by Fred Bowen
When the three friends arrived at the football field, Savannah was waiting for them, still in her soccer uniform. “Hey,” she said. “How do you want to do this?”
“Let’s start with punting,” Jesse suggested.
Quinn hiked the ball to Savannah and the soccer goalie boomed punts downfield to Jesse and Langston. With every punt, the boys grew more excited.
“Dude, she is way better than Denny.”
“Whoa, fair catch, fair catch.”
“Look at that! The girl has got serious hang time on her kicks.”
After a while, Jesse pointed to the goalposts. “Do you think you can kick field goals?” he asked.
“No problem,” Savannah said.
They set up for a 25-yard field goal.
Langston ran behind the end zone. “I’ll stand back here so I can tell you whether the kick is good or not.”
Quinn crouched down and stared back through his legs, ready to hike the ball. Jesse knelt on his left knee and held out his hands. Savannah stepped off the distance from the ball like an old pro. She looked at Jesse and nodded.
“Ready … set … hut one!”
Quinn hiked the ball.
Jesse spotted it.
Savannah stepped forward and …
Plunk!
The ball sailed end over end, arcing straight and true through the uprights. Langston threw his arms up to signal the kick was good.
Jesse looked at his teammates’ surprised faces and smiled. “I think we’ve found ourselves a kicker.”
Chapter 10
So we thought Savannah could be our kicker,” Jesse said to Coach Butler and Coach Vittone.
Quinn and Langston stood in back of Jesse in full football gear. They had arrived early, a few minutes before their Monday practice. Savannah waited in gray sweats with her long brown hair pulled back.
“Are you serious?” Coach Butler sounded even less convinced than he had when Jesse asked to try out for quarterback.
“Yeah,” Jesse insisted. “I mean, she can really boom it.”
“She’s got serious hang time, Coach,” Langston added. “She’s got a real strong leg. And hey, she’s bigger than me.” He looked around. “I know that’s not saying much, but she is.”
Coach Butler eyed Savannah. “What do you think?” he asked.
Savannah didn’t even blink. “I think I can do it,” she said.
“Have you ever played football?” Coach Vittone asked.
“Some. Touch football down at the park. And I did some punting and place kicking with these guys over the weekend.”
“Ever play tackle football?”
“Yeah, with my older brothers … sometimes.”
“Was one of your brothers named Julius?” Coach Vittone asked. “I remember him, good player.”
Savannah nodded, smiling. “Yeah, he could play.”
“I don’t know about this,” Coach Butler said.
“Lots of girls play football,” Jesse said. “I looked online last night and there are hundreds of them on high school teams. One girl even kicked the winning field goal for her school on the same night she was the Homecoming Queen.”
“I don’t want to be the Homecoming Queen,” Savannah said. “I want to play football.”
“Listen, I’ve got no problem with girls playing football.” Coach Butler turned to Savannah. “But what about soccer? Aren’t you the goalkeeper for the freshman team? What’s Coach Oliver got to say about this?”
“I figured I’d try out before I talked to Coach Oliver.” Savannah didn’t sound quite so confident now. “Anyway, I thought it would be a lot more fun to score points instead of stopping goals.”
Coach Butler looked at Coach Vittone. “What do you think?”
“It’s worth a shot,” Coach Vittone said in a low voice. “We definitely need an upgrade in our kicking game. But we’d need to clear it with Coach Oliver.”
Coach Butler nodded toward the practice field where the rest of the team had begun to gather. “All right then. Guys, go get warmed up. And Savannah, can you stick around a few minutes? While the team’s doing drills, Coach Vittone will see what you can do.”
Jesse, Quinn, and Langston trotted onto the field. Jesse looked back and gave Savannah a thumbs-up sign.
“We’ll need a couple of guys to set you up. How do you want to work this?” Coach Vittone asked Savannah.
“Well,” she said. “Quinn’s been my long snapper and Jesse’s been my holder. So I would kind of like to use them. At least for the first few kicks.”
