A Hopeless Game

by Daniel Carson

  With people as smart as Darwin, sometimes you just have to let them tell you how smart they are. And so I did. I didn’t pay any attention to it, of course, but when I sensed he was wrapping things up, I rejoined the conversation.

  “Repeat the part where you told me what you found?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Hope. I didn’t find anything. Not one hit. Near as I can tell, there isn’t anyone who lives in Hopeless, or is affiliated with anyone who lives in Hopeless, who was listed in the 1991 Pleasant View yearbook.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m always sure. But I knew you’d ask, so I triple-checked.”

  “I thought for sure that was the connection.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Mossback was wrong,” Darwin said. “Maybe that yearbook was never there in the first place.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe she was trying to throw me off.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a total loss.”

  “No?”

  “I found out the other coaches from that year, and I got their current contact information. And I learned that one of those old coaches, Raymond Powers, is at the state finals game tonight in an official capacity. He was one of four coaches being honored. He got to—”

  “Do the coin toss. I saw them.”

  “Well, I just texted you his cell number. Just in case you want to talk with him.”

  “Thanks, Darwin. You’re the best.”

  “Oh, and about that other thing you asked about? Haven’t found anything yet. But give me time. I will.”

  “You always do, Darwin.”

  I scanned the stadium trying to find where those four old guys wearing the blue blazers were sitting. But when I found them, they weren’t sitting. Three of the four men were standing behind the south goalposts and leaning up against the chain-link fence.

  I was thirty feet behind the three men when I placed the call. As soon as I saw the short man in the middle grab his phone from his pocket, I quickly ended the call. That was my target.

  I waited a beat, then walked up behind him.

  “Excuse me, are you Coach Powers?”

  A man in his late sixties turned around. His hair was thinning and mostly white, and his face was the color of leather and every bit as rough. This was a man who had spent his life outside.

  He gave me a wide smile and stuck out his hand. “I am definitely Coach Powers when someone as pretty as you is asking.”

  “Aww, what a nice thing to say.” I figured that was his standard line, and he thought he was the most charming man in the world. That was fine by me. Anything to get him talking. Because I had run out of clues, and I needed his help.

  “My name is Hope Walker. I’m a newspaper reporter for the Hopeless Gazette. I’m working on some stories about… well, everything that’s happened this week.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Been a hell of a week for you guys. I was sorry to hear it.”

  “Listen, Coach—”

  He winked. “Call me Ray.”

  “Okay, Ray.” I looked around. “Do you mind?” I backed away from the other two old guys, and he followed. “I understand that you might have known Coach Mossback from your days coaching at Pleasant View together.”

  “Well, you do your homework, don’t you? Yep, Randall and I go back quite a ways. Some days it seems like it was just yesterday.”

  “I got a tip about something that may have happened in the early nineties. Say, 1990, 1991. Were you both at Prairie View at that time?”

  He looked up into the air like he was accessing old memory. And then he rubbed his hand across his chin. “Let me see, let… me… see. My second kid, my boy Jake, was born in 1989, so… yep, Pleasant View is where I was.”

  “Then maybe you can help.”

  “I’ll do what I can. Not every day a washed-up coach like me gets to talk with a cute reporter like yourself.”

  I winked at him and smiled. “You’re quite a charmer, Ray.”

  He shrugged like this was just the kind of God-given ability that a man couldn’t help. “Just tell what I can do you for, Hope?”

  “I’ve heard about a very interesting drill that Coach Mossback ran. It was called Tough Guy—or you might have known it as Bad Man.”

  The man’s face changed instantly. The easygoing smile and charm vanished, replaced by wide-open eyes and a half-open mouth.

  “Bad Man, did you say?”

  “I did. Kids get in a circle and pummel each other. Survival of the fittest. I think you know how the rest of the drill goes.”

  Ray rubbed his hand uncomfortably over his chin and let out an enormous sigh. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

  “So you do remember the drill.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Ma’am, is this on the record or off the record?”

  “Off the record. Way off the record, I promise. I won’t be reporting on this. I’m just doing background for something else.”

  “Okay. I’ll trust you. Yeah, I remember the drill.”

  “And was it as bad as it sounds?”

  “Looking back on it? Yes. It was bad. But at the time?” He shook his head. “It was a different era. I know people hate to hear that excuse, but it’s true. Times change. People change. I was an idiot back then. We all were.”

  “And Coach Mossback?”

  “The biggest idiot of them all. Don’t get me wrong, Randall was a great coach. That’s obvious. But he did some things—we did some things—that I wish we hadn’t done.”

  “I’m particularly interested in something that might have happened in the fall of 1990 or spring of 1991. Can you think of anything out of the ordinary occurring in that year?”

  “That was a long time ago, sweetheart. To get that specific about a particular season from twenty plus years ago… I have to admit it all runs together after a while.”

  “Okay, then how about the Bad Man drill? Without getting specific about the year, can you ever remember something from that drill at Pleasant View that was, I don’t know how to say it…”

  “Particularly bad.”

  “Yes.”

