by Tim Green
Markle sulked off the field, kicking mud like a spoiled three-year-old. Coach Kinen met him at the edge of the field. The coach said something and when Markle shrugged, Coach Kinen went berserk. “Take a seat, Markle! You’re done!”
A jolt of excitement straightened Danny’s spine. The wet discomfort slipped away. Coach Kinen turned and surveyed the sideline.
When his eyes met Danny’s, everything about Danny’s appearance said he was ready to go.
Coach Kinen seemed to be considering Danny. Maybe he was recalling all that hard work he’d done before he gave up trying to impress anyone. Or, maybe he was remembering that Danny had, in fact, given up. Danny tried to look confident, but he felt like a pathetic puppy, begging for a table scrap he’d never get.
When Coach Kinen’s eyes kept going, Danny’s shoulders slumped.
“Scott Port!” Coach Kinen shouted so everyone could hear. “You take running back on the next series! Let’s see if we can get someone who can hang on to the ball!”
Danny stood for a while by himself, not to be too obvious about wanting to get in the game. He felt a nudge and turned to find Cupcake, lathered with sweat despite the rain.
“Bro, he shoulda put you in.” Cupcake spoke under his breath as he fished a slab of mud wedged between his facemask and helmet. “I thought he was gonna for sure. Scott’s a speedster. He can’t run in this mess.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Danny shrugged and pretended to be interested in their defense. “I’m probably gonna fail Rait’s test anyway, so it just saves me from being ineligible for the big game and losing my mind.”
Cupcake peered at him through the raindrops like his body had been taken over by aliens. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
Cupcake walked away and Danny watched the Layton Forks offense sputter and have to punt. Jake Moreland signaled fair catch and muffed it, but somehow he got the ball back from under the pile of bodies. Scott Port glowed in his bright white uniform among all the mud-covered players in the huddle. He was like a beacon for the defense to zero in on, and that’s what they did.
Scott’s first carry went for negative three yards. His next carry he tried to cut too fast, slipped, and lost two yards. On third down, he slipped again, then fumbled a toss sweep, giving up the ball to Layton Forks on the seventeen-yard line going in. Scott jogged off the field with his head hanging. He made a beeline to Coach Kinen to take his verbal punishment like a man, but their coach ignored Scott and instead focused on the defense.
Layton Forks scored two plays later.
Danny thought it served Coach Kinen right, turning to Scott, a speed back, when Danny could have replaced Markle and given the team new life—which it desperately needed if they were going to pull out a win and head to the championship. But that’s not what happened, and now, given the bad weather and Layton Forks’ three-touchdown lead, you could almost stick a fork in this game because it was practically done.
Danny turned away and listened to the patter of rain against the shell of his helmet. He was aware of the ball being kicked off out on the field, and some shouting on his sideline, but he ignored the game because it had nothing to do with him.
That’s when Cupcake grabbed him by the arm and swung him around. “Bro, what are you doing? Coach is calling for you.”
Danny yanked free. “Not funny, Cupcake.”
“Bro—”
“Owens! Are you deaf! Get over here!”
Danny spun around and saw his coach scowling. Water dripped from the bill of his cap.
Danny bolted toward the coach, stopping in front of him in a state of total confusion. “Yes, sir?”
Coach Kinen looked him up and down like a used car before he huffed and then spoke. “You can’t be worse than what we’ve had already. Can you get me some yards if I put you in?”
Danny spoke without thinking. “Yes, sir.”
“Go on then.” Coach Kinen waved him onto the field.
Danny snapped his chinstrap as he jogged out toward the huddle. His legs were stiff from just standing in the rain, and he wondered how wise he’d been to jump into the fray without warming up. He joined the circle around Jace.
The quarterback blew some water off his lips and peered up at Danny. “Give us something, Danny. Trips right twenty-eight power sweep on two. Ready . . . break!”
Danny lined up and looked over the defense. Linebackers with mud-smeared faces snarled at him through the rain. Jace had begun his cadence. Danny reminded himself of the play as the ball was snapped. He took off to the right side, slipped, and regained his footing in time to see the pitch sail past him and skid to a spinning stop in the mud.