Savannah began warming up by stretching along the sidelines. The team barely noticed her as they jogged with their heads down around the field. On the second lap, Griffin, the Panthers’ running back, yelled out, “Hey, Savannah! You lost or something? This isn’t the soccer pitch.”
“She’s not lost,” Jesse said without slowing his pace. “She might be our kicker.”
“No way. What are you talking about?” another Panther protested.
“Savannah. I think she’s gonna be our kicker. She can really boot it.”
“A girl?”
“So what if she’s a girl,” Jesse said. “I’m telling you she’s a kicker.”
“Good,” Griffin muttered. “We could use one.”
During the warm-ups, Jesse saw that Coach Vittone had Savannah at the other end of the field, demonstrating the basics of punting a football.
Vittone waved from downfield. “Jesse? Quinn? Get over here!”
As they approached, Jesse heard the coach talking to Savannah. “Hold the laces away from your foot,” he said. “Take two steps. Power your way through the ball.”
Savannah went through the motions a couple of times.
“Okay then,” Vittone said. “You guys get into position and let’s give this a try.”
Quinn was hiking from the 10-yard line, so Jesse set himself up at the 40-yard line. A 30-yard kick would be pretty good, he thought.
“Ready, Jesse?” called the coach. “Tell me what yard line you’re on when you catch the ball.”
The first punt sailed in a tight spiral high above Jesse’s head. He dashed back and caught the ball over his shoulder like a long pass. “The 47!” he yelled back. “That’s a 37-yard kick.”
Savannah’s kicks kept on coming and Jesse kept on shouting out the yardages: 35 yards … 39 yards … 28 yards … Only one of the kicks fell too short for him to catch it.
Coach Vittone waved Jesse in.
“I told you she could kick,” Jesse said breathlessly. He traded high fives with Savannah and Quinn.
“Let’s try some field goals,” Coach Vittone said. “We’ll start with a few extra points.”
Quinn hiked the ball from the three-yard line. Jesse spotted the ball at the ten-yard line. Savannah drove it through the uprights. No problem.
“It’s good!” Jesse shouted.
After a few more kicks, they moved back five yards. Then another five yards. Now and then a kick was off line, but Savannah made enough of them to impress Coach Vittone. He smiled. He liked what he was seeing.
Coach Butler arrived just as a 35-yard field goal floated over the crossbar. “So what’s the verdict?” he asked.
“We’d better find this girl a football uniform,” Vittone said.
Jesse and Quinn let out a cheer. “All right! Way to go, Savannah! We’ve got ourselves a kicker.”
Savannah undid her ponytail and shook out her hair around her shoulders. “I wonder if I should cut my hair,” she said as if the thought had just occurred to her.
“Don’t worry about that,” Coach Butler assured her.
Jesse laughed. “Yeah. There are plenty of guys in the NFL with longer hair than you.”
Chapter 11
The Franklin freshman team captains, Griffin and Quinn, ran back to the team huddle. “We’re kicking off!” they shouted.
Jesse caught Savannah’s eye. She didn’t look nearly as nervous as he felt. Jesse was psyched that Savanna
h had decided to quit the soccer team to concentrate on football. She’d gotten better with every kick during the past week of practice.
Savannah tucked her hair behind her ears and slid on her helmet. Her kickoff was long and low. It skipped past the Glen Forest runner, forcing him to race back after the ball. When the Franklin defense tackled the runner at the 15-yard line, their bench exploded in cheers.
“All right, Savannah!”
“That’s how to pin them back!”
“Hold ’em, defense!”
Jesse gave Quinn a shoulder bump and Savannah a high five. “Great kickoff! Our opponents aren’t starting at midfield for a change.”
Franklin and Glen Forest settled into a back-and-forth struggle. The Panthers scored first. They were at the 20-yard line when Jesse faded back to pass. Finding no one open, he scrambled, still hoping to pass. But he saw some daylight and took off. With Langston giving him a key block downfield, Jesse scooted past the Glen Forest secondary and was gone.
Touchdown!
As Jesse celebrated with his teammates, he thought about the next play. He wondered if Coach would let Savannah try for the extra point.
A Franklin player sprinted onto the field with the answer. “Coach wants you to run I-35.”
