by Tim Green
Before he knew it, Harrison was weighted down with homework and standing in the boys’ locker room surrounded by the noise of forty kids chattering as they dressed for football practice.
“Harrison,” Coach said, appearing from nowhere and brushing right on past him, “come with me.”
Harrison followed Coach down a dim hall and into a storage room, where he began rummaging around in some piles of dusty old football equipment. Piece by piece, Coach handed Harrison the pads, pants, helmet, and jersey he’d need to play.
“Um, Coach?” Harrison wiggled into a pair of rib pads to see if they fit. “Are you going to tell the team about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“That I’m . . .”
Coach raised his eyebrows. “With me?”
Chapter Seventeen
HARRISON NODDED AT COACH.
“No,” Coach said. “They’ll find out when they find out. I don’t tell my players anything they don’t need to know. That okay with you?”
“Sure, Coach.”
Coach had him try on three helmets before they found one big enough to fit, then they returned to the locker room and Coach gave him a lock. Harrison found an empty locker just about the time the rest of the kids were finishing up getting dressed and heading out to the field. Harrison’s new teammates couldn’t keep from glancing his way and some stared at him without trying to hide their hostility.
“I got you these during my lunch break.” Coach laid a slightly used pair of football cleats on the bench.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t worry,” Coach said. “Got your mouthpiece?”
Harrison removed the plastic mouthpiece from his pocket. Coach took it and fastened it to the metal face mask on the helmet.
“Make sure you put that in your mouth and don’t take it out,” Coach said. “Technically, you’re not supposed to be in full pads for five days, but since I’m your guardian and your coach, it’ll be fine. You won’t need the rib pads; they’ll take too long to lace up. Get geared up as fast as you can and meet us out there. Just walk straight out, past the tennis courts and down the hill. You’ll see the varsity and the JVs on the first two fields. We’ll be on the farthest one.”
Coach swung open the locker room door. Sunlight spilled inside and Coach stopped short. “Harrison?”
“Yes, Coach?”
“You’ve never played football before. It’s not easy to break onto a team once the season has already started. If you’re good, the other kids will worry about you taking their jobs. If you’re not good, they won’t want you around. Just do your best.”
Chapter Eighteen
HARRISON MATCHED THE DIFFERENT-SHAPED pads with the pockets lining the pants and stuffed them inside. He pulled on the pants, slipped on the cleats, and slung the shoulder pads over his head. It was a struggle to pull the dark-blue practice jersey over the thick shoulder pads, but finally he was ready. The cleats clacked against the tile floor, making a lonely sound that echoed off the metal lockers.
On the way out, Harrison stopped to use the bathroom. As he washed his hands, he looked in the mirror. His bad eye looked horrible, still red where it should be white, all set in a sea of fading purple and yellow skin. He had to admit to himself that he was like a walking, talking zombie. Maybe that wouldn’t matter on the football field. He’d always thought of the football field as a place where nothing else mattered, only what you are and what you can do. Butterflies swirled in his stomach. He strapped his helmet on, bit down on the mouthpiece, and headed out the door.
Yells, grunts, and the crack of pads from the varsity and JV practice fields warmed Harrison’s blood. He couldn’t wait.
The junior high team was spread out in orderly rows, stretching their legs. As Harrison approached, one boy pointed at him and said something to the player next to him. Word spread quickly and soon everyone was looking at him and pointing, and some of the kids were laughing out loud. Coach marched into their midst.
“That’s enough chatter!”
Everyone went silent. Harrison reached the sideline and stopped.
“But Coach,” one brave soul shouted, “look at him!”
All eyes were on Harrison, even Coach’s. Some of the boys snickered despite Coach’s glare. Harrison looked down at himself, knowing that he’d done something ridiculous and embarrassing but having no idea what.
“Harrison,” Coach said, shaking his head, “come here, will you?”
Chapter Nineteen
“YOU CLOWNS GET BACK to your stretching!” Coach barked at the rest of the team and they reacted right away.
