Football Nightmare

by Matt Christopher

  On the next play, the quarterback faked a pitchout and dropped back. The receiver that Keith was covering, a wiry, long-legged guy, pretended he was making a downfield block on Keith, then tried to sprint past him. Keith didn’t bite on the feint and wheeled to run with the receiver, staying with him pretty well. The quarterback threw just as the Puma end put on the brakes and hooked back toward the line. Keith hit him just after the ball did and jarred the ball loose for an incomplete pass.

  A few plays later, Larry replaced Keith, who got an approving nod from Coach Bodie and Mack as he reached the sideline. Keith feared that Larry wouldn’t be able to keep up with this receiver, who was shifty and had a deceptive burst of speed. Sure enough, two plays later Larry stumbled in an effort to stay with his man and the Puma caught a pass and raced downfield for fifteen yards before being tackled from behind by Billy.

  But on the very next play, Larry was able to break up an attempted screen pass and almost intercept it. If he had held the ball, he might have run it back for a touchdown.

  The Pumas failed to score in their ten plays and the Bucks took over. Larry, who had stayed in the game, caught a short pass on the first play. A moment later, his block set up a long run for Heck. Keith joined his teammates in cheering. He was eager to get into the game again, and two plays later he did, along with Jason, who substituted for Billy.

  Jason called for Keith to cut over the middle and fired a pass that was slightly behind him. Keith managed to twist around and get a hand on the ball, but a hard hit knocked it away from him, and Keith sprawled on the turf.

  As he returned to the huddle, Jason said, “Sorry, dude. That was my mistake.”

  Keith hoped that it looked that way to Coach Bodie as well. With three plays left, Jason sent Keith long and hurled the ball as far as he could. Keith sprinted hard for the end zone, hoping to reach the pass, and reached out a hand as he crossed the goal line. He got his fingertips on the ball, knocked it upward, then cradled his arms under the ball, catching it in both hands as he fell forward for a touchdown. As he got to his feet, he was surrounded by teammates slapping his hands and yelling congratulations.

  On the last offensive play, Billy, back in at quarterback, called an end around. Keith used Cody to run interference and raced for a twenty-yard gain.

  The Pumas did score on their next set of plays, but the Bucks scored a second touchdown — on some fine open-field running by Heck — and also kicked a field goal. Keith felt that he’d done pretty well, especially his one spectacular TD catch. But, he decided, Larry had also done well, even making an interception to end a Puma scoring threat.

  Afterward, once the members of both teams had shaken hands and the Pumas had left, Coach Bodie assembled the Bucks.

  “I’m very encouraged by what you guys showed me today. We look like we’re about ready for the season opener. I’ll be polishing some things in the next few practices, and that’s about it.

  “As for a final decision on starters, I’ll sleep on it and let you know before we go to work tomorrow. For what it’s worth, you’ve made some of my choices hard to make. That’s a good problem for a coach. It means that we have some real depth on the team this year, more so than last season. Get your rest, and I’ll see you all at the usual time.”

  Keith, Cody, and Heck rode their bikes home after the coach dismissed the team. Cody turned to Keith and said, “It’s a lock, man. You’re the starter. No question anymore.”

  Keith shrugged. “I’m not totally sure. To tell you the truth, I thought Larry had a good scrimmage, too. He made a couple of really good plays.”

  “That’s true,” Heck said, “but he also made a couple of mistakes, especially on defense. I think Cody’s right.”

  “Sure, I’m right!” Cody insisted. “Keith, you’re da man!”

  “Well, anyway, you two guys are going to start,” Keith said. “And I guess we’ll know about me tomorrow.”

  It was going to be a long wait.

  13

  The next day, Keith arrived at practice feeling nervous. Heck kept reassuring Keith that he deserved to start for the Bucks and that the coach could be relied on to make the right decision. But Keith couldn’t get over his edginess.