The Glen Forest Eagles stopped that running play cold. But the Franklin Panthers were still ahead, 6–0.
Glen Forest came back after another good kick and drove downfield for a score, but they didn’t make the 2-point conversion after the touchdown. The score was knotted up, 6–6.
Shortly before halftime, Jesse dashed to his right and tried to throw a long pass on the run to Langston. The ball stayed in the air too long and floated short. The Glen Forest safety grabbed the ball for an interception at midfield. Glen Forest took advantage of the turnover to score again and grab the lead, 12–6.
Coach Vittone caught up with Jesse as the teams walked off the field at halftime. “Remember, Tark, it’s tough to throw a long pass when you’re running sideways. Get your feet under you first.”
Jesse nodded. “I guess I thought I could throw the ball like Jay.”
Coach Vittone put his arm around Jesse. “Don’t worry about being like your brother. Play your own game … your way. You’re doing fine. We can come back in the second half.”
They did. Jesse and his teammates on offense started moving the ball, picking up first downs but no scores. Then with only a few minutes left in the game, Jesse led the Panthers on a long drive, mixing runs by Griffin between the tackles and quick, short passes.
The drive stalled on the 15-yard line. Third down, ten yards to go.
Jesse stepped into the huddle. “Deep out on one.” Jesse knew it was a tough pass. But he also knew his team needed a big play. “Give me enough time,” he said to the Franklin linemen.
“Ready … set … hut one!”
Jesse faded back, avoided a Glen Forest tackler, and shifted right. He planted his feet and let fly. The ball wobbled a bit and seemed to take forever getting there, but it found Langston in the corner of the end zone.
Touchdown! The game was tied, 12–12.
His teammates were jumping up and down, but Jesse was looking to the bench. The Panthers had a chance to pull ahead if they could make the extra point. Coach Butler held his hands over his head and shouted, “Time! Time out!”
The offense huddled near the sidelines. “Let’s have Savannah kick it,” Quinn suggested. Jesse shot a surprised look at his best friend. It seemed Savannah had convinced even Quinn that she could kick.
Coach Butler shook his head firmly. “She hasn’t practiced that much yet. I don’t want to put the whole game on her shoulders.” He grabbed his clipboard. “Let’s run I-35 again. On one, let’s go.”
Jesse didn’t move. “Coach, they stopped that play for no gain last time. Let me fake it to Griffin on the I-35 and roll out.”
“What?”
Jesse grabbed the pen and scribbled some extra moves on the clipboard.
“Quinn and I have done this a dozen times practicing at the park,” he pleaded with the coach. “Quinn’ll be at tight end. He’ll hold his block for a count of one and do a short down-and-out.”
Coach Butler traded a look with Coach Vittone. They both seemed skeptical.
But then Butler said, “Okay, if you guys have been practicing it, let’s give it a try.”
The boys sprinted back onto the field. “Hey, Quinn,” Coach Vittone called after them. “Don’t forget to tell the referee you’re lining up at tight end!”
“Ready … set … hut one … hut two!”
Jesse turned, faked the handoff to Griffin, and rolled right. When he looked back, a Glen Forest linebacker was rushing right at him. Jesse spied Quinn running free in the end zone. He floated a pass over the defender’s head and into Quinn’s waiting hands. Jesse was smiling even as the Glen Forest linebacker smashed him to the ground.
The Panthers were ahead, 14–12!
Savannah boomed the kickoff almost to the end zone, pinning Glen Forest deep in their own territory. The Eagles didn’t have a chance to go the more than 80 yards against the fired-up Panthers defense in order to score. Time ran out and the Franklin High freshman football team had their first win!
As the team walked off the field, they all seemed happy: Langston about his big touchdown catch. Quinn about his game-winning extra points. Savannah about being the Panthers’ new and improved kicker. And last but not least, Jesse, who was still remembering his big plays—a touchdown run, a touchdown pass, and the game-winning play.
He took off his helmet and shook out his sweaty hair. “Some of us may not look like we can play the parts,” he said to the happy Franklin Panthers, “but I think we’re putting together a pretty good football team.”
