Football Hero (2008) (11 page)

TY GOT OFF THE
bus on the first day of school and hurried to Coach V’s office next to the gym. Coach V sat typing on his computer until Ty cleared his throat.

“Hey, Lewis,” Coach V said, swiveling around in his squeaky metal chair. “You have a good summer?”

“Yes,” Ty said, “and I can play football.”

Coach V frowned and said, “What about the family business?”

“My uncle is going to pick me up after he cleans Lucy’s,” Ty said, and saw the look of confusion on the coach’s face. “It’s a bar. Kind of a sports bar.”

“Oh, well, good,” Coach V said, handing him a stapled stack of papers. “Here’s the new playbook. You can have the first copy. It’s not that much different from the one I gave you in the spring.”

“I gave that back to you,” Ty said. “Remember?”

“What happened?” Coach V asked. “Your uncle get religion? Figured football would save your soul?”

“Something like that,” Ty said. “Well, I gotta get to homeroom.”

“Hey, Lewis,” Coach V said.

Ty turned around at the door.

“You’re in for good this time, right?”

Ty nodded.

“So I’m putting you in as my starting wide receiver, the Z,” Coach V said. “I can still see the catch you made in that passing scrimmage.”

The coach gave him a thumbs-up and Ty hurried off to his homeroom.

As Ty pushed open the wooden locker room door, he could hear the buzz of his teammates. But as he walked into the throng, it got suddenly quiet and the crowd opened up, making a clear path to the locker he had claimed during gym class. The smirking faces were contagious, and Ty began to smile himself as he approached whatever it was sticking up from the bench in front of his locker. A notebook-paper sign flew like a flag from the top of a wooden handle. Below, the smooth rubber cup of the plunger stood planted on the wooden seat.

The words scrawled on the paper in blue pen came into focus:

Ty fought to keep the corners of his mouth up in their smile. He blinked back the tears of shame and bit into his lower lip.

The crowd broke out into an uproar of laughter, punctuated by bursts of glee.

“Toilet man!”

“Come clean my crapper!”

“Toilet cleaner!”

“I heard your job stinks!”

“Toy-tee-Ty!”

“Watch out, don’t let him touch you!”

“Turd Man!”

“Wash your hands, Turd Man!”

The locker room door slammed open, smashing into the metal cage and sending a shiver through the room that left it suddenly silent except for Ty’s single sniff.

“What’s going on?” Coach V asked, glowering. “You sound like a pack of hyenas.”

Calvin West stepped from the crowd into the space in front of the plunger, hiding it from Coach V.

“We’re excited, Coach,” Calvin said, grinning at his teammates, who chuckled nervously. “Lewis gives us
that speed in the passing game you’re always talking about, right?”

Coach V looked at Calvin sideways and puckered his lips, then nodded and said, “Well, get your gear on and let’s get out there.”

When the coach walked out of the locker room, the team erupted in nervous laughter. Calvin reached behind him, picked up the plunger, and held it out to Ty.

“Your scepter, O King of the Turds.”

A fresh wave of laughter rushed over Ty. He slapped the plunger aside and pushed past Calvin West, opening his locker and focusing on tying the cleats Thane had bought him.

He ignored their words and he ignored their glee, knowing that anything he did would only keep them at it. After a few minutes, even Calvin turned his attention to getting ready for practice. They had plenty of gear to put on: knee, thigh, and hip pads along with a protective cup; rib and shoulder pads along with a helmet up top. Soon the locker room bubbled with the sound of popping snaps, clicking plastic, and players slapping each other’s pads.

Ty wriggled into his equipment, then slipped out through the door and onto the practice field. Players clustered like cows in a pasture, one big group and several smaller ones milling about aimlessly, waiting for the coach’s signal. Coach V looked at his watch and blew the whistle, yelling at them to all take a lap
and then line up for stretching. Ty fell into the slow-moving mass and headed up the sideline. By the time he reached the corner of the end zone, the players had spread out according to their speed, the smaller skill players up front and most of the linemen trailing behind, anchored by Kevin Tully, a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound eighth grader with a bulging gut.

