The Playmaker Project

by Daniel Peterson

  "About another ten minutes until we're there," said Jack.

  Peter scrolled down to a two year old article in Hesari, the Helsinki newspaper, when Niemi came back to his hometown to buy FC Kotka. Almost bored with the satellite business at this point, he turned to sports for his next conquest. The purchase price was pocket change for Niemi, but, as with Haukka, the desire was to build a club from scratch in his backyard. Rather than buying overpriced superstars, he claimed in the interview that developing young players was the fastest and most lucrative path to trophies.

  As the bus turned off the highway on to the city streets of Kotka, Peter pondered a quote from Niemi in the article, "We don't plan to wait five or ten years for our recruits to become world-class. I will build a system using the latest sports science and technology to accelerate their development, both physically and cognitively." Peter tried to read between the lines as to what he was about to encounter.

  The bus came to a stop. Peter looked out the window. His eyes darted back and forth, trying to take it all in. The video didn't lie, this place glimmered with grandeur.

  "Dude," said Peter calling to Benny. "Get over here!"

  Benny paused the game and climbed across the aisle. His mouth dropped as he let out an evil laugh.

  "Holy shit!" said Benny, grabbing Peter's shoulders.

  "Gentlemen, welcome to FC Kotka Academy!" announced Jack.

  7

  In her world, Dr. Anna Lehtinen was not easily impressed by glimmering architectural creations. From her medical school days spent inside the Sheikh Zayed Tower at Johns Hopkins, to her daily walk through the Gonda Building as a neurosurgery resident at Mayo Clinic and now to her everyday interactions with the Aalto-inspired designs across the University of Helsinki campus, she was moved by the intricate, curvilinear and sophisticated architecture that surrounded her. She likened them to the human brain, the focus of her adult life. As a tenured professor of neurological surgery and director of her own research lab, the Cognitive Brain Technology Center or CBTC, she had built an envious curriculum vitae for someone in their mid-thirties.

  As she meandered along the inner courtyard of FC Kotka Academy, part of the sprawling Haukka Stadium campus, she sensed a similar excitement and inspiration from the futuristic buildings blended into the Finnish landscape. Like the grandiose missions of the medical schools she loved, this place produced an aura of splendor not to be underestimated. She often imagined if all of this money had gone to clinical research.

  Her phone buzzed with a five-minute reminder of her upcoming meeting, the reason for her one hour drive from Helsinki that morning. She shifted gears from a stroll to a determined stride. Mr. Niemi valued punctuality, and she did not want to keep her benefactor waiting. This partnership could jump-start her research towards the elusive answer she was seeking.

  Throughout her short career, Anna relied on a trait that most young, brilliant minds share, an obsessive search for a specific solution to a deeply personal problem. Anna longed to give the gift of music back to her mother, Sylvia, after it was so brutally taken away in an automobile accident years ago. As a child, Anna assumed that everyone’s mother was like hers, a renowned cellist with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, traveling the world on tour playing in glorious concert halls. Until the day her father met Anna at school with the news that a car had struck Sylvia while she crossed a London street.

  Six months later, after the broken bones had healed and the scars were fading, Anna noticed something missing - her mother’s music. With her beloved and priceless Bergonzi cello stored in the corner of their rehearsal studio, Sylvia would sit in her darkened den listening to recordings of Bach, Brahms, and Shostakovich sonatas, pieces she had mastered and performed in front of enthusiastic audiences. But now, her fingers would only wait for instructions from her injured brain, messages that became jumbled or lost along the way. Her hands could physically play the instrument, dragging the bow across chorded strings. Still, the feeling, the emotion, and the mastery that had lifted her music to the highest level had vanished. The orchestra’s director was patient with the recovery process. Even so, the prognosis from the specialists was that Ms. Lehtinen’s extraordinary skill was, most likely, not going to return.

  As a science student in her teens, Anna knew of the basic functionality of the nervous system but couldn't understand her mother’s loss of skills. Bones can heal, muscles regenerate torn fibers, even vital organs could be replaced. But the brain, which controls all else, was often a lost cause after injury or disease. Anna’s life fell into two phases, before and after the accident. Before, it was music, joy, and contentment. After was silence, sadness, and regret. She turned to her father for answers, hoping he could reach into his medical bag to retrieve a cure. He could only talk about experimental research that was years away from practical use.

  Now, Anna had a singular mission, to help her mother and thousands like her, who had lost a piece of themselves. If the brain could not heal itself, then perhaps science could create a spare part that could replace the missing component. Ironically, she thought of the replacement cellist who took her mother’s chair in the orchestra. If one voice in a symphony falls silent, they find another to fill the void. But it was a race against time. Sylvia could not afford to repeat the twenty years of learning needed to regain her ability. Instead, Anna imagined a process to accelerate the acquisition of talent with the nuances of performance that the wayward car in London had stolen.

  Behind the reception desk inside the Academy's main hall was a bank of elevator doors, with one separated from the others by a metal detector arch in front of it. Anna passed through it with no alarm then pressed the round Kotka logo button. A camera and screen lit up next to the door with a voice asking for their identities.

