Million-Dollar Throw

by Mike Lupica

  Thirty.

  Coach Rivers didn’t do that with Valley, but he did always e-mail Nate the night before a game with the ten plays he wanted to use the first time they were on offense, telling him he wanted Nate to picture their first drive of the game, the way they both wanted it to go, inside his head.

  “I wouldn’t do this with just any thirteen-year-old quarterback,” Coach told him one time. “But then, you’re not just any thirteen-year-old quarterback.”

  There would still be three plays up on the chalkboard before every snap, and Coach Hanratty would give Nate a signal like he was a third-base coach letting him know which one was the “hot read,” but Nate didn’t need the chalkboard for those first ten plays because he had them down cold.

  Two running plays to start the game today, then eight straight passes, four with Nate taking the ball from under center, four from the shotgun.

  In the first huddle of the day, he called “L-Six,” which meant LaDell going through their “six” hole off right tackle, and gave them the snap count.

  “Let’s play some football,” he’d added, like he did before the first snap of every game.

  LaDell got eight yards and looked like he might get more before Willie Clifton somehow caught him from behind.

  A sweep to the left for Ben, who in addition to returning kick-offs was the Patriots’ other running back, got eight more.

  First and ten. They were already into Bears territory, their 44-yard line. Just two plays into it and Nate felt as if he had the Bears backing up. Now it was time for a quick hit, a simple slant pass to Pete, coming from Nate’s left. It was one of Nate’s favorite plays, making him feel as if he were releasing the ball as soon as Malcolm put it in his hands. A quick two-step drop before Nate straightened up and put the ball right on Pete as soon as he got an inside shoulder on the guy covering him.

  Only this time he put the ball right on big Willie Clifton.

  He didn’t know whether Willie had just gotten lucky, straightening up unblocked as Nate backed away from center, dropping back into coverage. Or whether he had somehow been able to read Nate’s eyes. But Willie was right in the middle of Nate’s passing lane to Pete, and the reason Nate didn’t see him was because Willie wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Only he was.

  The ball ended up in his hands as if Nate had handed it off to him, and it wasn’t one of those deals you saw in NFL games, the big lumbering defensive lineman looking down and acting shocked that the ball was in his hands. Like, what’s this? Willie acted like he was supposed to be there, like he was the one who was supposed to end up with the ball, and just like that, the third play of the game was going the other way. The wrong way. And fast. Because as big as Willie was, he sure hadn’t gotten any slower from last season to this.

  By the time Nate reacted with his feet, Willie was gone, having cut straight to his right sideline, ten yards clear of everybody in a white uniform.

  Including Nate.

  Nate chased him all the way to the end zone, as hard as he could. Pete was running along with him. But they both knew Willie could run like a halfback even though he looked to be twice the size of one.

  He beat both of them to the end zone, even looking back over his shoulder at the 5-yard line, not because he was worried they were catching him, just because he could. It was 6-0, Bears, and they hadn’t had to run a single play on offense yet.

  Willie didn’t celebrate once he crossed the line because that would have been like crossing another kind of line in football, one that got you a fifteen-yard penalty the way it did at every other level of football up the ladder from eighth grade. And Willie was cool enough to know that a nose tackle turning around a pass like that, turning it into a touchdown, was much cooler than trying to turn the end zone into some dance routine from High School Musical.

  He just handed the ball to the nearest ref, slapped five with a few of his teammates who’d finally caught up with the play, and jogged toward the Blair side of the field.

  Willie slowed slightly as he passed Nate, who was standing there at the 5-yard line with Pete. Got close enough to Nate to say, “Who wants to be a millionaire, yo?”

  CHAPTER 9

  The teams were tied 7-7 at halftime. It had hardly anything to do with the way Nate was playing and absolutely nothing—zip, zero—with the way he was throwing the ball.

  The Patriots were still in the game despite him today.

