Hustle and Heart

by Alison Mello

  “Yes, Coach,” they all shout.

  “Good.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  “You got it.” I walk back over to Stella who has a huge grin on her face. She asks me about my responsibilities as team mom, and I go into some of the details of what I have to do. It really sounds worse than it is. I’m hoping we have a good team of parents because the toughest part is going to be lining up volunteers for home games. Team parents are required to volunteer for at least two home games and if they don’t, their child can actually be benched. The exception is myself, the coaches, and the board members because we do enough volunteering already.

  “Let us know what you need help with. You know we’ve got your back,” Lori says, and they all agree.

  “Thanks. There’s going to be a mandatory parents meeting here at the field next week during practice. It’s going to explain what is expected of all the parents. It will reiterate some of the stuff I put in the email, like not leaving your kids here without adult supervision, but some will be new info.”

  The six of us sit in some lawn chairs and watch the practice. The kids are running various drills to get them prepared for the tougher practices. It’s a really warm day so Jesse has them stop to drink water frequently.

  “They look exhausted already,” Lori points out.

  “I know, right?” They pull their helmets off revealing a bunch of soaking wet heads.

  “They are going to smell so bad.” We all burst into laughter.

  My face screams disgust when I say, “I don’t even want to think about it. It’s only going to get worse.”

  “What do you mean?” Stacey asks.

  “Just you wait[11][12], I got an email. They’re going to be issued white practice pants that they’re required to wear four nights in a row.” They all look at me with disgust.

  “Not only is that gross, but you want us to keep white pants white?” Stella asks.

  “Not my call. Don’t shoot the messenger. Besides, they’re only the practice pants. Our uniform pants will be green.” I hold my hands up in a defensive manner.

  Jesse blows the whistle. “Suicides from cone to cone.” Trystan is dropping cones for them. He blows the whistle and the first person in each row starts, and they continue down the line until each boy is done.

  “Twenty jumping jacks, GO!” Jesse blows the whistle, and they do their jumping jacks counting in sync. When they get to twenty he shouts, “Drink water,” in a drill sergeant’s tone.

  “Are you boys still excited to play football?”

  “Yes, Coach!” they all shout, but they’re no longer as loud as they were before.

  “Good, hit the hill; last one down owes me ten pushups.” They drop their water bottles and run to this huge hill. Some of them are really struggling to get up the hill, but none of them give up. They tag the fence at the top and run back down. When they get to the bottom, one of the kids falls to his knees. “What’s wrong, Brendan?” Jesse asks. He rips his helmet from his head. I hurry over as team mom to make sure he’s good. The kid heaves. “Take a knee!” Jesse shouts to the team. The kid heaves again, this time he vomits water. “You okay, Brendan?” Jesse asks in a gentle tone, taking a knee beside him.

  He nods, and I look at Jesse. “This is very normal, Brendan. Take a minute to get yourself together and join us when you’re ready.”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  I help the kid to his feet, and we walk over to the side for him to take a quick break. I hear Jesse explaining to the team that what Brendan is going through is normal. That if anyone is feeling sick from exerting their bodies, they need to let him know. “This is why I told you in the beginning to drink your water, but don’t chug tons of it. That’s what happens. You’ll puke it up.” He looks around. “Everyone else good?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “Good. We’re going to make four lines behind the cones.” He collects two from each line leaving two cones per row. “Each coach is going to be throwing the ball toward the second cone, but to the left of it. You’ll run down to the cone, cut over, and make the catch.” He picks up a ball and hands it to one of the coaches. “Derek, throw me the ball.” Jesse runs down to the cone and cuts over; turning toward Derek, he snags the ball and runs it back to him. “After you make the catch, you are to sprint back as fast as you can. Any questions?” When no one says anything, he blows his whistle and tells them to begin.

  “Look at them go.” We’re all cheering for the boys as they make catches. The boys are amazing. They cheer and encourage those who miss the ball.

  They have about thirty minutes of practice left. The night has flown by thanks to my girls chilling with me. I’m so lucky to have this amazing support.

  “Daddy!” I hear Grace shouting behind me. I stand to see her running at us.

  “Hi, Grace.”

  She waves. “Hi, Karen. I just got done with my first cheer practice.”

  “You did? That’s exciting.” Jesse’s mom is hurrying after her.

  “Yeah, can you get Daddy? I want to say bye. Grammy says I have to go home.”

  “That’s right, young lady,” Josephine says. “Karen, how are you, dear?” She gives me a hug.

  “I’m good, ma’am. How are you?”

  “I’ll be better when you get past this ma’am stuff and call me Josephine,” she says lightheartedly.

  “Will do.” I chuckle.

  I squat down in front of Grace. “You wait right here, okay.” I wink at her and jog over to Jesse.

  “Jesse!” I call out, and he turns his attention to me. “Grace wants to say bye before she leaves.”

  “Okay.” He blows his whistle. “Get a quick drink of water and then get ready to wrap this up.” He walks back over with me. “Thanks, babe.”

  “No problem. She’s quite excited about her practice.”

  “I’m sure she is. She has been begging me to let her do this, but it was hard for me to say yes.” He looks down at me.

