The Walk On (12 page)

The next few minutes were all about playing better and
playing harder and not making mistakes. Alex’s head was spinning by the time the coaches walked back in.

“Did we walk into the wrong locker room?” he whispered to Jake Bilney. “Are we
losing
42–0?”

Before Jake could answer, Alex heard Coach Gordon’s voice cutting through the air—coming right at him like an incoming missile.

“Myers, did you have something to say to your teammates?” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to talk about all of your first-half contributions.”

For a split second Alex considered saying,
Give me a chance to contribute, you jerk
. Instead, he settled for, “No sir. Sorry sir.”

It was 63–0 by the end of the third quarter. Nobody slipped on defense—the poor Mercer kids were buried on just about every play. Finally, after Matt Gordon had scored his sixth touchdown of the night late in the third quarter, Coach Gordon began to empty his bench.

When the offense got the ball back early in the fourth quarter, Alex wasn’t at all surprised when he heard Coach Hillier calling one running play after another with Bilney in the game at quarterback. But on the fifth play of the drive, with the ball at midfield, Bilney faked a handoff, dropped back, and hit a wide-open Andrew Feeley—the tight end—running straight down the middle for another easy touchdown. Pete Ross kicked his tenth extra point of the night to make it 70–0.

Alex noticed that the second-half touchdowns had been greeted by decidedly muted roars—actually, more like polite applause—from what had once been a fired-up crowd. Lions
Field had been packed for kickoff. Now the place was at least half empty.

“Did you audible that play?” Alex asked when Bilney came over and took off his helmet.

The long pass was not what he’d heard Hillier suggest from the press box. A quarterback could change the play sent in from the sideline if he spotted something in the defensive formation that made him believe a different play would work better.

Bilney shook his head. “No audible,” he said.

That meant Coach Gordon had overruled Hillier’s running play and called for the play-action pass.

“Gordon called it, not Hillier,” Alex said.

“Figures,” was all Bilney said in response.

The offense scored one more time to make it 77–0. By the time the clock wound under two minutes, every player in a Chester Heights uniform had gotten into the game—except for Alex. At one point, when the offense went back on the field with Bilney at quarterback, Alex saw Matt Gordon talking to his father and pointing in Alex’s direction. Coach Gordon simply shook his head and walked away.

With fifty-six seconds left, Mercer had driven into Chester Heights territory against a defense now made up of all twos and threes. They had a fourth and four on the Chester Heights 33, when Coach Gordon suddenly called time-out. He waved all the twos and threes off the field and sent the starters back in after calling them into a circle around him.

“We do
not
let this team score,” he said. “Get this stop right now and let’s go home.”

The defensive starters charged back onto the field. Coach
Klein called for an all-out blitz on the play, the linebackers pass-rushing along with the linemen. It was Gerry Detwiler who got to the quarterback and took him down before he had a chance to even think about getting off a pass. Detwiler jumped up and started pounding his chest as if he had saved the game, the season, and civilization.

Alex checked the scoreboard. Still 77–0.

Someone was calling his name. He looked up and saw Coach Gordon gesturing at him. He raced over.

“Go in and take a knee,” he said. “Forty-seven seconds left so you’ll have to do it twice. Think you can handle that?”

Again Alex managed to stifle his real answer. He put his helmet on and jogged out with the offense. It consisted not only of the other third-stringers but also of several players who had been cut after the tryouts. They had dressed for the game because they had already signed up to play on the junior varsity.

“Victory formation,” Alex said, stepping into the huddle.

This was a football universal. When a team simply wanted to run out the clock by having the quarterback take the snap and kneel down, it was called “victory.” Of course, Chester Heights could have played the whole second half in victory and won the game.

Alex took the snap, took one step back, and dropped to a knee. He flipped the ball to the referee.

“One more time, son,” the ref said, glancing at the clock. There were forty seconds to play in the game.

Alex nodded, turned to his teammates in the huddle, and simply said, “Victory.”

They lined up again. Alex started to drop to a knee with
the ball when—out of nowhere—he felt a shoulder collide with his helmet. He felt a stinging pain in the side of his head and in his ribs because he had been punched there at the same time. He went down on his back and saw someone looking at him through a face mask.

“You tell your——coach that was for him!” was all he heard before someone pulled his attacker off him. Lying there, Alex could tell there was shouting and pushing and shoving going on all around. He knew he should get up so no one would step on him, but he was too stunned to move.

Then through the snarl of bodies above him, a Lion broke free and stood over him. “Wait for the trainer,” Matt Gordon said. “I’ll take care of you until he gets here.”

“How’s the head, Goldie?” Matt asked softly.

“I think I’m okay,” he said.

Buddy Thomas, the trainer, was kneeling in front of him, a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions, okay?”

Instinctively, Alex nodded, but that hurt, so he stopped.

Buddy must have seen him wince because he said to him, “Head’s pretty sore, huh?”

“Yes,” Alex said, remembering not to move his head this time.

“What’s your name?” Buddy asked.

Alex almost laughed because he wasn’t sure
Buddy
knew his name. There was a reasonable chance that Alex could answer the question wrong and Buddy wouldn’t know.

“Alex Myers. But you call me ‘rook.’ ” All the freshmen were “rook” in Buddy’s training room.