Chapter 12
The trees along the highway were ablaze in October colors: reds and golds against the stubborn deep greens of the pines.
“What time is the game?” Jesse asked.
“One o’clock,” his father said, turning to face him from the passenger’s seat.
“Do you think Jay will get to play much?”
“Some. The coach has been using him as a fifth defensive back on passing downs.”
“He said he was playing special teams too,” Jesse’s mom added, keeping her eyes on the twisting road.
Jesse slid down in the backseat. Part of him still saw his brother Jay as the quarterback, the main guy on the team. It was going to take some time to get used to seeing him as a safety and a part-time player.
As the Wagners pulled closer to the campus, the autumn woods gave way to the sights and sounds of a small college town. Stone and brick buildings, some more than a hundred years old, stood back from the tree-lined streets. Clusters of students and parents walked across the wide campus greens toward the football stadium.
Jesse’s mother parked the car and they all stepped out. “It’s a perfect day for a football game,” she declared, looking up at the fluttering leaves.
“Yeah,” Jesse agreed. “This game is going to be totally cool.”
“Even though Jay isn’t the quarterback?” his dad asked.
“Well, it won’t be perfect, but that’s okay. He’s playing college football,” Jesse said, thinking about his own unspoken dreams. “Not many guys get to do that.”
Jesse’s mom hooked her arm into Jesse’s and pulled him closer. “And we still have a quarterback in the family.”
They walked through the postcard-perfect campus to the stadium. His dad handed three tickets to a man standing at the stadium gate. Jesse pushed his way through the turnstile. Inside, under the stands, an older man wearing a bright green windbreaker shouted, “Program, program, get your program!”
“How much?” Jesse’s father asked.
“Five bucks.”
Jesse’s dad paid for the program and handed it to him. “Here you go. Look up your brother.”
Jesse leafed through the program until he came to the team rosters.
ROSTER
8 Joseph Martinez PK 5-10 170 Fr.
9 James Jackson RB 5-9 195 Jr.
10 Webster O’Brien QB 6-0 175 So.
11 Chet Morton WR 6-0 180 Jr.
12 Jay Wagner DB 6-2 190 Fr.
13 Kirby Park P 6-0 185 Sr.
14 Jerome Cook QB 6-2 215 Sr.
15 Clayton Whitmore WR 6-4 205 Sr.
16 Zach Friedman QB 6-1 200 Jr.
“Here he is. Number 12,” Jesse said. “At least he still has a quarterback’s number.”
The stands were slowly filling as the Wagners walked up the stone steps and found their seats in a midfield section filled with fans wearing green sweaters, hats, and sweatshirts. Across the sun-splashed field, the fans were mostly in red. The two teams ran out onto the field and the fans on both sides stood and cheered.
“Go, Dartmouth! Go, Big Green!”
“Go, Big Red! Go, Cornell!”
Jesse’s mother pulled at his father’s coat sleeve. “There he is!” she shouted. Jesse could hear the excitement in her voice. “Number 12. Go, Green!”
Dartmouth jumped out to an early 14–0 lead on a couple of quick touchdowns, including the 65-yard return of a short, low punt.
“That’s what happens when you don’t have any hang time on your kicks,” Jesse said to his father as the Dartmouth section celebrated. “The other team gets a big return.”
Cornell scored just before the end of the half to pull closer, 14–7.
Munching hot dogs in the stands at halftime, the family went over the highlights of the first half.
“Jay got to play quite a bit,” Jesse’s mother said.
“That’s because Dartmouth was ahead and Cornell was trying to catch up by throwing passes,” his dad said.
Jesse wiped some mustard off his cheek. “Jay looks like he knows what he’s doing at safety. I mean, he doesn’t look like he’s in over his head or anything.”
“So far, so good.” Jesse’s dad finished off his hot dog and settled back for the second half.
As the teams ran out, his mom stood, bouncing and clapping. “Go, Big Green!”
Cornell came charging back right away. They tied it up with a long run and then pulled ahead with a 32-yard field goal, pushing the score to 17–14.