“Here,” Coach said, reaching for Harrison’s jersey, “let’s get that off of you.”
“My jersey? What’s wrong?” Harrison stood, limp.
“Nothing with your jersey.” Coach set his clipboard down in the grass and spoke in a low voice that the rest of the team couldn’t hear. “We’ve got to take it off so we can fix your shoulder pads.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Harrison lowered his voice to a whisper and shifted the uncomfortable pads on his shoulders.
Coach tried not to smile but couldn’t help himself. “They’re backward, Harrison. I have to admit, I thought I’d seen everything.”
As Coach yanked the jersey over Harrison’s head, his cheeks felt like they had a sudden sunburn. “Oh, stupid,” Harrison said.
“No, not stupid.” Coach unsnapped the straps and turned the pads around on Harrison’s neck without taking them off. “Just funny. Don’t worry about it. It’s what you do with them that counts.”
Coach helped get the jersey back on and slapped Harrison’s shoulder pad. “Get to work.”
Harrison got into a spot at the back of one of the lines on the fifty-yard line and did his best to follow the lead of the kid next to him.
“Hey.” The boy reached across the space between them. “I’m Justin. Glad you got your pads on right.”
Harrison studied the boy’s face for a moment, saw nothing mean, and took his hand. “Harrison.”
“You’re big.”
Harrison didn’t know how to respond to that, so he kept quiet.
“Lineman, huh?” Justin said. “I’m a receiver.”
Justin was small and thin, with blue eyes and dirty blond hair long enough to sprout from the edges of his helmet. Harrison hoped Justin was fast, because given his size, that was probably the only way he’d be much of a football player. Harrison wanted to think that the first friend he had—or might have—would be a good player.
“I think maybe I’m going to be a running back,” Harrison said.
“You? You’re a monster.”
Harrison scowled and touched the skin around his eye through his face mask. “This will heal.”
“No, I didn’t mean a monster because of your eye.” Justin laughed in a friendly way. “I meant, you’re huge, a monster.”
“Oh.” Harrison felt better. “Brandon Jacobs is the Giants’ running back. He’s six-foot-four and two hundred and sixty pounds.”
Justin blinked and nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
Stretching ended. The players formed several lines and began running through agility drills. Then Coach blew his whistle, shouting for the linemen to go with Coach Lee and the backs and receivers to join him and another assistant under the goal post. Harrison was already sweating from the agility drills and all the padding, and his helmet felt strange and uncomfortable. On the next whistle, linemen went to one part of the field while skill players—runners, receivers, quarterbacks, and defensive backs—went to another. Harrison fell in with the skill players, standing in the back of the group so he could watch and learn.
They started with a tackling drill. Coach arranged six foam half-round bags end to end in two parallel lines to create a space in the grass only about two yards wide. The players separated into two groups—one side would run the ball while the other would try to tackle that runner. All the action was to take place in the strip of grass between the
bags. Harrison ended up in the tackling line. He watched as the first pair squared off, smashing into each other, with both going down. The next runner lowered a shoulder and blasted the tackler sideways, where he tripped and fell over one of the bags. The boys all cheered.
The next tackler got the best of his runner, hitting him low and upending him like a kicked bucket. More cheers.
Before he knew it, Harrison was up and, staring at him from the other end of the bags, was Leo Howard. In the embarrassment of walking out with his shoulder pads backward, Harrison had forgotten about his math class tormenter. Leo Howard’s puffy lips curled into a smile around his mouthpiece. Harrison heard the boy snarl as he grabbed the ball.
The whistle blew.
Before Harrison could react, Leo Howard bolted toward him like a branded bull.
Chapter Twenty
HARRISON WASN’T AFRAID, JUST unsure.
Then something snapped inside him and he took off, running right at Leo with his arms wide to make the tackle. Leo lowered his shoulder and exploded up into Harrison as if he really was a bull goring a matador with his horn. The wind left Harrison’s body in a fierce gush. The earth flipped. He crashed down and saw a burst of stars. Coach blew his whistle.