  Because it turned out that the throw to Willie Clifton was one of Nate’s better throws of the half, just because it was in the neighborhood of one of his intended receivers. They had come into the game thinking they couldn’t run the ball against the Blair Bears because of all that size they had up front, but by the time the Patriots took the ball on a 70-yard drive to tie things up, running the ball was all they were doing. In their playbook, the even numbers meant you ran right and the odd numbers meant you ran left, and as they finally started moving the ball, Nate just kept looking over at the chalkboard to see which direction LaDell or Ben would be running. They ran the ball and kept running and that was the script for the Valley Patriots now, not a single pass on the drive that ate up the clock and the field.

  “You okay with this?” Coach Rivers had asked Nate before what turned out to be the last drive of the half, telling him what they were going to do, going after a smash-mouth team with smash-mouth ball.

  “I’m about winning, Coach, you know that,” Nate said. “I’d rather have this many completions”—he made a 0 with his thumb and forefinger—“if that’s the best way for us to get a W.”

  “You carry us every Saturday,” Coach said. “Let’s let ’Dell and Ben do that for a few minutes.”

  LaDell finally ran it into the end zone from the 5-yard line with fifteen seconds left on a draw play, a thing of beauty, Malcolm just burying Willie for once, everybody else blocking their man as if their starting jobs depended on it, LaDell going straight up the middle untouched.

  “Okay,” Coach said at halftime. “New ball game.”

  I hope, Nate thought.

  He threw free and easy warming up with Pete, throwing the ball to him and then backing up until he was thirty yards away, throwing one spiral after another, Pete never having to move. But he’d felt that way before the game, too. He just wasn’t able to carry that feeling into the game.

  On their second series of the half, Pete ran a sweet Hutchins-and-Go, smoked the cornerback trying to cover him and left him behind. Nate couldn’t believe how open Pete was, just because the cornerback, no. 22, had done such a good job locking him down for most of the game. So Nate wasn’t about to overthrow his bud this time, made sure that even if Pete had to wait for the ball, he was going to put his hands on it.

  Pete was that kind of open.

  Nate released the pass.

  And hung the ball up there so long that the Bears’ free safety had plenty of time to catch up with Pete.

  Pete was so focused on the ball that he never saw the safety coming, just watched helplessly as the kid cut in front of him and picked the ball off and fell out of bounds.

  Second interception of the game. First time that had ever happened to Nate Brodie in his life. And when Tyler McCloskey connected deep on the very next play, hitting his wide-open receiver in stride, the Bears were back in the lead.

  On the sideline Nate said to Pete, “That interception was even uglier than the first one.”

  Pete said, “Can I be you for a second?”

  “Yeah,” Nate said, “but I don’t know why anybody would want to be me today.”

  “What interception?” Pete said. “You understand what I’m saying to you?”

  Nate did: forget the bad plays as though he had sports amnesia. The way Coach talked about. The way the pros did.

  But forgetting didn’t help his aim any. He went out for the next series and threw incompletion after incompletion. He knew he was overthinking his throws, but knowing didn’t make it stop.

  Fortunately, th
e Patriots defense was eager to make up for the touchdown they’d allowed on the last drive. Malcolm forced a Tyler McCloskey fumble on the first play and not only recovered the ball, he returned it all the way for a touchdown.

  Just like that, the Patriots were within a point.

  In eighth-grade football you got two points for kicking a conversion after a touchdown, but hardly anybody kicked, not even the Patriots. Even as well as Malcolm could snap a ball, Coach knew too many things could go wrong. If you ran it in or passed it in, you got a point. Valley tried to run after Malcolm’s score. But even though there looked to be a hole for Ben behind Malcolm and Sam, Willie stepped into it and hit Ben so hard that his helmet ended up sideways.

  14-13.

  The defenses stiffened and it stayed that way until there were two minutes left. Valley had the ball on their 28-yard line after a Blair punt. Before the offense ran out on the field, Coach said to them, “Short and sweet, boys. The measure of a champ is how he finds his best in the late rounds of the fight. So go find your best now.”

