face into the dirt instead of ripping out your entrails.
So you try to hurry, try to get the ball wrapped up a little more quickly, get moving a little sooner, but somehow everything is just a little off. Your hands keep coming up empty. Incomplete pass.
Incomplete.
Incomplete.
“What the hell is going on?” Coach’s voice bawls across the practice field. “Hey! Pride of the Panthers! I’m talking to you!”
Surprised, you look over. Coach’s eyes are on you. Cox is watching. And Billings. And Stargill’s looking you, Stargill who’s been popping up off the ground after every play, like the grass would burn him if he didn’t.
Everybody is looking at you.
Coach shifts the wad in his cheek, like he’s thinking “You’re hearing footsteps, Reid,” he finally points out.
Hearing footsteps. You know what that means,course. Sometimes when a player’s about to make a catch he feels the defender breathing down his neck. Knowing he’s about to get hit makes him lose his concentration. And very often, the ball.
“Keep focused, son,” Coach warns. “Wrap that up tight before you even think about moving.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You get in a game and drop a catchable ball, come Monday you might just wish you’d died trying.” deliberately lets his gaze fall on Rhinehart, whose sweaty already-red face gets even redder. Your shoulders hunch a little. You feel naked and visible, as if the propped-paper doll that was you has been blown away during the course of this afternoon.
After practice, Rhinehart lumbers into the locker room more slowly than usual, but otherwise he doesn’t seem feel any ill effects from having his head pounded out his ass. Dobie’s still outside, collecting the rest of the equipment. All the guys are laughing, messing around like every other practice.
Except Curtis. Sitting on the bench next to you, he pulls his shirt off in one quick, angry movement, over his head.
“I think Coach just wanted us to learn something,” you offer.
“I didn’t learn anything. Just helped beat the crap outof Rhinehart.” Curtis says it matter-of-factly. But when he takes off his cleats he hurls them into the bottom of his locker, sending chips of dried mud flying.
You don’t try again. You sit there for a moment, half undressed on the bench in front of your open locker. Your practice jersey lies crumpled on the floor, waiting to be exchanged for a clean, already laundered one. Your shoulder pads sit passive, your helmet hangs empty, and you think how the players have been provided with all this equipment to keep them from getting hurt. How the whole school district plans and pays to keep the players safe—at the same time that all of you are trying to pulverize each other into dust.
That’s what you did to Rhinehart; you hit him hard that he couldn’t even get up right away. You get there and hurt somebody like Rhinehart and then walk off without even caring, because that’s what the Pride the Panthers does.
You have to admit that you don’t like this game much anymore. You used to like it; it made you feel good. But somehow football’s become just another one of all things you used to enjoy that got swallowed up. It almost hurts, if you think about how many things you used enjoy.
“You going to tell Coach he’s a dumb jock with stupid idea, Hightower?” Brett Stargill jeers on his way to the showers. He snaps a towel inches away froCurtis’s neck as he passes by, not noticing or caring that Curtis doesn’t flinch.
“It’s supposed to be a sport,” Curtis says under his breath. “Not a torture session.”
You make yourself stand up. With that movement, your hand rises and begins to unlace your dirt-pants. It pulls the pads out and tosses them on top of your cleats. All on its own.
It starts to rain as you pull out of the field house parking. The wet-asphalt smell, the sodden air, the miserable afternoon—they all add up to a tightness in your lungs that makes it
So you try to hurry, try to get the ball wrapped up a little more quickly, get moving a little sooner, but somehow everything is just a little off. Your hands keep coming up empty. Incomplete pass.
Incomplete.
Incomplete.
“What the hell is going on?” Coach’s voice bawls across the practice field. “Hey! Pride of the Panthers! I’m talking to you!”
Surprised, you look over. Coach’s eyes are on you. Cox is watching. And Billings. And Stargill’s looking you, Stargill who’s been popping up off the ground after every play, like the grass would burn him if he didn’t.
Everybody is looking at you.
Coach shifts the wad in his cheek, like he’s thinking “You’re hearing footsteps, Reid,” he finally points out.
Hearing footsteps. You know what that means,course. Sometimes when a player’s about to make a catch he feels the defender breathing down his neck. Knowing he’s about to get hit makes him lose his concentration. And very often, the ball.
“Keep focused, son,” Coach warns. “Wrap that up tight before you even think about moving.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You get in a game and drop a catchable ball, come Monday you might just wish you’d died trying.” deliberately lets his gaze fall on Rhinehart, whose sweaty already-red face gets even redder. Your shoulders hunch a little. You feel naked and visible, as if the propped-paper doll that was you has been blown away during the course of this afternoon.
After practice, Rhinehart lumbers into the locker room more slowly than usual, but otherwise he doesn’t seem feel any ill effects from having his head pounded out his ass. Dobie’s still outside, collecting the rest of the equipment. All the guys are laughing, messing around like every other practice.
Except Curtis. Sitting on the bench next to you, he pulls his shirt off in one quick, angry movement, over his head.
“I think Coach just wanted us to learn something,” you offer.
“I didn’t learn anything. Just helped beat the crap outof Rhinehart.” Curtis says it matter-of-factly. But when he takes off his cleats he hurls them into the bottom of his locker, sending chips of dried mud flying.
You don’t try again. You sit there for a moment, half undressed on the bench in front of your open locker. Your practice jersey lies crumpled on the floor, waiting to be exchanged for a clean, already laundered one. Your shoulder pads sit passive, your helmet hangs empty, and you think how the players have been provided with all this equipment to keep them from getting hurt. How the whole school district plans and pays to keep the players safe—at the same time that all of you are trying to pulverize each other into dust.
That’s what you did to Rhinehart; you hit him hard that he couldn’t even get up right away. You get there and hurt somebody like Rhinehart and then walk off without even caring, because that’s what the Pride the Panthers does.
You have to admit that you don’t like this game much anymore. You used to like it; it made you feel good. But somehow football’s become just another one of all things you used to enjoy that got swallowed up. It almost hurts, if you think about how many things you used enjoy.
“You going to tell Coach he’s a dumb jock with stupid idea, Hightower?” Brett Stargill jeers on his way to the showers. He snaps a towel inches away froCurtis’s neck as he passes by, not noticing or caring that Curtis doesn’t flinch.
“It’s supposed to be a sport,” Curtis says under his breath. “Not a torture session.”
You make yourself stand up. With that movement, your hand rises and begins to unlace your dirt-pants. It pulls the pads out and tosses them on top of your cleats. All on its own.
It starts to rain as you pull out of the field house parking. The wet-asphalt smell, the sodden air, the miserable afternoon—they all add up to a tightness in your lungs that makes it
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