  “I’m sure it was, but you’re a good dad. She’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Daddy.” She runs at him, and he scoops her up. He is amazing with her. Anyone who watches them can instantly tell he’s an amazing father. “Daddy, I did a good job at cheer today.”

  “Oh yeah?” He looks at his mom. “Is that true, Mom? Was she a good girl?”

  “She was a very good girl.”

  He gives her a high five. “Good job, princess.” He hugs her tight and checks his watch. “Listen, it’s already seven-thirty. I want you to go home with Grammy, have a snack, and get cleaned up for bed.”

  “Do I have to go to sleep?”

  “I’ll tell you what. You take your shower and brush your teeth and then you can watch TV in bed until I get home.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  He kisses her on the head. “You’re welcome, baby girl.” He puts her down, and she skips off to her grammy.

  “Bye, Karen.”

  “Good night, sweetie.” I wave.

  “She is precious,” Stella says when I take my seat next to her.

  “She is.”

  “What’s his story?” Stacey asks.

  “He’s a widower, but I don’t want to say much more because it’s not really my story to tell. We had a connection back in high school and never took the time to see where it would go mainly because I was dating Brian. Now that we’re both single, we’re going to give it a try.” I shrug. “I can tell you this... our last relationships left us both with scars; however, I feel like fate brought us back together. Despite the fact I said I wasn’t looking to start a relationship, I can’t walk away from him again.” I smile, watching him interact with the boys.

  When practice is finally over, he blows the whistle and tells the boys to line up in front of me. I stand and wait for them to line up. As they do, a lot of the parents come over and introduce themselves letting me know which kid is theirs. It takes a few minutes, but we finally manage to match all the kids up.
Jesse walks Jason and I up to our car. Jason throws his bag into the back and climbs in. All they had to wear today were helmets, shorts, and t-shirts, but he’s disgustingly dirty and he smells pretty ripe.

  “He did a great job tonight.” Jesse smiles down at me, leaning on my car.

  “It looked like they were all doing good.”

  “They did. It’s the first practice and I worked them pretty hard, so he may be sore tomorrow.”

  “I’ll give him some Tylenol, but I’m sure he’ll live.”

  He presses his lips to mine. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “You will. Have a good night.”

  He smiles. “You too.”

  I have a huge project sitting on my desk, and I can’t focus. All that keeps popping into my head is Karen’s beautiful brown eyes. She looks truly happy when she looks up at me, and it’s only been a little over a week since we started talking again. It’s like we picked up where we left off all those years ago, and that scares me. I don’t want to rush things with her but, at the same time, I can’t help it. We’d known each other for years when she decided to stay with Brian. It broke me. I couldn’t stick around to watch her get hurt. She may not know it, but she’s the reason I left for the Army. Now that I’m back and we’re both single, there’s not a chance in hell I’m letting her go.

  There’s a knock at the door that pulls me from my thoughts. “Hey, Blake. Come on in.” Blake is one of my assistant coaches, and he works with me. He too is an engineer, and we are currently busting our tails in a new housing development that’s being constructed.

  My firm has three of our engineers working on site managing the builds. This community is huge, and we have to get these houses up and completed in four to five months from the time they sign the paperwork making their final decisions at the design center. The biggest struggle we have is the workers that we hire are not always the most reliable, and if we have to replace them, it messes with our timing. “Dude, my plumber is being a dick. Do you have one I can steal for one of my builds?”

  “Dude, you know I have your back, but I don’t have one.”

  His eyes go wide. “How is that having my back?”

  I laugh. “I had to fire one of my guys for a huge fuck up on a house.”

  He collapses into a chair. “Awesome, now I have to find a new plumber.”

  “What’s the issue? Maybe we can figure something out.”

  “He says we’re spreading him too thin and now he doesn’t have enough guys for his bigger project.” He sounds totally frustrated. “If I don’t give him more money, he’s pulling his guys and going to other sites.”

  “That’s bullshit. He has a contract with us to be paid a predetermined amount for each style home. He can’t do that now.” I shake my head. This is why I’m head engineer because as much as I love Blake like a brother, he’s got to be tougher than that. “You tell that dickwad that he has to hire more people if he wants to take on more work, and if he breaks his contract with us, we will squash him and then he won’t have shit for work.”

  “What if he does a shitty job?”

  “Then he doesn’t get paid, and you can tell him that too.” I pull out a sheet of paper highlighting a specific part of the contract that he can use for leverage. “Here, I know you have a set of balls. Don’t let these guys walk all over you.”

  “I know, but you know how it is. We’re under so much damn pressure to get this shit done that sometimes it’s hard to think shit through. Sometimes I’d rather just fire the bastards and get someone else.”

  “Not gonna happen, not with this one.”

  He sighs. “All right. I’m outta here. I have to go deal with this shit. He left me another message asking me if he was going to get his raise, and I need to call him back.”

  “Good luck. Let me know how it goes.”

  He walks out of the office looking a bit better than when he walked in. I feel bad that I just bullshitted him. I have a few plumbers who could have easily taken over, but my guys need to learn to handle situations. Firing a company isn’t always the answer. If we keep doing that, contractors won’t respect us and that’s a problem for me.