  Nate knew he wasn’t talking to the rest of them as much as he was talking to him. He looked up into the stands for Abby as he ran onto the field, but she wasn’t where she had been sitting at the start of the game, and neither was his mom. It wasn’t all that unusual, though. He knew both of them liked to walk around sometimes during the game, find a spot they thought would bring Nate some luck.

  He sure needed some of that luck now.

  Brady time, he told himself.

  Let’s play football.

  The Patriots came out running. It wasn’t the drive Nate had always imagined himself leading, but it was effective—and it was his ability to pass that set up the longest run of the day for either team, a twenty-yard scramble on a third-and-twelve from the Blair 29.

  Forty seconds left.

  One time-out remaining for the Patriots.

  They went on a quick-count, hoping to catch the Bears on their heels, and Nate handed off to LaDell, but Willie wasn’t fooled. He read the play perfectly and caught LaDell behind the line of scrimmage for a two-yard loss. The Patriots were forced to call their last time-out.

  After a quick stop at the sidelines to talk with Coach Rivers, Nate completed a short swing pass to Ben by the right sideline. Ben turned upfield and ran seventeen yards before stepping out of bounds and stopping the clock.

  First-and-ten from the Bears’ 14-yard line. Fourteen seconds on the clock and no time-outs left. Time for two throws into the end zone. But, Nate knew, get sacked and the game would be over. Nate reminded himself: If I don’t see an open receiver, throw the ball away. He almost smiled. It was the one thing he knew he could do with ease today: throw an incompletion over everyone’s head.

  Nate checked the chalkboard.

  The first play was the same slant they’d run for Pete on the third play of the game, the one Willie had picked off. Nobody in the huddle said a word about it. Even now, Nate knew they trusted him.

  “On two,” Nate said.

  Nate took the snap, took his quick drop, froze Willie this time by looking right, like he was throwing to Eric. Then his eyes found Pete, slashing from the left the way he slashed to the basket in hoops, and Nate led him perfectly.

  Only, the throw was high.

  Pete reached for it, went as high as he could for it, but the ball tipped off his fingers.

  Incomplete.

  They were down to their last play.

  Nine seconds left.

  All Nate said to Pete in the huddle was, “I’ll apologize later.”

  He could see Pete grinning on the inside of his face mask. “Will you take me for ice cream, too?”

  “Let’s beat da Bears first.”

  He called for a play they called “X-Men.” A crossing pattern for Pete and Eric from opposite sides, X being where they passed each other in the middle of the field and—ideally—at least one of them lost the guy covering him.

  Nate told the guys in the line he’d take them for ice cream, too, as long as they held their blocks even longer than they had been all day.

  “Doable,” Malcolm Burnley said.

  “’Dell,” Nate said, “you know the drill. Sneak out to the right corner of the end zone while I’m eyeballing the other guys.”

  They went with a quick count, Nate short-stepping back into the pocket, watching his two wideouts close in on each other. But the two Blair cornerbacks read the play perfectly, switching off on their receivers and smothering “X-Men” like they’d thrown a blanket over the sucker.

  The line was doing its best to hold their blocks, but Willie had beaten Malcolm and was now coming wide open up the middle at Nate as if a crossing guard had waved him through. Nate couldn’t roll to his right, too much traffic over there, so he rolled left, even though his last option—’Dell—was on the other side of the field.

  Willie still coming.

  Nate rolled, keeping his eyes on the end zone as he did, used those eyes of his and saw LaDell waving his arms from the corner, nobody near him, like he’d found an open spot in the parking lot.

  Yeah, Nate thought.

  Yeah.

  No hesitation now, no doubts, he planted his back foot and threw across his body, let it rip the way he had plenty of times before, when it was just him and the ball and the target.

  And threw it over the moon.

  The ball ended up about ten feet over LaDell’s head. If it were a hit baseball, the ball still rising as it went over the fence, the announcers would have called it a tape measure shot.

  Blair 14, Valley 13.

  Game over.