Only a handful of players ran in front of Ty. He bumped up his speed and began to pass them, one by one. Calvin West ran second from the front. Ty hesitated, and Calvin looked back over his shoulder.

“Go ahead,” Calvin said, huffing, “pass me, Turd Man.”

Ty’s brain grew hot and he kicked in a burst of speed, looping around Calvin to the outside, ready to make him look silly.

On his way past, Ty saw Calvin kick out with his right foot. He felt a sharp pain in his ankle, lost his balance, and tumbled toward the ground.

He hit the turf and saw stars. Someone else running past tramped on his hand with their cleats, stumbling into the line and knocking down a bunch of other players. Laughter mixed with grumbles, and from the middle of the field Coach V screamed at them to stop fooling around. Ty got up slow, cradling his aching hand and limping back into the middle of the line, not just humiliated, but hurting.

He didn’t think things could get any worse.

He was wrong.

AFTER STRETCHING AND AGILITY
drills, Ty followed the other receivers as well as the running backs to a skeleton passing drill where they ran patterns and caught balls thrown to them by the quarterbacks. Ty ran the patterns well but had difficulty hanging on to the passes because of his throbbing hand. That wasn’t the bad part.

The bad part came when they began to work on blocking.

“When we run the ball,” Coach V said in a voice as rough as broken concrete, “you ladies can’t just stand there. Every play, you need to block the defenders downfield, the cornerbacks and safeties. That’s why they call them safeties. They’re the guys who make the tackle if the runner gets past the linebackers. You don’t know which play will be the one where Cooper
breaks through. If he does, and you make your blocks downfield, a ten-yard run turns into a touchdown. Understand?”

Ty understood, but knowing something and doing it, especially in football, were two very different things. Coach V put them into a white chalk circle he called “the pit.” The wide receivers and defensive backs faced off, one on one, to see which one could smash the other outside of the circle.

When Ty got to the front of the receivers’ line, Calvin West pushed his way to the front of the defensive backs’ line and entered the circle. Ty got down into a three-point stance, the way he’d seen the other receivers do. Calvin West bent his knees and lowered his shoulder pads, holding his gloved hands out in front of him and flexing them. Coach V blew the whistle. Ty launched forward.

Calvin dipped his head and hit Ty up under the chin, knocking him back. At the same instant, he jammed his hands into Ty’s chest, lifting him up and driving him back. Before Ty knew it, he’d been blown outside the circle, but Calvin kept driving him until Ty tripped over a teammate and landed flat on his back with a thud that cost him his breath. Calvin popped up and stood over him, howling with a war cry. Other players hooted and cheered and slapped Calvin on the back, and after his whistle sounded, even Coach V praised Ty’s enemy.

“That’s the way it’s done!” Coach V shouted. “Next two, up!”

The drill kept going and no one paid attention to Ty as he slowly rose to his feet.

At the end of practice the starting offense squared off against the starting defense to scrimmage, the closest thing to a real game the players would get in practice. Ty wanted to impress Coach V, and when the first play called in the huddle was a long pass, he thought he’d get his chance. When he jogged out to the Z position, Calvin West moved directly opposite him, smirking and flexing his fingers.

“Here we go, Turd Man,” Calvin said under his breath. “I’m tearing you up twenty-four seven.”

Ty thought about the move he’d put on Calvin in the passing scrimmage at the beginning of the summer.

“Bring it,” Ty said, lowering his hips and digging his cleats into the turf for good footing.

At the snap of the ball, Ty darted one way, then the other. He flew by Calvin, grinning to himself until he felt something clip the back of his heels. Down he went again. Calvin West stood above him, grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet until he dashed away.

The whistle blew the play dead. When Ty got flattened, Michael Poyer had thrown a short swing pass to the running back on the other side of the field. Ty struggled to his feet, his head ringing.

“Where were you on the go route, Lewis?” Coach V shouted as he approached the huddle.

