-four magnum. A gain of two.

Odell on a draw. Into the open field. Eludes Ivory. Won't go
down as the Permian defensive backs ride his back. Sprawls on
the ground for every inch to a delighted, roaring crowd. Gain
of' thirteen. Welcome to East Texas football, Ivory. Stick it up
your ass.

Odell again. Busted by Ivory, a hit that sounds and reverberates. He crumples and loses the ball. Welcome to West Texas
football, 0-dell. Stick it up your ass.

New series. Odell again on a draw. Carries four tacklers with
him for a gain of six. Odell to the right side. Stacked up for a
gain of one. Odell on a pitch. Ivory leads the charge for a loss
of two.

A scout from a neighboring school that will play Marshall in
several weeks has his binoculars trained on the game. He is supposed to be watching Odell, and he knows Odell is great. But
his eyes keep sliding off to Ivory. He keeps poking his colleague in the side and saying, "You're not gonna believe this but that
number sixty-two has made another tackle."

It may be that Ivory Christian hates football. It may be that
he is burned out on it. It may be that he considers it pointless,
an eight-year journey to nowhere. But it also may be that under
the right circumstances, the demon wins the heart of the most
steadfast soul, and the nemesis always becomes it lover.

Permian goes ahead 3-0 in the first quarter on a twenty-fiveyard field goal by Alan Wyles, but Marshall, capitalizing on a
fumble by Comer, moves deep into Permian territory and then
scores on a six-yard lob pass from Benny Valentine to flanker
Alfred Jackson. The ravenous Marshall fans go wild at this first
indication that Mojo can actually be beaten.

The score remains 7-3 at the end of the first half.

The Permian players head into the locker room, which has
the feel of 'a refugee camp, or of a makeshift hospital ward after
a catastrophe. Bodies are strewn everywhere and the air is thick
with the pungent smell of grass. Ivory lies on the floor with a
towel over his head, utterly exhausted from perhaps the most
inspired thirty minutes of his life. Brian Chavez, starting both
ways at tight end and defensive end after missing the first game
of the season because of an ankle injury, walks through the
locker room shirtless, his body drenched with sweat. He goes to
the bathroom and vomits and when he comes out he looks yellow. He is tired and wilting in the stuffy heat. Winchell, as
usual, is silent and ponderous. So is Gaines, who spends most
of halftime staring at his play sheet, knowing that without the
sloppiness Permian would have twenty-one points instead of
just three. The team outgained Marshall in the half 157 to 113
yards, and the great 0-dell has been held to a mere thirty-nine
yards on fourteen carries, but the Panthers are still losing and
seem to be bursting at the seams a bit.

"Our own mistakes are the reason we're behind now," he tells
the players in the stuffy, squalid darkness. "Let's toughen up.
We knew it was a four-quarter football game when we got on
the plane today. We just need to bow up."

The Marshall fans give the Mavericks a standing ovation
when they come out for the second half. The Marshall band
plays a rousing fight song while the Mavettes, in their sequined
costumes and tasseled boots and white cowboy hats and with
their lips painted as red as a Texas sunset, move their arms back
and forth in a mesmeric cadence.