  What if Coach Bodie held Keith’s temper tantrum of a few days ago against him? What if the coach believed that Keith might actually fail in a clutch situation? What if, what if.… Keith refused to let himself relax. He promised himself that if the coach picked Larry over him he would not show his disappointment, that he’d still do his best for the team, and that he’d congratulate Larry and shake his hand.

  When, at last, Coach Bodie blew his whistle and clapped for the team to gather around him, Keith thought that he couldn’t stand the suspense for another minute. Anything would be better than waiting. He had to know.

  The coach waited for all the whispering and talking to die down before saying a word. Then he said, “As I said yesterday, I had a few difficult decisions to make, because we can only start eleven players. In a couple of cases, there was almost nothing separating the two options, but I had to make the choice anyway.

  “I’ll say this again: All of you will play against the Mustangs. They’re a solid team; they have a larger squad than we do, and that means that we’ll need to keep moving fresh bodies out there. Here we go.”

  He read the names off a list, going through them quickly. When he said, “Keith Stedman,” Keith wasn’t sure at first that he’d heard right. Then he saw Heck nodding and grinning, and he knew that he had indeed heard right. He was on the starting team! He managed not to jump up and let out a whoop, but he felt really good.

  In addition, he felt a tingle of nervousness. Now he had what he wanted. It was put-up-or-shut-up time.

  What if he blew it … again? What would he do?

  Meanwhile, the coach was talking about running some new plays and drilling all the old ones, and Keith made an effort to follow it all, but found it hard to focus.

  As soon as Coach Bodie told the players to take a minute before they got to work, Keith headed straight for Larry, who was sitting on the ground and staring hard straight ahead of him. “Hey, Larry?” Keith called.

  The other boy looked up, and Keith stuck out his hand. “Larry, I hope there’s no hard feelings. I thought we looked pretty much dead-even lately, and it could have gone either way. And I figure you’ll get plenty of playing time.”

  Larry got to his feet and forced a smile onto his face. “Congratulations,” he said. “I guess you earned it. Anyway … well, good luck.”

  Keith thought that if it had been the other way around, he’d probably have had just as much trouble getting the words out.

  As practice went on, Keith noticed that Larry’s head didn’t seem to be in it at all. At one point, when Larry was on offense, Billy must have called for the receiver to cut toward the sideline, because that’s where he threw the pass. But the ball landed ten yards from any player, while Larry raced straight downfield. As he headed glumly back to the huddle, the coach glared at him, but didn’t say anything. Keith was sure that it was because Coach Bodie knew how Larry was feeling and wanted to cut him a little slack.

  Keith felt pumped. He couldn’t do anything wrong. One of Jason’s passes was tipped at the line of scrimmage and Keith somehow leaped over a couple of players to grab it before it hit the ground. He made a beautiful ankle-high tackle on Heck when it seemed that Heck was going to take it into the end zone. He hoped that he’d have this kind of feeling when game time rolled around.

  When the coach whistled play to a halt, Keith felt that he could keep going and going, like one of those batteries in TV commercials. “Keith, Larry, let me see you for a minute,” the coach called.

  Heck looked at Keith with a “What’s up?” expression, but Keith could only shrug. He had no idea.

  “Guys, with you two playing as well as you are, I’d like to put in a new play, a spread formation kind of thing, with both of you in the lineup and Heck in the slot. Here�
��s the idea.”

  He kneeled down, holding a clipboard with a penciled diagram on it. Keith caught Larry’s eye and grinned. Larry grinned back.

  “The thing would be to flood the secondary,” Coach Bodie said. “One of you two would go deep down one sideline, the other would cut across maybe fifteen yards out. Heck would be flanked, ready for a screen pass or something short. Billy has great peripheral vision and he could decide which man is most open. If, say, we’re behind with time running out, or if it’s a close game and we want to catch them by surprise, this could be a real weapon.”

  Keith looked at the coach and then at Larry. “Sounds great.”

  Larry asked, “When are we going to work on it?”