  Raymond Powers put his hands on his hips and let out a long and dispirited sigh. “Maybe it’s better that someone finally knew.”

  Chapter 31

  “Someone knew what?”

  “The whole story. But if you want to hear it, you have to let me tell it my way. Come on. We’re going to need some dogs for this.”

  We bought two hot dogs and sodas, then we found a spot alone on the fence line where we could watch the second half and Raymond could tell me his story.

  “His way” apparently meant starting by describing the way football was when he was a kid. I guess he wanted me to have the context—to understand that times were different. As he spoke, Mound City forced Hopeless into a three-and-out on the first possession of the second half. Raymond took a sip of his soda and pointed to the Hopeless sideline. “Without Randall and that Sunderland kid, they’ve got no prayer.”

  “So I’ve been told. So, you were explaining that when you played football, things were different.”

  “And that’s an understatement. It was about being tough. Being a man. Hell, drinking water was considered a sissy thing to do.”

  “And I take it that mentality was still alive when you got into coaching?”

  “Alive and well.”

  He began to tell me some stories to illustrate the point. And although part of me wanted him to cut to the chase, another part of me was fascinated to hear about the culture of football in days gone by, as seen through the eyes of a man who had just about seen it all.

  He was just getting to his time at Pleasant View when the crowd erupted in applause.

  I looked up to see Elliot Sunderland walking out to join the offensive huddle. Though “walking” was putting it charitably. Limping was more like it.

  “Well I’ll be,” Raymond said. “Now see, that kid would have done just fine back in my day. Play through the pain. Sacrifice your
body for the game. Old school. That’s what he is.”

  Hopeless tried out a new formation. They put two tight ends into the game and three backs behind the quarterback.

  “Look,” I said. “They’ve got Elliot at I-back.”

  The ball snapped, the lines collided, and Elliot charged forward, took the handoff, and barreled into the line for a gain of four yards.

  “Holy cow,” said Ray. “There was no subtlety there. Looks like Hopeless is gonna abandon their game plan and just try to beat Mound City to death. Smashmouth 101.”

  Ray was right. Every play, Hopeless lined up in double tights, and the quarterback handed off to Elliot Sunderland. Each and every play. No movement, no trickery. Every man on the defense knew exactly what was going to happen. And yet each and every play, Elliot would plow forward for three to four yards, then somehow pick himself off the field and hobble back to the huddle. It was dull and methodical… and kind of mesmerizing to watch.

  And just before the third quarter expired, Elliot punched it into the end zone for a two-yard touchdown. After he somehow managed the kick, it was all tied up at fourteen apiece.

  “I do believe we’ve got ourselves a ball game again,” said Ray.

  “So, about Pleasant View and 1990?” I reminded him.

  Ray stared off into nowhere and picked the narrative back up.

  “I just wanted you to understand how we got there. These days you’ve got constant water breaks, hardly any two-a-day practices, concussion protocols, very little contact during the week. We’ve learned about how to better take care of our athletes and our kids. And it’s for the better. For the way better. It’s just not what we used to do.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Okay. So it’s 1989. And one day I’m standing with this first-year head coach, some hotshot named Randall Mossback, and before you know it we’re running this bat-poop crazy drill. Bad Man. Though we hadn’t named it till after that moment. And I’ll be honest…” He turned and looked at me. “I loved every minute of it.”

  “You did?”

  “I’m not proud that I did. But I did.”

  “And is it true that the winner yelled ‘I’m a bad man’?”

  “That’s where the name came from, after. At the time, in the testosterone-fueled environment we were in, it seemed to fit. Sounds kinda stupid now.”

  “And the winner chose the weakest link to be taped to the goalposts. That’s also true?”

  “Yep. Now, like I said before, hazing was ever-present all the way back to my own playing days. It was done, and it was accepted. And I just thought of this as hazing. I didn’t think of it as wrong. I don’t know exactly how it started. But that first year, our Bad Man chose someone, the team duct-taped him to the goalposts, and an hour later they cut him free.”

  “Okay, that was 1989. What happened the next year?”

  The crowd erupted, and we looked up to see Elliot Sunderland holding the football in the air like a trophy.

  “And now the kid grabs a fumble. He’s quite a warrior.”

  He went silent while we watched the next possession. Hopeless went back to double tights, but this time Mound City put everybody in the box. If Hopeless was going to be that predictable, why not?

  Hopeless was forced to go for it on fourth down two times in a row. They converted each time. But on the next set of downs they stalled out. Turnover on downs.

  “Fall of 1990, Ray. What happened?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “There was this kid. Nice kid. But not an athlete. Not a football player. And Randall rode the kid. Rode him hard. He was a weak link to be sure, and somehow, I think Randall made it worse. Some kids just don’t respond to that. This kid was one of them. And… yes, we did the Bad Man drill again that year at the end of training camp. And to no one’s surprise, this kid got picked.”

  “And he got taped to the goalposts.”

  Ray nodded.

  I could tell there was more. So I waited.

  Ray looked at the ground. “The team…” He hesitated. “So, we thought the team would cut him down after an hour. That was the tradition. Everyone knew that. But they didn’t.”