  It’s Friday, the last night of practice for this week. I’m thankful we have no games on the weekend yet because it gives us a chance to hang with Karen and Jason. Grace took an instant liking to her. She talks about her all the time and has asked when she’s coming over again.

  I run into the bathroom to quickly change before I head to the field. Today my mom is bringing the kids to practice because I don’t have time to go home. On my way out, I bump into Blake. “Hey, man. How’d it go?”

  He shrugs. “He’s not happy, but he knows I’m right and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

  “Good. Are you going to make it to practice?”

  “Yeah, I just have to finish something up and then I’ll be there. Emma is meeting me at the field with Brady.” Emma is Blake’s wife and Brady is their son. “Sounds good.” We fist bump, and I jog over to my truck. I need to hurry up and get there because clearly Blake will be late. I jump into my truck and throw my phone on the charger. I work about thirty minutes away without traffic, and at this time of day I’m bound to hit some. I pull a protein bar from the glove box and pull out of my spot. I manage to arrive at the field five minutes before practice is scheduled to start. Most of the team is already here, and Karen is gathering the boys to spray them with bug spray as the league requested earlier this week.

  I stop to watch DJ throw the ball. Kid has an arm, but he’s off on his aim a bit. Throwing a football is different than a baseball. Karen turns as I’m about to approach her, and the smile that lights up her face makes my day. “Hey, beautiful. Sorry I’m late.”

  “You’re fine.” She squeezes my hand. “The boys are ready to go.”

  “Thanks.” I head over to the guys. “Hey, Trystan.”

  “What’s up?” We shake hands, and I nod toward the sidelines to have a word with him. He looks over at the boys then follows me. “Everything okay?”

  “I want to consider DJ for QB, but I have some concerns. I heard him tell one of the kids he’s a pitcher. It’s clear he can throw, but I’m worried about it messing up his arm.” I cross my arms at my chest. “Do you think it will be too much for him?”

  He looks over at DJ then back to me. “I don’t know. That’s a lot on his arm. Not to mention it could throw his pitch off.”

  “That was my other concern. Did he come into this hoping to play QB?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure he just wants to play, but I’m down for asking him if you are.”

  “Hey, DJ,” I call out. When we make eye contact, I wave him over.

  He hustles to the sideline. “Yes, Coach.”

  “I have a question for you.” I pause, trying to figure out how I want to ask this. “Is there a position you’re hoping to play?”

  He looks at me, confused. I’m sure he’s not grasping why I’m asking, but he finally replies, “Nah. It would be cool to play QB, but I’ll play anywhere, Coach.”

  “Good, because I thought about putting you there, but I’m worried that it may be too much on your arm. Plus, I really don’t want to mess up your pitching rhythm.”

  He nods, taking in what I’m saying. “I really love pitching, Coach.”

  “I understand. You go warm up.” He runs off without another word.

  “Well, that answers that question. We’ll find him another position. He’s not big enough to be a lineman, so we’ll make him a running back or wide receiver.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be equally as happy with either of those. It’s his first season, and he honestly just wants to learn and play.”

  “Sounds good. Let’s get this practice done so we can all enjoy our weekend.” I blow my whistle, and the two of us join the rest of the team. “Good evening, boys. I know it’s been a long first week, but we need to get through one more night and then you get the weekend to recover.
”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “Good, now get into your lines. Forty jumping jacks, go.” They all run to get into the lineup we created on Tuesday, and as soon as they’re all settled I blow my whistle, and they count in unison. We go through the remainder of our warmup and then begin our stretches. “Hey, Trystan and Blake, while Derek and I stretch them can you set up the cones for catches?”

  “You got it.” They jog over to the equipment bag and grab the eight cones and set them up. When we’re done, I have the boys take the hill while I talk with the coaches about how I would like the remainder of practice to go.

  They’ve all worked hard tonight and throughout the week, so when it’s time for practice to end, I rally the boys and give them the pep talk they need. It’s been a long week and they’ve worked hard, but the season has only just begun and they have many weeks of hard work ahead of them. I can see from their fidgeting that they’re itching to be released. Little do they know that I’m just as antsy. I want nothing more than to make plans with my girl for the weekend, but I need to say a few things first. “Great week, boys. You’ve worked hard, and I’m proud of you. Next week we step it up. You will need your shoulder pads. We will still be wearing shorts and t-shirts for now. Late next week you will be issued practice pants, girdles, and a practice jersey, but you gotta learn to walk before you can run. Any questions?” When no one says anything, I dismiss them with instructions to stretch over the weekend.

  I grab my stuff while Gabe grabs his gear, then we walk over to Karen. Once all the kids have been released to their parents, I escort her and Jason to their car. “So what are you guys up to this weekend?”

  She shrugs. “Nothing really. I usually wing it when there’s nothing for sports going on.”

  “Well, what would you say to a BBQ at my place? You and Jason can spend the day, and the kids can play.”

  “Dad, can we camp in the yard?” Gabe shouts with excitement.

  “That would be awesome.” Jason hold his fist out.