Some of the kids laughed. Leo Howard strutted at the other end of the bags and tossed the ball underhand to Coach.
“Nice hit, Leo.” Coach didn’t even look at Harrison. “Let’s go, next!”
Harrison got out of the way and switched sides like everyone before him, standing now at the back of the running backs’ line. The way Coach acted hurt Harrison, but it also made him mad. He studied the players in front of him, what the runners did and the tacklers, too. He knew without anyone telling him what he’d done wrong. He was too high. The kids who got underneath their opponents, whether they were the runner or the tackler, seemed to do much better than the kids who stood up straight when they hit.
Harrison envisioned himself getting the ball and lowering his own pads. He knew he could do it. He moved steadily up in the line. Coach didn’t say much to any of the kids; he just blew the whistle and watched them hit. When Harrison was next to go, he saw Leo move up two spots and cut the line so that he’d have another shot at Harrison.
Harrison sunk his teeth into his mouth guard. A growl gurgled up from his throat. What he really wanted to do was run right over, rip Leo’s helmet off, and punch him in the face. He knew he couldn’t, though, and instead, he breathed short huffs of breath and focused on what he would do when he had the ball.
The whistle blew—his turn.
Coach looked at him and gave him a nod so small that no one else would notice, then tossed Harrison the ball. Harrison caught it, lowered his hips, and staggered his feet to get a good running start. Leo Howard stood at the far end of the bags. He slapped his helmet once with each hand, snorted, and lowered his own stance.
The whistle blew again.
Harrison took off. Leo Howard surged toward him. Harrison felt thirteen years of hatred boiling in his brain. Leo came at him low, moving with the skill and ease of a cat. An instant before impact, Harrison lowered his shoulder, aiming it for Leo’s helmet.
When they crashed together, their pads popped like a gunshot.
Harrison saw more stars.
A roar burst from his throat.
Chapter Twenty-One
“AHHH!” HARRISON PLOWED STRAIGHT through Leo Howard.
Leo reeled sideways, tripped over the bags, and fell to the ground.
Harrison ran the length of the bags, turned, and headed back for Leo again.
He heard Coach’s yell behind him. “Harrison!”
As Leo got to his feet, Harrison lowered his shoulder again, blasting Leo Howard from the side and knocking him to the ground once more.
“Harrison, no!” Coach was on him, holding him and flinging him away from the fallen player as he blew on his whistle. “It’s over!”
The rest of the team looked at him wide-eyed. The red mist that had clouded Harrison’s mind began to clear.
“You did good,” Coach said, patting him on the shoulder, “but you only get one hit. When you hear the whistle, that’s it. You understand? You can’t hit anyone after the whistle. That’s the game.”
Coach turned on the rest of the team. “What are you all looking at? Let’s go, next two up!”
Coach marched past Leo without concern, even though the red-headed boy wobbled as he got to his feet. Harrison jogged to the back of the tackling line now.
Justin fell in beside him and whispered, “Nice hit. You’re a maniac. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone run Leo over. Trust me, Coach loves that stuff. He’s old school.”
Harrison knew what that meant, that Coach did things the way they used to be done in a time from the past, when the game was even tougher and more brutal than it was now. Part of that was having no pity for players who got stomped by their opponents. It made Harrison feel better about the way Coach ignored him after Leo knocked him down. It wasn’t anything personal; that’s just the way Coach was, old school.
Now it was time for Harrison to figure out the tackling side of things. He noticed that the players who did it best not only got their pads low, but they wrapped their arms and exploded up through the runner. Harrison didn’t know if that was something he could do, but he had an idea how it might work. When his turn came, he smiled to himself to see that Leo hadn’t cut the line to match up with him again.
Harrison got ready, burst forward at the whistle, then launched himself at the runner halfway through the bags. While he did make the tackle, he hit the runner too low and the runner was able to fall forward over the top of him to gain an extra yard.
Coach tooted his whistle. “Not bad. Knock him back next time. Drive up through him.”