  “How much later did they cut him down?” I asked.

  “That’s just it. They didn’t. Coach Mossback saw the kid when he left the building. At that time he’d been stuck to the goalposts for three hours or so.”

  I got a very bad feeling in my gut.

  “Please tell me that Coach Mossback cut him down.”

  Coach Raymond Powers closed his eyes. The crowd erupted again, and I looked up. The clock said there was a minute remaining. The game was still tied. But Hopeless once again had the ball.

  “Why didn’t he get the poor kid down?” I asked quietly.

  “Because Randall Mossback was a bully. He thought it was funny. It wasn’t until the next day when the maintenance guy arrived to mow the grass that he was cut loose.”

  “He was taped to those goalposts for an entire day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was anyone arrested?”

  “Haven’t you been listening? That’s not how things worked back then. The kid transferred from school and I never heard about him again. But I will say that after that, we made sure nothing like that ever happened again. We ran the drill, but the one-hour rule was enforced. We went to the state semis that year, won the finals the next two years in a row. Randall moved on to a new school, and the legend of the Mossback Method had begun.”

  “But you never forgot about what happened.”

  “It’s haunted me for a long time. I’m actually glad I could tell someone about it.”

  We watched Hopeless run it up the gut for three straight plays, taking a timeout after each. Elliot carried the ball twice, and the quarterback once. That was as much variation as there was in the playbook. There were now ten seconds left and they had the ball on Mound City’s twenty-eight yard line. It was fourth down.

  “If the kid wasn’t hurt, they’d have him kicking a field goal right now to win the whole thing,” said Ray.

  “He barely got the extra point over the goalposts. It’s an act of will that he’s even walking. So what do you think they’ll do?”

  “I think they need some kind of miracle.”

  Hopeless came up to the line, once again in double tight. The quarterback settled over center. He counted out his cadence, and the ball snapped. One of the upbacks got the handoff and dove into the line.

  “That’s it?” I said.

  But Raymond was pointing at something else. Elliot Sunderland had escaped out of the backfield untouched and uncovered, and he was hobbling down the sideline. That’s when I saw it. The quarterback still had the ball. And he was launching it.

  The football arced through the air. Elliot put his hands out. And he made the catch. The defense recovered and charged toward him. Elliot tucked the ball and headed for the end zone.

  But the kid could barely run. He stumbled forward with a limping gait, and it didn’t look like he’d make it.

  Yet somehow, Elliot Sunderland, the best football player central Idaho had seen in maybe forever, was fast enough. Just. He fell into the end zone just as two defenders reached him. The ball was over the line. Touchdown.

  The clock hit zero. The horn blew.

  The game was over.

  And Hopeless had won.

  The stadium erupted like nothing I had ever experienced in my life. The town mobbed the field.

  They did indeed get their miracle.

  And his name was Elliot Sunderland.

  Raymond Powers shook his head. “That is the damnedest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

  “I appreciate you talking with me, Ray, and being so honest with me. But now I’d better go check on my Granny. There’s a very good chance she died when he scored that touchdown. And an even better chance that she’s exposed parts of her that are best left unseen. But before I go, I do have just one last question.”

  “Shoot.”
<
br />   “Do you remember that kid’s name? The one who was taped to the goalposts for a whole day?”

  Raymond ran his hand through the little bit of white hair he had left. His eyes darted back and forth as he tried to remember. I expect these were memories he’d tried even harder to forget.

  Then suddenly his eyes opened wide and his mouth fell open.

  “Well if that isn’t the craziest coincidence in the world.”

  “What coincidence?” I asked.

  “He’s got the same name as that Sunderland kid.”

  “The kid’s name was Elliot?”

  “No. It was Sunderland.”

  Chapter 32

  I waded into the mass of humanity with a mission. It was such a weird scene. I saw grown men crying. I saw Granny and Bess hugging and dancing like a couple of sixteen-year-olds who’d just seen the Beatles. And I saw Dominic Rodgers on top of a dogpile of players holding his hands in the air like he was king of the world.

  A town with an unfortunate name, a town that had seen their share of unfortunate football for the better part of a century, a town that had just suffered through one of the more unfortunate weeks in recent history… had gotten a temporary reprieve from unfortunateness. Somehow, because of this miracle of a football player named Elliot Sunderland, they had, in the most improbable way, finally reached the promised land.

  And the emotion that was unleashed was overwhelming.

  But my mission wasn’t to celebrate this breathtaking achievement.

  My mission was to speak with that miraculous football player’s father.

  I made it to the middle of the field and found myself next to Sheriff Alex Kramer, who was looking at the celebration with a smile and more than a little bit of pride. The medal ceremony was just beginning.

  “I haven’t been here long, but man, that was something,” he said without even looking at me.

  “I figured it out, Alex.”

  “Figured what—wait, seriously?” His eyes were suddenly wide with recognition.

  “Yep.”

  “And not ‘figured it out’ as in you’re just going to randomly accuse somebody and hope to get lucky.”