The Underdogs (5 page)

Wondering why he cared what the annoying girl he'd just met thought of him.

He stood on the sidewalk in front of the high school when he got there, looking at the old brick buildings, almost feeling as if he were looking at a picture in some history book. The whole place looked as old and tired to Will as the rest of Forbes did.

Then, ball under his arm, Will walked around back to the football field, the one field in town that was still in decent shape. The wooden scoreboard stared down from one end zone. Wooden bleachers rested empty on both sides of the field. A huge sign stood at the opposite end of the field from the scoreboard. “Home of the Forbes Falcons,” the sign read.

Underneath, in fading paint, was a smaller sign, an advertisement that read, “Proudly sponsored by Forbes Flyers, the shoe for fleet feet.”

Except that one of the
F'
s was gone, and so it now read “Forbes lyers.”

“My dream house,” Will said aloud.

No matter how much he fantasized about where his speed, his talent for football, might take him, he knew the path would go through this field.

At this school, in this town, on this side of the river.

He took one last look around, one last good look at his football future, and then began the long walk home.

Cheeseburger tonight.

Cheeseburger and fries and corn on the cob. “A well-balanced meal for a growing boy,” his dad said in the note on the fridge. The note also told him there was apple pie for dessert, purchased this afternoon at the Country Cupboard.

Will heated up the food and ate in front of the television set in the living room, watching the end of the six o'clock SportsCenter. He cleaned up when he was done, had two pieces of pie with vanilla ice cream, went upstairs and fired up his laptop so he could check his e-mails again.

There was some junk mail that had gotten through and messages from Tim asking Will to call him later about their upcoming fantasy draft.

That was it.

Not what he was looking for, no miracles tonight.

So he sat there for a while online, checking out some of the NFL stat pages, getting ready for the upcoming fantasy draft. The kids his age in the West River league had decided they might as well have a fantasy league, too, and Will had won it easily the year before. This year he had decided to partner up with Tim, mostly because Tim had begged him.

“You do the work, I'll share the glory,” Tim had said.

“But what's in it for
me
?”

“That's a very selfish attitude, if you ask me.”

“I didn't,” Will had said.

Last year fantasy football had just been pure fun. It seemed more important now, though, if only because this year it might be the only way Will would get to compete with the other kids in the West River league.

Fantasy football was just one more version of a game that had always come naturally to Will. He knew the stats he needed, for selecting a quarterback or running back or wide receiver, were already inside his own head, that he didn't need to look them up online. He knew them by heart.

Like football
was
his heart.

Which was why, for the first time ever, despite how his dad and the rest of Forbes had been struggling for years, Will understood what it was like to be poor. He knew a lot of people were a lot worse off than he was, and Will had never been one to feel sorry for himself. He and his dad had it much better than some people—
most
people—who'd lost their jobs when the sneaker factory closed, people who even now were still looking for steady work. Will had lost his mom, and then a first home, which he barely remembered, but he'd always had football. As though the game was the one constant in his life.

Maybe that was why the idea of losing the upcoming season made
him
feel so lost.

 

He thought about going back downstairs, seeing if there was anything good on television tonight. He didn't really feel like calling Tim, not wanting to talk to anybody in the mood he was in. So he decided to watch one of his favorite movies,
The Express,
the one about an old Syracuse University football player named Ernie Davis.

As much as Will knew about football history, he didn't know much about Ernie Davis at first, just that he was one of the names on the long list of guys who'd won the Heisman Trophy and that he'd been the first African American to win the award. He came from Elmira, New York, just over the Pennsylvania border, and he'd grown up poor. So when Will watched the movie and learned that Ernie Davis died in the end, died before playing a professional game, it had just about killed
him.
He'd rewatched
The Express
many times since, but he'd always shut it off after Syracuse beat Texas and won the Cotton Bowl and the national championship. Will liked his own ending to the movie better. The happy ending. He wished life could work out that way, too.

He watched the movie tonight and got to the Cotton Bowl part, the part with all the dirty play from the other team, the nasty comments made because Ernie Davis was black, the attempts by the Texas players to hurt him every chance they got. But he kept getting back up until his team won the game and finished off its undefeated season.

The end,
Will thought,
the happy end,
as he shut off the movie, hearing his dad's car in the driveway at almost the exact same moment.

He heard the car door slam, went over to the window and looked down and saw his dad limping across their small front lawn to the front door, not looking up, not knowing he was being watched from the upstairs window. Will knew his dad always limped more when he thought nobody was watching.

His dad probably wanted a way different story for his own life. Maybe he wished there was a way to pause his own movie right before those two guys destroyed his knee.

Will stood there wondering if his dad even remembered what it was like to run down the field the way Will had today, as if nothing—and nobody—was ever going to stop him. Wondered if his dad even allowed himself to remember the good parts of his own career or if it hurt too much to remember, the way his knee did.

He went to the top of the stairs now to say hi to Joe Tyler.

“What's good?” his dad said when he looked up and saw Will there, smiling at him, moving to the foot of the stairs with no limp at all, opening his arms for Will to come down and give him a hug.

Will raced down the stairs and did just that.

“
You're
good,” Will said, hugging him hard.

S
ix days later Will's dad delivered the mail, including a letter addressed to Will. Will's breath seemed to get caught in his chest when he saw the return address.

It was from New Balance. Will had written a letter to the CEO of the company after doing some research. It was this, his Hail Mary pass with the clock running out and a whole season
really
on the line, that had kept him secretly hoping for days, the topsecret plan he'd only shared with Tim.

It was a crazy plan, he knew, one that would hopefully end with him and his teammates decked out in New Balance football shoes and jerseys and helmets that they'd provide for the team. A plan that ended with New Balance being their proud sponsor this season the way Forbes Flyers had once been the sponsor of the high school team.

Oh, Will knew it was crazy, all right. But he knew it would have been crazier
not
to try, to just sit there and feel sorry for himself and do nothing.

He picked New Balance just because he'd always worn their football shoes. He found some e-mail addresses on the Internet, thinking they might be a little sketchy but going with them anyway. Taking no chances, he also got the address of New Balance's corporate offices in Boston and sent an actual letter to Mr. Rob DeMartini, the company's CEO:

Now he was staring at the return address on the letter he held now in hands that didn't shake this way when a game was on the line:

Will was careful opening the envelope, even though his first impulse was to rip it open like it was a Christmas present. He knew that if somehow there was good news inside, he was going to want to keep everything intact.

The letter was typed, with Mr. DeMartini's signature at the bottom:

Will was by himself. When his dad had delivered the mail, he had just rung the doorbell like he always did, turned and waved when he saw Will waving at him from his bedroom window. Then he took a right at the end of the walk and headed up Valley to continue his route.