The Boy Who Couldn’t Miss

by Laurence Dahners

  The coin toss and the kickoff had him back on his feet, shifting his weight from side to side and stretching up on his toes trying to see. Because Hax was a quarterback, the only time he’d ever practiced with the special teams was as holder for the field goal kicker. They’d run some fake kicks in practice where Hax would snatch the ball and throw a pass, but, from the desultory way the coaches directed the plays, he didn’t think they ever expected to actually try a fake field goal during a real game.

  Hax had no experience with what the special teams did when they were out to receive kickoffs. He had a vague idea though, from watching videos, and when Morrison—the second-string defensive back who acted as first-string returner—caught the ball, Hax cheered wildly with the rest. Morrison was really fast and everyone obviously hoped he might break away, including Morrison.

  Morrison got creamed just seven yards downfield.

  Hax winced at the viciousness of the tackle. Will Morrison even be able to get up after getting hit that hard? Hax wondered.

  Morrison didn’t get up.

  Hax watched in horror as the coach and the manager trotted out on the field, then waved for the team doctor. Eventually they helped Morrison to his feet and he came off the field with his arms over the shoulders of two of the other players. Hax wondered if he’d be able to go back and play later in the game.

  Or later in the season.

  The offense took the field and Hax eagerly watched to see how Jurgens, the first-team quarterback, would handle playing against a big team like Benson. The first play was a running play and Jurgens smoothly handed off to the back as the guy plunged past him. Jurgens spun around as if he still had the ball and faked a pass.

  Benson wasn’t fooled. Lareta only gained a yard.

  The next play, Jurgens dropped back to pass. Hax was pleased to see that the offensive line provided pretty good protection. However, none of the receivers seemed to be breaking free. Finally, one of the defensive linemen crashed through at Jurgens and he threw the ball away. Since Jurgens had thrown the ball from the pocket, Hax felt a little concerned by how far the ball landed from any eligible receivers. He wondered if they might get a penalty. Why didn’t Jurgens just throw it closer to one of his receivers? Hax wondered.

  In any event, no penalty was called, but now it was third down with 9 yards to go. Hax assumed they’d try another pass since getting 9 yards on a running play seemed unlikely. However, they tried to punch through off-tackle instead. They made a gain, but only 3 yards, so Coach Hayes sent in the punting team.

  Benson’s returner didn’t call a fair catch.

  But no one from Lareta made it there to tackle him either. Hax watched in horror as the guy ran downfield, shaking off two blocks on his way to a touchdown. Hax could feel his teammates’ mood sinking precipitously.

  After Benson made the extra point, the receiving team trotted onto the field to receive another kickoff.

  Without Morrison.

  This time their returner only made four yards.

  Jurgens tried three passes.

  The third one was intercepted.

  North Lareta’s defense went in. Benson’s offense marched. Three yards on this running play, nine on the next. Passes for 6, 12, and 15 yards. Their quarterback had all the time he needed to find a receiver.

  Hax couldn’t believe it. He’d thought his second-string team was good, but Benson was dominating even Lareta’s first-string. Hax looked around and saw much of his team slouching dispiritedly on benches rather than up watching the game. The shoulders of those who were still standing drooped.

  Hax looked around for Coach Hayes, wondering what he was going to do to turn this around. Hayes had gathered the first-string offense around him and was talking to them. He’s already given up on the defense for this series of plays! That wasn’t quite fair, Hax decided. Coaches Albright and Dotson stood on the sidelines, anxiously watching the game. As he watched, Dotson signaled the defense to change its formation.

  Hax realized Benson had already marched down to the 20-yard line. Even if the guys stopped them now, they’d still make a field goal! He had a sense of unreality about the whole thing. He told himself that if Benson could do this to them in such a short period of time, that surely, if they just got their willpower, and gumption, and confidence back, they could do the same thing to Benson in return.

  Couldn’t they?

  A vision of Vito Castano defeating Hax’s every attempt to fight back when they were kids rose in Hax’s mind’s eye, Sometimes the other guy’s just too strong…

  Benson made their touchdown, and the point after as well.