  “Tomorrow,” the coach replied. “I don’t know if we’ll use it right away, but I’d like to be able to if we want it. Take a couple of minutes, and then we’ll get back to work.”

  Keith and Larry nodded. Heck came up to Keith as soon as Keith was far enough away so that Larry wouldn’t hear their conversation.

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  Keith hesitated, and then said, “Well, the coach didn’t ask us to keep it a secret so I don’t see why I can’t tell you. He has a new play he wants to put in tomorrow, with Larry and me together.”

  Heck’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”

  Keith nodded. “You’d be a flanker. We’d have three receivers in the pattern and Billy would decide which of us to throw to. Coach called it a kind of spread formation.”

  “Like the pros use!” Heck was excited about the idea. “Come on, let’s tell Billy!”

  “Looks like the coach is doing that already,” Keith said, pointing to where the coach was talking to Billy and Jason, who were looking at the coach’s clipboard. “He’ll probably show it to you, too, before we finish up today.”

  “A pro set!” Heck repeated. “How fantastic is that!?”

  “Think we could make it work?” asked Keith. “It looks kind of complicated.”

  “With Billy at quarterback?” Heck exclaimed. “Sure we can! The other team won’t know what hit them!”

  Keith spent the rest of the day’s workout looking forward to the next day, and hoping he could do his part.

  14

  When Mr. Stedman got home that evening, Keith was waiting for him eagerly. As he opened the door, Keith ran up.

  His father looked at him anxiously for a moment. “Anything wrong?”

  “Wrong? No! Everything’s great! Well, maybe not great, exactly, but good, at least I think it’s good. Well, I hope it’s good, but I’m not sure yet, because —”

  “Ho! Slow down, there!” called Mr. Stedman, laughing at Keith’s excitement. “I’m having trouble following this. First of all: Does this mean that there are no problems as far as football is concerned?”

  “Uhn-uhn, no problems. … Well, we have only two practices before we play the Mustangs and I’m nervous, but that’s okay, it’s not a problem, really.”

  “All right, then.” Keith’s father relaxed a little. “Everything is settled as far as Larry goes, then?”

  “Oh, sure!” Keith grinned. “Coach says I’m going to start and I shook hands with Larry and there are no hard feelings, even though he’s disappointed, but he stopped talking about me behind my back, and —”

  “Tell you what,” said his father, smiling now that he understood that Keith’s news was good, “let me sit down and catch my breath, and you can tell me all about it. But slowly, all right?”

  Keith and his father sat down together in the den, where Keith explained Coach Bodie’s new play. “It’s a winner! I think it’s going to catch the Mustangs totally by surprise. They won’t know how to cover us when we send out all those receivers, and Billy is going to pick their defense apart!”

  Mr. Stedman laughed. Keith stopped, staring at his father suspiciously. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing’s funny,” Mr. Stedman assured his son. “I’m just relieved that tonight’s football news is good for a change, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” Keith took a breath and sat back. “Yeah, I guess I was pretty down for a while. But that’s over now. I think. I’m pretty sure.”

  “Well, that’s very good, son. What happened to change your attitude? Just wondering.”

  “It was something Traci said when I went in to apologize to her the other night. She was talking about how she got over the nightmares she was having. She realized that things are almost never as bad in real life as they are in your dreams. And it was the same for me. I was making everything much worse than it really was, and when I saw that … well, I just, sort of … settled down.”

  “Well, well,” Mr. Stedman said. “Thanks to Traci. Did you tell her?”

  “I will tonight,” Keith replied. “I really owe her.”

  “She’s going to be very happy to hear that she helped you,” said Keith’s father. “She really loves you. I guess you knew that already.”

  “Sure,” Keith said, “but maybe I needed to be reminded.”

  The next afternoon, while Mack ran through some blocking drills with the interior linemen, Coach Bodie took the backs and ends aside to teach them his spread formation offense.