  “Anna Lehtinen to see Mr. Niemi,” she said.

  After a few seconds, the doors opened, and she stepped inside, bathed in Kotka blue and white. There were no floor selection buttons, as there was only one destination. As the elevator lifted, she looked out of the glass windows, able to see the full horizon of buildings under the Kotka banner. At the top, a cheerful woman rounding a desk in front of an oversized, lit logo greeted her.

  “Welcome, Dr. Lehtinen, I have not had the pleasure. I am Helen Lavola, Mr. Niemi’s executive assistant.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Helen,” said Anna.

  “Victor is just finishing up with Coach Pennington. He would like you to join them,” said Helen, motioning her through the massive, blond wood door behind her.

  Anna entered Victor’s office, although it seemed to be more like a grand entrance hall. The exterior walls were all windows, single plates of glass, surrounded by a chrome-trimmed balcony. To their left was a free-standing fireplace adorned with a chimney wrapped in white marble. It stood alone with no chairs or sofas surrounding it. Nor was there a desk, just three monitors hung like paintings on the wall to the right of the door. One was tuned to Bloomberg, one displaying a real-time, closed-circuit feed from the field and the last showing a live Champions League group stage match. The floor tiles were a checkerboard pattern of blue and white with the ubiquitous FC Kotka logo embedded in the center. It was a minimalist look taken to the extreme with enough space to hold a small-sided match.

  Anna saw Victor and Stuart standing out on the balcony overlooking the academy field. As she approached, the glass door slid open.

  “Hello Victor,” she said.

  “Anna! So good to see you!” said Victor, turning and offering an embrace.

  Anna opted instead for a handshake.

  Victor turned and waved his hand over his kingdom. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It's beautiful,” said Anna. “Much larger than I imagined from the pictures.”

  “Everything is here on this campus, Anna. As you know, we have only the best,” said Victor. “Have you seen the school?”

  “Yes, it's all quite impressive,” said Anna glancing at Stuart, built like a chimney s
tanding to her right.

  “Oh, sorry. Coach Pennington, I would like you to meet Dr. Anna Lehtinen,” said Victor. “Stuart is the director of our youth academy.”

  “Hello Mr. Pennington,” she said, offering her hand. “Perhaps Victor mentioned me to you?”

  “He did. You are our new team shrink?” said Stuart, pretending to be interested but ignoring Anna’s handshake.

  “Actually, Director of Cognitive Performance is the title that Victor gave me,” she said, smiling at Victor. “It's a little over the top, I admit, but I have responsibility for the mental assessment and development of both the senior team and our youth academy.”

  “Well, maybe you should coach the team as well?” said Stuart with a sarcastic grin.

  “Of course not, Mr. Pennington, that’s your expertise. I struggle even to understand offsides when I watch the game,” said Anna.

  “Pardon me, but I need to get down to the field,” said Stuart, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Are those our new recruits?” asked Anna.

  “Yes, they just arrived a few hours ago,” said Stuart.

  “Just young boys today, but champions very, very soon, right, Stuart?” said Victor.

  “They’re raw and need work, but we’ll do our best,” said Stuart, trying to control Victor’s grandiose expectations.

  “Stuart, I’m not paying you to do your best. I’m paying you to win,” said Victor with a wry smile directed at Anna.

  Anna had heard about Victor’s bravado, especially around women.

  “And Dr. Lehtinen has an exciting program of cognitive training lined up for our boys, isn’t that right?” said Victor.

  “And I’m eager to get started with the assessments for our selection process —"

  “Of course, you are. And we can talk about that soon,” interrupted Victor.

  “Selection for what?” asked Stuart.

  “For the training program that I mentioned,” said Victor, looking away from Anna. “Stuart, I’d like to say a few words to the boys before they leave today. I’ll meet you down there in ten minutes.”

  “Sounds like my cue to go,” said Stuart.

  “Always a great sense of timing, just like your playing days,” said Victor patting Stuart on the back.

  Stuart stepped back into the office. Victor followed him through the door.

  “Let me know when our Russian duo arrives,” said Victor, leaning his head toward Stuart. “Remember what we talked about. I will keep Dmitry updated.”

  “Will he be on-site?” asked Stuart.

  “I don’t know. He’s here when he’s here. Assume he’s watching,” said Victor as he walked Stuart out of his office.

  Few people knew when Dmitry Bogdanov was present. He was a shadow of a man who rarely appeared in public and did not exist on the Internet. But when he bought a twenty-five percent stake of FC Kotka, Victor discovered he was a Russian citizen and assumed he lived near St. Petersburg. In two years, he had attended only one director's meeting by phone. Victor disliked the secrecy and didn’t really need the 15 million euro investment. But it was Dmitry’s connections throughout the upper echelon of the elite world of soccer that Victor thought would be useful in the future. And he controlled the pipeline of young Russian players who weren’t quite ready for the country’s top clubs. As with his satellite empire at Haukka, Victor had learned the advantages of buying the grease that would help turn the wheels.

  “Did I say something I wasn’t supposed to?” asked Anna as Victor rejoined her on the balcony.