The defense shouted, “Fumble!”
Danny tried to redirect and slipped again. An outside linebacker shot past him, belly-flopping on the ball. The impact spit the ball sideways toward Danny. He scooped it up and began to run the opposite way.
As soon as he turned, he got a mouthful of a Layton Forks shoulder pad. He saw stars and his back struck the ground with a thud. He lay there clutching the ball, breathless in the mud, blinking up into the rainy gray mist.
“You get up. You get up, Danny,” his father said sternly. “I don’t care if you never even make it to the varsity, but you get up when you get knocked down.”
Danny was halfway to his feet without thinking, and he looked around. He’d heard his father’s voice. It frightened him, but it also warmed his heart.
“You gotta run north and south in the mud. Never run for the sideline. You run straight up with your head high and you keep your feet under you. Keep them pumping. I know, that’s not how you’re supposed to run—unless you’re in the mud. If it’s ever a mess like today, you keep your feet and you’ll tear it up while everyone else is slip-sliding away.”
Danny looked around him to see if anyone else had heard his father’s speech, the same one he’d given Danny the morning of his first Pop Warner game in the mud. All he saw was Cupcake. “You okay, Danny?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Danny!” Coach Kinen was screaming from the sideline. “Get your head out of your butt or I’ll yank you too!”
Danny nodded that he’d heard and got into the huddle.
Jace’s look accused Danny of negligence on the last play.
“I slipped.” It was all Danny could say.
“Okay,” Jace said, “trips left twenty-seven power sweep on one, re—”
“Wait!” Danny shouted, holding out both hands to stop Jace from breaking the huddle. “Don’t run that. Run twenty-one counter trap.”
Jace removed his mouthpiece so he could be heard more clearly. “Danny, I don’t call the plays, Coach Kinen does, and he called twenty-seven sweep.”
“I’m telling you, just listen . . . it’s too sloppy. We can’t run to the outside, but I can take it up the middle. You gotta run north and south in the mud. Please, Jace, give me a chance. I know I can do this, but a sweep won’t work.”
“I’m not changing the play. I can’t,” Jace said.
“Okay, but I can. I’ll take total responsibility. This is all on me. You guys are witnesses. I told you I won’t run anything but the trap.”
Jace looked around the huddle.
Bug said, “Do it.”
Carmody said, “Go for it.”
Cupcake said, “Why not?”
Jace huffed and shook his head in doubt. “Well, if something doesn’t work, this is my last rodeo with Coach Kinen anyway.
“Okay, trips left twenty-one counter trap on one, ready . . . break!”
Danny lined up behind his quarterback. He wiggled his feet into the mud for a hold. Jace called the cadence and took the snap. Danny began pumping his legs as he moved forward.
He ran straight up and down, his legs pumping like pistons.
The defensive tackle came right at Danny, unblocked. It was the kind of collision every defender dreams of, but at the last instant before they hit, Cupcake flashed across Danny’s vision, crushing
the unsuspecting defender with a trap block. Danny kept going, his legs pumping like a boxer’s hands working a speed bag.
He shot through the line and met a linebacker who banged into Danny before slipping off. Danny did a dance spin and kept going. The safety grabbed him from behind, then jumped on his back. Danny remembered chicken fights on the playground and kept going. Another linebacker caught up and wrapped his arms around Danny’s waist.
He kept going.
It took two more players to finally drag him down after a twenty-three-yard gain and a first down. Cupcake arrived and began shoving defenders off of Danny before helping him to his feet and banging facemasks with a hug.
“Yeah, bro! That’s grade-A beef!”
Danny let Cupcake escort him to the huddle as he looked to the sideline for Coach Kinen’s reaction.
“Yes!” Coach Kinen ran up the sideline, pumping his fist. He apparently didn’t even realize they’d changed the play.
Danny’s other teammates tried to shower him with back slaps but Cupcake fended them off. “My bro needs some air. Chill, guys. Chill. He’s gonna do it again.”