“He knocked me down, Coach,” Ty said.

“Well, don’t let him.”

“Didn’t you see what he did?” Ty asked.

“You think I’ve got eleven sets of eyes?” Coach V asked.

“He tripped me,” Ty said.

Coach V shot a glance over at the defense. Calvin West held up his hands and shrugged. “Feet got tangled, Coach.”

Ty said, “That’s not—”

“Enough,” Coach V shouted. “Next play. Let’s go. We’re wasting time. Get out into the pattern, Lewis. All the speed in the world doesn’t do any good if you can’t get downfield.”

Every play Calvin West lined up in front of Ty, and every play he did something cheap: tripping, holding, kicking, even diving at the back of his legs from behind. Calvin knew just when to do his dirty tricks, how not to get caught, and how to make Ty look useless. By the end of practice, Ty had tears of rage in his eyes. He kept lining up, though, telling himself that Calvin would get tired of it sometime, but he never did.

By Friday, a handful of teammates who weren’t buddies with Calvin let Ty into their online fantasy league. Charlotte told him he could use the outdated
computer in her room. Now he could truthfully ask Thane for the information Lucy and Uncle Gus wanted. Uncle Gus cut the Jets injury report out of the morning paper at the breakfast table and gave it to Ty for a guide.

“You get the real story on these guys,” Uncle Gus said. “Especially Jones, the running back. It says he’s questionable with a bad knee. That’s a fifty percent chance he’ll play. We need to know for certain one way or the other.”

As far as Ty’s real team went, he was ready to quit. Bruises, welts, and swollen knots of flesh covered his legs, arms, and hands. While he caught an occasional pass, more times than not he found himself the subject of Coach V’s ranting for not getting downfield into the pass pattern. Only once did Coach V ream out Calvin West for a blatant pass interference, and even then, Calvin didn’t seem disturbed. He only nodded his head and put a sorry look on his face that evaporated the instant Coach V turned away.

But the reason Ty thought seriously about quitting before Friday’s practice wasn’t the bumps and bruises. It was because Thane was going to pick him up from practice to take him to dinner, and Ty was afraid his older brother would see him taking a licking from Calvin West.

As practice progressed, Ty kept an eye on the street. When Thane’s Escalade pulled up, Ty’s stomach knotted
up tight. Thane didn’t get out, but the driver’s side window rolled down and he smiled and gave Ty a thumbs-up. Ty gave him a quick wave and got back to business.

On passing plays, he used his most elusive moves. On run plays, he hit Calvin as hard as he possibly could, blocking with a ferocity that often kept Calvin away from the play, but never ended without Ty on the receiving end of some kind of cheap shot, often after the whistle had blown the play dead and the contact was supposed to have stopped. Finally, Coach V lined them up for conditioning. In the ten wind sprints across the width of the field, Ty outran everyone. Coach V praised him, but his voice lacked the luster it once had when he talked about Ty’s speed.

Ty jogged inside and changed quickly. Thane had rolled up the window to talk on the phone, but when Ty opened the passenger door, he said a quick good-bye and snapped the phone shut.

Thane hugged him and kissed the top of Ty’s head. “What do you say? Barelli’s?”

“The best sauce I think I ever ate,” Ty said, reaching for the stereo controls.

“This Friday night thing is going to work out great,” Thane said. “When you’re in the NFL, the weekend starts Monday, so it’s not like I’m going out on the town or anything on a Friday. It’s a good time to catch up. How’s school?”

“Same as always,” Ty said, turning the music up.

They listened to Everlast until the end of the song, then Thane reached over and turned the volume way down.

“Hey,” he said, glancing over. “I want to talk about football.”

“You guys are playing the Lions Sunday, right?” Ty asked.

Thane shook his head. “Your football.”

Ty looked out the window. “Not much to talk about. I’m learning the plays.”

“I’m sitting here, thinking I want to go punch your coach in the face,” Thane said, his face tight and turning color.

“What do you mean?” Ty asked.

“Who’s that kid?”