Harrison went to the end of the running backs’ line. When Leo took his next turn, he seemed to have lost some steam. One of the other players brought him down without too much of a struggle. When Harrison was up again, he faced a solid-looking kid the others called “Bull,” which was short for Bulkowski. Like about half the team, Mike Bulkowski was a ninth grader. Harrison didn’t feel quite the same rage as he had against Leo. He kept his pads low, but without the intensity Bull was able to drag him down.
“On again, off again,” Coach barked without looking directly at Harrison. “There’s no such thing as a part-time champion. You play how you practice, boys. If you take a vacation, even for a single play in practice, you’ll do the same thing in a game, and we can’t win that way.”
Harrison felt his ears burning again. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint the man who was not only his coach but someone who—if he did well enough—might keep him around. He made another tackle, better than the first, but nothing that got any response from Coach. The next time he tackled, though, Harrison reminded himself of Coach’s burning words, and it was like lighting a blowtorch in his brain.
Adam Varnett—another ninth grader and the team’s starting halfback—took the ball and bolted forward at the whistle. Harrison ran straight for him, lowering his head, determined to get under the runner’s pads. Varnett was built like a bowling bowl, short and thick, so his pads were low to start out with, and he dipped even lower at the last instant. Harrison went lower, diving and exploding up through the runner.
Varnett’s knee struck the top of Harrison’s helmet.
Harrison felt a stab of pain, then his neck went numb.
Chapter Twenty-Two
HARRISON STARED UP AT the sky, so pure and blue that the jet streams crisscrossed it like slash marks he’d seen kids make with chalk on the school sidewalks, marking off grids for tic-tac-toe. He heard a voice and blinked. It was Coach, but it sounded like he was at the other end of a long tunnel.
“Harrison? Are you okay?”
Harrison flexed his fingers and toes. “Did I make the tackle?”
Coach’s short laugh echoed down the tunnel. “Stopped him cold. You okay?”
Harrison tried to sit up.
“You can’t hit with the top of your head like that.” Coach unsnapped Harrison’s helmet and slipped it off his head. “Here, look at me. I need to see your eyes and make sure you didn’t get a concussion.”
“It looks easy on TV—you just run around and knock people over.” Harrison rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m okay.”
Coach turned and tooted his whistle. “Coach Lee, get them going on inside run. I got him.”
Harrison saw Varnett limping away toward the next drill with the rest of the kids.
“Is Varnett okay?”
“He’ll be fine. That’s what knee pads are for. It was a great hit, but just don’t drop your head. You gotta keep your head up when you tackle. You can break your neck, especially on special teams, like a kickoff, when you’ve got a running start and you slam into someone.”
“I think my neck’s okay.”
“Your eyes are fine. You’re okay, but let’s get you a haircut after practice.”
Harrison ran his hand through the mess of sweaty hair on top of his head. “My hair?”
“I think your helmet will fit better if we cut it short.”
“Like yours?”
“If you want.”
“Mrs. Constable used to cut our hair. She said if we kept it long we didn’t need a hat in the winter.”
“Well, Jennifer and I have plenty of extra hats.”
Harrison smiled.
“All set?” Coach asked.
“I’m fine,” Harrison said.
“Put your helmet back on then, and let’s go.”
Harrison jogged beside Coach, strapping on his helmet. Coach ignored him when they got to the next drill, treating him like all the other kids, but Harrison felt warm on the inside when he recalled the image of Coach stepping outside himself to be nice when he thought Harrison had been hurt. Mrs. Godfrey was right.
Harrison watched Varnett and the other running back, Alan Simpson, take turns playing the position during the inside run drill. They’d huddle up with the quarterback and the offensive line, listen to the play, then line up, burst forward at the snap, take the handoff, and run. On another part of the field, wide receivers and defensive backs worked on the passing game. There were no passes in the drill they called “inside run.” Players on both sides knew the focus was run blocking, run defense, tackling, and tough running by the backs. After watching for a handful of plays, Harrison asked Coach if he could try.