He did do it, all the way to the end zone.
Crooked Creek came alive, on the field and in the stands. After Danny’s touchdown, the defense swarmed the field and shut down their opponents the way they’d expected to all week. Duval Carmody blocked a punt and Crooked Creek took over on the thirty-six-yard line going in. It took Danny and the offense just four plays to reach the end zone. After another successful extra point, they were only down by six with the scoreboard now reading 20–14.
The clock read 4:27, so they had time, but not much. After a deep kickoff that pinned Layton Forks down on their twenty-three, the defense roared out onto the gridiron. Danny stood on the sideline with his teammates, shouting encouragement. They stopped the first two plays at the line and the sideline began to celebrate, the offensive players eager to get the ball back.
On third-and-ten, Layton Forks’ quarterback rolled right and threw a wobbling duck of a pass ten yards outside his open wide receiver. Danny and his teammates were already airborne, jumping for joy when Markle appeared from nowhere and hammered the defenseless receiver, knocking him to the muck.
Flags and whistles came from every direction.
“Markle!” Coach Kinen yanked off his hat and stomped it into the mud. “What’s wrong with you?! Are you kidding me? Out! Get out! You’re done!”
Markle skulked off the field and pushed his way through the team to the bench, where he slammed his helmet down. Danny would have been delighted at Markle’s complete undoing had it not put them into such a terrible position and seriously jeopardized their amazing comeback. Markle’s fifteen-yard unsportsmanlike penalty advanced Layton Forks to the thirty-eight and gave them a fresh set of downs.
The clock now read 3:08, and unless Coach Kinen used their valuable time-outs, Layton Forks could run the clock down to a minute and change, punt the ball, and force Danny’s team to pass the ball in the rain. Running the ball sixty or seventy yards would be nearly impossible with that little amount of time since the clock continued on a run play unless the ball went out-of-bounds. Danny couldn’t help suspecting that Markle knew what he was doing when he laid out the receiver after the whistle.
Coach Kinen chose to burn his time-outs to stop the clock. Their defense held. Layton Forks punted, and Danny’s team got the ball back on the thirty-nine-yard line. They had to go sixty-one yards in less than three minutes.
Coach Kinen grabbed Danny by the facemask and pulled him close before he ran out to the huddle. “You gotta get to the sideline and get out-of-bounds. We can run it, but you have to stop the clock. Got it?”
“North and south!”
“Coach?” Danny’s eyes widened. “Did you say ‘north and south’?”
Coach Kinen gave Danny’s helmet a little shake. “No! I said, Get to the sideline.”
Danny was confused. “But . . . you gotta run north and south in the mud.”
Coach Kinen stared hard into Danny’s eyes. “Danny, are you okay?”
Coach Kinen gently smacked the side of Danny’s helmet. “Danny? I said, ‘Are you okay?’”
“Yeah, Coach.”
“Let’s go, Coach!” one of the refs shouted.
“Okay. Go.” Coach shoved Danny toward the huddle.
When he got there, he asked Jace the play.
“Twenty-eight sweep.”
“No. Don’t do it. Go twenty-four dive.”
“Danny, Coach said get out-of-bounds. You gotta run to the sideline.”
Danny stared wildly around the huddle. “Guys, you gotta remember these plays: twenty-four dive, twenty-three dive, twenty-two trap, twenty-one trap, and twenty draw. It’s easy: twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty. We can’t huddle, and we have to get right up to the line.”
“What if we need more plays?” Jace asked. “The clock will be running.”
“Everything is on one. If we get past twenty, we run a freeze play and draw them offside. That’ll stop the clock and we can huddle and call more plays.”
“What if the freeze doesn’t work?” Jace’s voice broke.
“It will.” Danny looked around. “Come on, guys. We got this. Twenty-four, three, two, one, zero. Next stop is the big game. Ready . . . break!”
Danny gained just six on the first play. He could hear Coach Kinen howling from the sideline. “What are you doing!?”