  Nate stayed where he was, watching the Blair players celebrate around Willie Clifton. Saw everything, just like always, saw the whole field. Saw LaDell, like he didn’t know what to do or where to go, jog after the ball Nate had thrown over his head like that was his last job today, the final part of the play.

  Finally Nate took as long a walk as he could to the sideline, to where his coach and his teammates were. From the time he’d started playing football, on the days when he got treated like the Next Big Thing in Valley, Mass., and on days when his team fell short, Nate really did believe you won as a team and lost as a team.

  Just not today.

  Right before he got to Coach Rivers, he took one last look up into the stands, which were already emptying out, one last look for Abby and his mom.

  “They’re not here,” Coach Rivers said. “I decided to wait until the game was over to tell you. Abby fell. Your mom had to take her to the hospital.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Nate didn’t have to go to the hospital, which was a good thing. No, a great thing, because he hated hospitals even more than he hated losing football games.

  Even a game like today, one he somehow managed to lose all by himself.

  Coach Rivers used his cell phone to call Nate’s mom, and when she answered, he put Nate on the phone right away. His mom told him she and Abby would be leaving the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital in a few minutes.

  “Caught a break, pal,” his mom said. “There was nobody ahead of us, which meant no waiting time. Which, come to think of it, isn’t just a break, it’s like some kind of miracle, especially on a Saturday . . .”

  There were no short answers from his mom, even when Nate hadn’t asked a question yet. Nate loved his mom to the sky and back, but she could talk the way Tiger Woods could golf.

  “Mom!” Nate said, knowing he was interrupting her, snapping at her really, and not caring. He wanted to hear about Abby. “So she wasn’t hurt that bad?”

  “It was a good bonk on the head, all right. But no stitches because we did a good job with the Band-Aids, just a butterfly bandage to keep the cut closed. For the next week she is going to look like she went a few rounds with Muhammad Ali’s daughter, I can never remember her name, the woman boxer . . .”

  Nate sighed. “Laila,” he said.

  “Thanks,” his mom said. “Anyway, I’m going to have Coach
drop you at Abby’s house, and we’ll all meet there.”

  “Just tell me real fast what happened,” Nate said.

  “She wanted to get closer to the field,” his mom said. “Told me her mojo wasn’t working from the stands today. If she could get closer to the field, she knew she could get you to stop throwing the ball around—now, these are her words, hon—like a paper airplane.”

  Even now, with Abby at the hospital, she could still make him feel a little better about everything. “Very nice,” he said.

  “So she went too fast down the bleachers and wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Down she went.”

  “Pretty hard.”

  “Sounds like it could have been worse,” Nate said, and his mom said, “Gotta run, the doctor wants to talk to me, see you at Abby’s.”

  She hadn’t asked how the game had turned out and Nate hadn’t cared, because all of a sudden throwing one over LaDell’s head didn’t feel nearly as much like the end of the world.

  Even if Nate did feel that his favorite day of the week couldn’t be going any worse.

  Abby’s face, always the prettiest one in their class, wasn’t pretty today. But Nate did what Abby always did when he became too serious. He made a joke out of it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when she opened her front door. “I was looking for Abby McCall.”

  “Don’t try to be funny, Brady,” she said. “I’m the funny one.”

  He grinned, knowing that if he acted for one minute as worried and scared as he had been when Coach told him she’d fallen, she’d make him go sit in his mom’s car until it was time for him to go home.

  “Yeah, you got me,” he said. “You are definitely the funny one today.”

  The cut was over her right eye, the angry-looking bruise on her right cheek. But she was still Abby. “You think so, huh?” she said. “I did see most of the game before I did my half gainer.”

  “Ouch,” Nate said.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Abby said.

  She took him back to the kitchen, where their moms were having coffee. Beth McCall had been friends with Nate’s mom even before Nate and Abby started hanging around together, were in the same book club now, and used to have a regular doubles match in tennis before the Brodies had to give up their membership at Valley Country Club.