  Benson kicked off again and Lareta barely made a gain on the return. Jurgens and the offense went back in, but Hax had the sense that Jurgens almost dreaded being in the game again. Lareta made a first down and Hax’s spirits started to rise. He thought he could see some increased bounce in the steps of the guys playing offense. Maybe it won’t be a complete disaster, he thought, mentally cheering when they made another first down.

  But then, it was fourth down and 12 and Lareta was punting again.

  When they hit the locker room at halftime, Lareta was losing 31 to 3.

  Hax wondered what Coach Hayes would do to turn things around.

  The coach gave an impassioned speech, slamming his fist to booming affect against the side of one of the metal lockers. Hayes drew out a couple of trick plays on the board in the locker room. Just before they left the locker room for the second half, Coach said, “You guys are losing because you’re playing like you’ve already lost! Stop drooping! Stand up straight—like men! Don’t act like you’re afraid of those guys and you won’t be!

  When they ran back onto the field, the team held their heads high and some leapt into the air as if they believed Coach’s speech.

  But Hax didn’t think they really did.

  This time, Benson received the kickoff. They made a 30-yard return, then marched quickly down the field for another touchdown.

  Hax looked around, seeing his teammates’ spirits sagging as they watched the debacle. When Lareta’s receiving team ran out onto the field again, he heard some moans of dismay and a few muttered curses. He turned to Johnny Argo, his running back friend from as far back as when they’d both been on third string. Johnny was standing near him. “What’s everyone cussing about?”

  Argo didn’t take his eyes off the field, “Benson sent in its second-string kicker.”

  “So?”

  Argo said, “So, they think they’re so far ahead that they’re letting their scrubs use us for practice.” He spat, then turned and walked back to sit on the bench.

  Hax turned wide-eyed, feeling humiliated.

  Lareta made ten yards on the return. When Benson’s defense came out on the field, a lot of them were wearing clean uniforms. Hax didn’t understand for a second, then he realized they were second-string players who hadn’t been in the game yet. Playing against Benson’s second string, Jurgens started to make some yardage. Lareta got three first downs, but then Jurgens got intercepted.

  This time, when Benson’s offense came out on the field, all of them were in clean uniforms.

  Then Hax noticed that Lareta’s defense was in clean uniforms as well. Not sure he understood, he went back to the bench and sat next to Johnny. “Now both teams have their second strings out there?”

  Johnny nodded morosely.

  “Why?! If we kept our first-string out there, maybe we could get some points.”

  “Yeah…” Johnny said, his eyes still on the turf. “But nobody’d think those points counted for much, playing against Benson’s second string. And, if Benson’s second-string kicked our first team’s ass, it’d be even more humiliating.”

  Hax heard Coach Hayes shouting for the second-string offense. He and Johnny got up and trotted that way.

  Coach didn’t say anything about how Lareta was rolling over and playing dead. He talked to the second team offense like they were going out there to do something t
hat mattered. Hax kept expecting Coach Hayes to say something about how they were at least going to get valuable experience. Instead he kept making it sound like they were going to go out there with a chance to win the game.

  Hax admired what the coach was trying to do. However, when he glanced around the eyes of the guys he’d soon be trying to lead none of them looked like they thought they had a chance in hell.

  Even while he was trying to fire up the second-string offense, Coach had been keeping an eye on the play on the field. When Morrison, who’d been so badly hurt in the first half, intercepted a pass Hayes’ heart leapt. For a microsecond, he considered sending the first team back onto the field in hopes of turning something around, but realized it’d be ridiculous. If they did start to turn it around, Benson would immediately put its first team back in if Hayes wasn’t playing his second team too. “Go! Go, go, go,” he shouted at the second team offense, sending them out onto the field.

  Hayes felt bad he hadn’t spent much time with the second team in practice. He’d heard from the other coaches that young Hax Buchry had an accurate throwing arm, but he hadn’t really seen it much himself yet. He considered having Buchry throw a pass on his first play, but decided that since it was the kid’s first time in an actual game, he should have him run an easy play to steady his nerves. He told Buchry to run Lareta’s simplest draw play.