Danny ignored him. He lined up and broke the twenty-four dive for fifteen. Thirty yards to go, and the clock ticking down at 1:57.
This time, as they lined up, Danny saw the defense collapsing into the middle. They had a wedge of players there to make an inside run nearly impossible.
Jace got behind the center and shouted, “Hot! Hot! Hot!”
Jace tapped his helmet and looked out at Moreland, who also tapped his helmet. Jace called the cadence and took the snap. Jace flipped his hips and fired a hitch pass to Moreland. The ball slipped and wobbled and flew up into the air. Moreland raced toward it, scooped it just before it hit the ground, and kept going. A Forks linebacker popped Moreland dead-on, bouncing him back the way he’d come.
Moreland caught his balance, turned, and raced for the sideline. He gained eight yards and stopped the clock. With the ball on the twenty-two, the clock froze at 1:39.
Coach Kinen was a madman on the sideline, but he had no time-outs and Jace was ignoring him. They had time for a huddle now, and Jace addressed Danny.
“They loaded the box, so I figured I better throw it once to spread them out.”
“Great idea,” Danny said, then he nodded at Moreland. “Awesome play, Jake.”
“Let’s keep going with your plays.” Jace looked around the huddle. “Twenty-two, then twenty-one and twenty. Freeze if we need it. Everything’s on one. Ready . . . break!”
The twenty-two went for just five yards, but the twenty-one gave them ten. On the seven-yard line, Bug slipped and let his man right through on the twenty draw. The defender slipped, too, and submarined Danny’s ankles just as he took the handoff. Danny took a spill for a three-yard loss. The clock was down to just eighteen seconds.
Everyone scrambled to the line as the clock ticked.
The freeze play was just what it said. After going on the first “hut” five times in a row, the defense typically got lulled into a rhythm and would jump forward on the quarterback’s first “hut” the sixth time. The resulting offside penalty would give the offense five more yards toward the end zone and, mercifully, stop the play clock so time wouldn’t run out on Crooked Creek and end the game.
At nine seconds on the clock, Danny knew that it was all or nothing, so he froze. Jace began his cadence. “Down! Blue ten! Blue ten! Set . . .”
“HUT!”
The same lineman who’d tackled Danny in the backfield jumped the gun. Flags flew. Whistles shrieked. The D lineman slapped his own helmet.
Danny’s team pumped their fists and s
lapped high fives. The refs marched off the penalty and put the ball down on the five-yard line. The clock had stopped at five seconds. They had one play and Coach Kinen was going bananas on the sideline, signaling his choice.
“What’s he want?” Danny asked in the huddle.
“Danny, if we win and I don’t call his play, I’m not sure it’ll even be worth it,” Jace said.
“What play?”
“Twenty-six veer. It’s not north and south.”
Danny bit his mouthpiece hard. “It’s north by northwest . . . Let’s do it.”
“Yes!”
His offensive teammates all agreed.
It would have been a great story to tell his grandkids if he’d plowed over five defenders and battled his way over the line through a pile of bodies.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Cupcake and Bug plowed open a hole the size of a bowling alley.
Danny chugged in and scored.
Whistles blew.
The game ended, and the celebration began.
“The veer! The veer! The veer!” Coach Kinen was out on the field hugging Danny and Jace. “It was wide open! I knew it!”
The coach pulled their heads even closer to his. “I don’t know what the heck you two were thinking calling all those plays . . .
“But I love it!”
They all laughed and suddenly the wet didn’t seem so wet and the sky didn’t seem so gray. They accepted the thin cheers from the faithful few who’d made the trip in the rain, mostly parents like Danny’s mom who’d come despite him telling her not to. They burst out in a soggy, muted applause beneath their umbrellas as the team marched past the stands, heading for the bus.
Danny found his mom and grinned at her, waving a half-raised hand so his teammates wouldn’t call him a mama’s boy. On board the bus, guys shed their shoulder pads, steaming up the windows. Once they’d all found a seat, Coach Kinen stood up to address them.