Buddy smiled—the first time Alex had seen
that
—and Alex could hear some laughter from the players behind him.

“Very good.”

“What day is it?”

“Friday.”

“Do you remember who we were playing?”

“Mercer.”

“What was the score when you came into the game?”

“Seventy-seven to nothing. We had the seventy-seven.”

More laughter.

Buddy looked up at Coach Gordon, who Alex now noticed was standing off to his right.

The players from both teams were hovering around him quietly. He could see a number of security people in yellow jackets standing between the players from the two teams, just in case someone got angry again.

“I think he’s going to need some Advil, but he doesn’t have any concussion symptoms,” Buddy said. “At least not right now.”

“Good,” Coach Gordon said. “Alex, do you feel like you can stand up?”

It was the first time Coach Gordon had called him by his first name.

“I think so,” he said. “But my ribs are kind of sore.”

“We’ll take a look at that when we get inside,” Buddy said as he reached down to help him up. “Gordon, do me a favor and get his other arm.”

Matt Gordon took Alex by the left arm while Buddy Thomas got the right one, and together they got him on his feet. Alex felt some pain in both his head and his ribs, but
nothing that made him want to scream. He looked around and saw that most of those still left in the stands were standing, and when he stood up, they started to clap. So did some of the players. One of the Mercer players walked up to him with his hand out.

“I’m really sorry, dude. I just lost it there for a second,” he said. “You didn’t do anything to deserve that.”

Even though he was a defensive lineman, he wasn’t a lot bigger than Alex. Which helped explain why the score had been 77–0. Alex shook his hand.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand.”

Actually, he
did
sort of understand. Coach Gordon had run up the score. Unfortunately,
he
hadn’t been in the game to take a knee on the final two plays. Alex had. So Alex was the one with the pounding head and the sore ribs.

“Come on, Myers,” Buddy said. “Let’s get a look at those ribs.”

Alex smiled. He guessed by the time they made it inside, he’d be back to being “rook” again.

Buddy Thomas examined Alex’s ribs thoroughly and told him he didn’t think he had anything more than some bruises. “If they’re still sore on Monday, we’ll send you to get an MRI,” he said. “But I suspect you’re going to be fine. How’s your head right now?”

The pounding had actually lessened by the time they got into the locker room, although Alex wouldn’t have minded if someone had turned down the postgame music that was pulsing through the room.

“Not too bad,” he said.

Buddy reached onto a shelf and pulled a bottle of Advil off it. “Take two now and two just before you go to bed,” he said. “If you’ve got a headache in the morning, take a couple more. If it
still
hurts after that, call me and I’ll get you in to see a doctor tomorrow. I suspect you’re fine. Your memory was clear out on the field, which is a very good sign, and you didn’t black out at all. Still, we have to be careful with any hit to the head.

“Got it?”

Alex nodded, and winced.

“All right, then. Go take a shower and get dressed. I’m going to go outside and talk to your mom.”

“My mom? She’s not here.”

Molly had a soccer game that she was actually
playing
in, so Alex had told his mom to go to that game and not bother trying to catch some of his game afterward since he knew he wouldn’t be playing. He was now especially grateful that she had agreed.

“No, she’s here,” Buddy said. “Coach Hillier called her. He didn’t want her seeing anything on TV or the Internet about you being knocked out and panicking. He also thought she should come pick you up. She just texted me a couple minutes ago that she’s outside with Ellington’s mom waiting for you guys.”

Alex nodded and was pleased to note that the pain wasn’t as bad as it had been a few minutes earlier.

He got down from the training table. He was still wearing his uniform pants but had taken off his jersey and pads. Instinctively, he looked around for them.

“Don’t worry about the uniform,” Buddy said. “Taken care of. Mr. O’s got it.”

“Thanks,” Alex said.

“Anytime, ‘rook,’ ” Buddy said, smiling. “Next time you’re out there to take a knee, remember to duck.”

Alex laughed, which hurt a little. He walked into the locker room, which was already half empty. Some guys were still dressing, and he could hear the showers going. As he walked to his locker, several guys asked him how he was feeling or patted him gently on the back. Jonas was the only one left in the freshman area and he was putting his shoes on.

“So, you gonna survive?” he asked.

“Apparently, I’ll live to kneel another day,” Alex said, sitting down in front of his locker. He wondered if any football player in history had ever felt this tired after a game in which his role had been to kneel down twice.

“Coach Hillier called your mom,” Jonas said. “She’s outside with my mom right now.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’ll go tell them you’re coming soon—okay?”

“Yeah, good idea. I won’t be that long.”

Alex undressed slowly—he was still sore—and headed for the shower room, which had emptied out. He showered longer than he should have, but the hot water felt so good it was hard to get out. He walked to his locker, towel around his waist, and was pulling his clothes out when he heard a voice behind him.

“Alex, I’m really sorry. That was my fault.”

He turned and saw Coach Hillier, dressed in what the players called his “civilian” clothes.

“How in the world could it be your fault?”

“Because I told Coach Gordon he had to get you on the
field. That it was unfair for you to be the one guy in uniform not to play. I’m not sure what I was thinking, since all you were going to do was kneel. Then … this happens. I’m sorry.”