  To his astonishment and horror, Buchry fell back with the ball, ready to throw a pass. Then, to his amusement, Hayes realized that even though he himself had sent the play in, Buchry’d faked holding the ball for a pass so well even Hayes’ eyes had followed him and missed the handoff to Johnny Argo. Argo made it through the line and past the linebackers, but got taken down by Benson’s safety.

  Hayes sent in a pass play.

  This time when Buchry dropped back—Hayes checked—he really did have the ball. Unfortunately, one of the defensive lineman immediately broke through and charged Buchry for the tackle.

  Hayes blinked. Somehow, Buchry’d spun around as if he were dancing—it looked like an utterly ridiculous thing to do while holding a football. However, the lineman who’d seemed to be assured of tackling him for a loss shot past Buchry and skidded to the turf.

  Buchry threw the ball.

  Lareta’s wide receiver had just button-hooked 12 yards down field and the ball hit him on the numbers.

  First down!

  “Yes!” Hayes shouted, unreasonably pleased that the second team had actually managed to get a first down. This was the kind of thing that could really boost their confidence when a lot of the juniors moved up to the first team next year. Or when some of them had to move up this year because of injuries. He really hated the fact that the schedule had them play Benson the first game of the year because it discouraged his team so much at the start of the season. But that was a great pass Buchry made, he mused. When he comes off the field I need to tell him not to try that kind of crazy spinning dodge though, that kind of crap only works about one time in 20.

  Hayes sent in another pass play. Then as he waited for the count, he saw to his dismay that Benson was showing blitz. This is going to suck, he thought. Then to his astonishment, he realized that Buchry was calling an audible! I didn’t give him permission to do that! Hayes worried that the second-string wasn’t sharp enough to recognize the audible, much less run it correctly.

  In fact, two of the receivers didn’t go out like they were supposed to on the draw play Buchry’d called, but the rest of the team reacted appropriately and Mack, the fullback Buchry’d handed the ball to, charged through the hole left by the blitzing linebacker and gained eight yards.

  Hayes sent in another pass play and, after getting burned, Benson didn’t blitz. However, Buchry’s primary and secondary receivers didn’t get free. When one of the defensive line broke through the line at Buchry, he executed another one of those ridiculous spinning moves and again managed to avoid being tackled. By then, Hollis—the tertiary receiver who’d been flying down the sideline—had outdistanced his cornerback.

  Buchry let fly with a long bomb that had Hayes’ heart in his throat. It sailed inches over Hollis’s shoulder. The kid pulled it in and kept running. The cornerback pursuing him made a valiant leap, grabbing at his ankles. Hollis stumbled a little, but stayed on his feet and kept hauling ass the rest of the way down to the end zone!

  While they were making their extra point, Dotson came over to stand next to Hayes. “Told you he was good, didn’t I?”

  Hayes nodded and wondered if Benson’s coach would send the first-string back in after such a quick touchdown, but he didn’t.

  After the kickoff, Benson’s second-string looked like they might march right back the other way. They made a first down on three running plays, then another on a nice crossing pattern pass.

  Then Elias, one of Lareta’s second-string linebackers tackled Benson’s quarterback for a loss! No—a fumble!

  Hayes’ heart caught in his throat as the ball bounced across the field with Elias scrambling after it.

  Hayes thought Elias got onto the ball.

  A pile of other players swarmed on top of Elias, but when the refs sorted out the heap, Elias did have the ball.

  As the offense trotted back onto the field, Hayes realized that he’d never gotten around to telling Buchry to stop that spinning-dancing crap he’d been doing to avoid tacklers. I’ll tell him on the next set of downs, he thought. Because his eyes were on Buchry, he saw Buchry stop Elias. He shook the linebackers hand and slapped him on the shoulder before the kid left the field. Of course, a lot of other players had been congratulating Elias, but something about the way Buchry did it seemed to carry more weight. Elias, who’d been leaping and bounding with the other excited players seemed to settle down. He turned his head to look at Buchry a couple of times as he finished coming off the field.