  “Now, I don’t know for sure that we’ll use this against the Mustangs tomorrow, but it’ll be good to have it available. And I’m pretty certain we’ll get around to using it sooner or later this season.”

  He unfolded a big sheet of paper covered with diagrams.

  “Looks complicated,” Billy said, staring at the paper.

  “Not really,” the coach assured him. “There’s one basic formation and a few different variations where the receivers take different routes. For tomorrow, though, to make matters simpler, I think we’ll just concentrate on one version.”

  It was pretty simple, Keith decided. He lined up wide right, with Larry on the same side a few yards closer to the interior line. Heck was a flanker, also on the right but a few yards behind the line. The fullback stayed in the backfield to block. On the snap, Keith would run a fly pattern, streaking straight downfield. Larry would cut across the middle, fifteen yards deep. Heck would cut sharply for the sideline, only a few yards downfield. Interior linemen, including Cody, would screen block on the line and try to create a downfield convoy of blockers for Heck, so that he might pick up additional running yards if the ball were thrown to him.

  The coach had different combinations of receivers try it out without linemen at first, using both Billy and Jason at quarterback. Jason was a little confused in the beginning and had trouble picking out the various receivers, but soon adjusted. Billy had no difficulty at all, and threw to Keith, Larry, and Heck in turn. After twenty minutes, the coach was satisfied.

  “Now let’s run it with linemen,” he said. He signaled for Mack to bring the rest of the team over.

  Cody and the rest of the linemen seemed to grasp their assignments quickly, and the coach began to run plays from the spread formation. On the first one, Keith faked as if he were going to cut toward the sideline and then dashed downfield. Billy fired the ball deep and Keith looked back, saw it coming — and dropped the pass. Disgusted with himself, he kicked at the ball before picking it up and running it back to the line. He flipped it to Billy, turned to Coach Bodie, and said, “The pass was perfect and I blew it. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said the coach. “That’s what practice is for.”

  Larry, Keith noticed, said nothing to anyone. Heck patted Keith on the shoulder and said, “You’ll get it next time.”

  And that was that. Keith was mildly surprised that not only did nobody make anything of his drop, but that he himself felt only a slight irritation at his goof.

  The practice went on, with Billy throwing to Larry, Keith, and Heck, after which Coach Bodie brought Jason in. Jason threw a long pass to Keith, who caught it over his shoulder without breaking stride.

  “All right!” yelled Heck.

  “Way to go!” called Larry.

>   The coach just smiled and said nothing, and Keith felt great.

  After running a few more plays from the formation, Coach Bodie looked at his watch and blew his whistle.

  “Good work today. Get your rest and go over your assignments, and let’s go out and play some tough football tomorrow.”

  Keith found himself exchanging a look with Larry. “That’s a killer play,” Larry said after a moment.

  Keith grinned. “The Mustangs are in trouble.”

  15

  The first game of the season was minutes away. The weather was perfect for football, cool and clear with almost no wind. Keith remembered the first game the previous year, and he had the same sensations now. There was a tingly feeling in his belly and he was nervous, but not frightened. He thought that the nervousness would disappear as soon as play began.

  The stands were fairly full, with rooters for both teams on hand. Keith’s family was sitting with Heck’s folks, and Mr. Szymanski had Heck’s baby brother in his lap. The Mustangs, in their sky-blue-and-gray uniforms, were warming up at one end of the field, while the starting Buck team, wearing black and silver, ran off some snaps at the other end. The opposing coaches and the two game officials were conferring at midfield.

  Heck said, “This is my brother’s first game. Let’s win it for him, okay?”

  Keith laughed. “If you say so. I was planning to win it for my sister. How about splitting it — half for Traci and half for little Stan?”

  He noticed Traci waving to him and waved back.

  The Bucks won the coin toss and elected to receive. They crowded around their coach, who advised them, “When we go on defense, remember that the Mustangs had a terrific running game last year and their top runner is back. He’s big and strong and he doesn’t get tired, so be ready for him. Make them go to the passing game if you can.