  “No, not at all. Stuart just prefers more traditional training methods, so I try not to get him flustered,” said Victor.

  “What doesn’t he like about our project?” said Anna.

  “It's not important,” said Victor, dismissively.

  “He knows about the project, doesn’t he?”

  “He knows what he needs to know,” said Victor, walking towards the other end of the balcony.

  Anna stopped to process Victor’s answer.

  “Victor, you led me to believe that all staff was aware of the science and technology that I am offering."

  “Dr. Lehtinen,” said Victor as he spun towards her. “Sorry. Anna, why do you think that I donated three million euros to your CBTC?”

  “I assumed to further our mission of brain injury research,” she said.

  “And why do you suppose I offered you this partnership to work with our athletes exclusively?”

  “Again, to have a chance to demonstrate and validate our technology.”

  Victor turned back towards the field.

  “Sometimes scientific progress like this requires discretion as not to attract too much attention until we can prove our results. Wouldn’t you agree?” said Victor.

  “I don’t like the direction of this conversation,” said Anna.

  “Anna, sports have too many rules about what we can and can’t do. Everyone wants to compete on the field, but nobody is willing to innovate new ideas. As I discovered in satellites, the winner is the one who is not afraid of the next frontier, what is out there beyond what we can see,” said Victor looking up into the sky.

  Anna listened intently, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Victor turned halfway towards her with one arm resting on the railing.

  “What you are doing at CBTC is ground-breaking, like no one else in the world. My expertise is in spotting opportunities and applying them to my businesses. Our partnership can fundamentally change sports. But we need to do it under the radar for now. If not, the Luddites who run sporting organizations will outlaw our ideas before we even get to use them.”

  Victor paused for a reaction.

  “You’re talking about cheating,” said Anna.

  “Not if there is no rule against it,” replied Victor.

  “Who exactly knows about Kognitio?” asked Anna.

  “You and I,” said Victor, looking directly into her eyes. “And that’s how it will stay, for now. Understood?”

  “And the release forms from the players?” asked Anna.

  “They said enough to be legal,” said Victor.

  Anna turned towards the field, contemplating her next move. She was reasonably confident that her program would not hurt the players, one of the first oaths she took as a doctor, to do no harm. Victor had just raised the stakes on their partnership. She would need to keep Kognitio, her brain-computer interface system, confidential in exchange for millions of euros of donations to CBTC. She thought of her mother and the primary reason for her research.

  “Promise me that one day there will be full transparency,” said Anna.

  “If this goes as we hope, one day, there will not only be transparency, but every athlete in the world will benefit from it,” said Victor.

  “And you will profit from that?” said Anna.

  “Somebody will, so it might as well be me. But first, FC Kotka will win trophies,” said Victor looking down at the players below.

  Anna excused herself, heading straight past Helen without a word and onto the elevator. The conversation gave her an uneasiness, almost a guilty feeling. Life in the lab was sterile, immune from the contagious world of sketchy ethics. She needed to get outside, go for a run, clear her head of this new, grimy reality, but first she had to meet the recruits.

  8

  On his way downstairs to the training pitch, Stuart's thoughts swirled. He passed the sports science department, with its impressive collection of medical and performance monitoring equipment. They spared no expense in this new world of FC Kotka. Back in his playing days in England, two athletic trainers managed the strains and niggles of the entire team with one part-time physician to consult for something serious.

  Now, the working theory was to anticipate and prevent injuries, at least the non-contact variety, rather than just react and treat them. Each player's practice time was logged and reported along with their subjective rating of perceived effort for each activity. The senior players learned to rig the
system by agreeing to overinflate their effort to avoid more rigorous training sessions planned by the coaching staff.

  While Stuart envied the care and attention that this generation of players received, he didn't appreciate being kept in the dark. Despite the support team built around them, Stuart had insisted that all specialists to report to him. Victor had agreed, but that didn't stop him from layering on this new class of performance monitoring through a visiting neuroscientist. And now it seemed to Stuart that Victor and Anna were masterminding something more.

  He stepped out onto the turf into the early summer sunshine, adding a white Kotka ball cap and black sunglasses to match his team-issued blue shorts and long-sleeved sweatshirt emblazoned with the team logo, with sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Stuart preferred that his words and actions, rather than his appearance, command respect and set the tone. His young players knew a bit of his legacy as a player, but that did not always carry weight with this generation. His players would soon learn that respect came first before he showed his lighter, caring side.

  He watched from a distance as the eight new recruits went through the warm-up routine with the older academy players. Harry and Charlie tried to keep up but already looked winded. Toshi showed promise but was still adjusting to the environment, looking around in awe whenever given a chance. Tristan feigned boredom to hide his anxiety of being with players as talented, if not better than him. Then there was Benny, the American, who held an ongoing conversation with anyone within three feet of him. The standout among the group was Peter Borg. Direct, smooth, and concise in his movements, Stuart recognized himself in Peter's demeanor. Taller than most of his teammates, Peter was a natural focal point in the small group scrimmages, someone they could look up to, literally and figuratively.