  Thinking that Benson’d probably be expecting more pass plays in view of their success so far, Hayes sent in an off center running play. When Buchry got the play, he turned and stared off-field at Hayes for a second as if he thought it was crazy, but then he called the huddle.

  The play gained a yard and a half, so Hayes sent in another pass play. This time, to Hayes’ irritation, Buchry did his dancing spin around one tackler, then around another. As Hayes had feared, the first tackler was back on his feet by the time Buchry’d danced around the second one.

  This time Buchry didn’t escape.

  But Buchry threw the ball as he was going down.

  Hayes thought Buchry was throwing the ball away and hoped that he’d gotten it close enough to an eligible receiver that he wouldn’t be called for intentional grounding. However, the ball sailed smoothly to a crossing pattern receiver who looked just as surprised as everyone else to realize the play wasn’t over. He caught it and turned down field for another 15 yards—a total of 25—and yet another first down.

  Hayes sent in an option play. As he did it, Dotson stepped over and said, “I’m not sure Buchry’s fast enough to run the option. He’s a hell of a passer, and great at handoffs, but not much as a runner.”

  “Can he read the defense?” Hayes asked.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty good at that…” they broke off to watch the play.

  Buchry pitched out and they made 7 yards. Hayes turned to Dotson and said, “If we keep this up much longer, Benson’s going to send its first team back in.”

  Dotson said slowly, “My advice… if they do, keep Buchry and the second team in there.”

  Hayes said, “They’ll get crushed…” He paused for a moment, “Oh, are you thinking that Benson’ll be embarrassed and send their second team back in?”

  Dotson shrugged.

  Buchry connected with one of the wide receivers on a long post play and they made another touchdown. It wasn’t lost on Hayes that, once again, Buchry’s pass was perfect. How’s he do that? Hayes wondered. Despite watching the kid pitch, he just hadn’t expected such startling accuracy—not while dodging tacklers and trying to hit moving t
argets on the football field.

  The game was well into the fourth quarter before Benson brought its first team back in. Lareta’s second-string had made 24 unanswered points to bring the score to 38-27.

  That second-string linebacker, Elias, had sacked Benson’s quarterback three times and intercepted a pass.

  But Buchry… Hayes didn’t know what to think of Buchry. The kid had escaped tackle after tackle after tackle with those spinning, dancing dodges and Hayes had finally abandoned his intent to tell the kid to cut it out. Buchry’s pass accuracy was simply astonishing. The only reason he didn’t have a 100% reception rate was that Buchry’s receivers simply failed to catch excellent passes on several occasions. Even when he threw the ball away, it always hit close to the feet of the well-defended receiver so that there’d be no question of his getting called for an intentional grounding. Admittedly, Buchry wasn’t very fast and the one time he’d kept the ball on an option play he hadn’t gotten anywhere. But, my God, everything else the kid does is astonishing! Hayes especially noticed Buchry talking to his teammates. He was patting them on their shoulders and seemed to successfully buck them up after their few failed plays. Hayes was already looking forward to having him as a seasoned junior quarterback next year.

  When Benson punted after being stopped on a third down and Hayes recognized Benson’s first-string defense getting ready to come on the field, he turned to look for Jurgens and the rest of Lareta’s first-string offense. When he did, his eyes passed over Dotson. The volunteer coach was staring at Hayes. Dotson shook his head. “Leave the second team in,” Dotson said quietly. Not as if he were pleading, but as if he thought he was giving important advice.

  Hayes wondered at the request, thinking that Dotson had simply become emotionally attached to the second-string he’d been coaching in practice. The second team had done well and maybe Dotson thought they deserved to stay as some kind of reward. Hayes worried that getting crushed by Benson’s bigger, faster, first-team might destroy their spirit. On the other hand, I don’t want them getting too cocky—just because they made more yards than the first team did—when it’s actually because they weren’t up against the same class of competition. Hayes shrugged and said, “Okay.” He barked a command to send the second-string offense back out on the field. He looked back at Dotson, “We’ll see how they do. I hope none of them get hurt.”