Game Changers

by Mike Lupica

  He had come to The Rock with his big plan today. Scrapped now. In the wind. The only plan was to somehow find a way to win the game.

  “Don’t worry,” Sam said to him when they got to the bench. “I’ll figure out a way to get open.”

  “Yeah, well if you do, maybe I can start remembering how to get the ball to you,” Ben said.

  “You will.”

  “And you know this … how?”

  “Because you always have,” Sam said. “It’s nothing–nothing. So it’s like we’re starting the game all over again.”

  But it stayed nothing–nothing into the fourth quarter. Tie game, biggest crowd of the season because it was Darby, another Saturday that felt like a playoff game because of what was at stake, the game almost feeling like sudden death, because you just knew that the first team to score was going to win. The Rams had played all those other close games, Ben knew, but this one was more of a grind, like they’d been playing uphill on offense from the start.

  He knew something else: A tie might be as bad as a loss, especially if Glendale won its game against Parkerville today and got to 6–1. Because then even if the Rams beat Glendale next weekend, Glendale would finish 6–2 and the Rams would finish 5–2–1.

  And if Parkerville won its last game, the Rams were out of the championship.

  Rams ball on their own thirty, three minutes to go.

  Finally Ben got them moving again. No smash-mouth football for the Rams now. Coach O’Brien had them throwing on every down. “Remember when the Mavs won the championship from LeBron last year?” Coach had said to Ben before the drive. “Dirk Nowitzki missed eleven of his first twelve shots. And you know what he did? He kept shooting. Well, we’re going to do the same, because I just know you’re about to get hot.”

  First down pass to Sam. Then another. They were at midfield, just like that. Short pass to Darrelle out of the backfield. Then another to Darrelle. Inside the Bears’ forty. The Bears were still doubling Sam, but Ben was hot now, put one between the two defenders and the Rams had a first down on the Bears’ twenty.

  Clock running, inside a minute.

  Kevin Nolti brought in the play from Coach O’Brien: “Lookaway” it was called. Ben liked it. He was supposed to fake a throw to Sam on the right, then look the other way and hit Shawn on the left sideline, ten yards or so past the line of scrimmage. They ran the play a lot in practice in two-minute drills. Shawn knew he was supposed to step out of bounds after the catch, stopping the clock.

  “We got this,” Ben said in the huddle. He was talking to all of them, but looking at Shawn. Like he was trying to make him believe he could make this catch.

  As they broke the huddle, Shawn O’Brien said the first words he’d said to Ben all day.

  “I know the play’s to me,” he said. “But if Sam’s open, throw it to him. Please.” Not the Bad Shawn now. Or even close. Just a scared kid.

  “No,” Ben said. “Like I said, we got this.”

  Thinking to himself that sometimes things worked out the way they were supposed to, you didn’t need a plan, you just had to let it happen.

  He dropped back into the shotgun. Coop gave him a perfect snap, waist high. Ben sold the fake to Sam as hard as he could, Sam double-covered again. For one real bad moment, Ben was afraid he’d sold the fake too well, felt the ball slipping out of his hand as he brought his arm forward.

  He managed to hold on. And it was as if the whole defense had leaned in Sam’s direction when Ben made his fake. So when he did look to the left, Shawn was wide open, having stopped just as a way of not drawing any attention to himself, as if he were as surprised as anybody at how open he really was.

  Ben hoped that Shawn knew how much open field there was in front of him, that he didn’t need to go out of bounds, that he could take this sucker all the way once he had it in his hands.

  Take it all the way to the house.

  Ben threw a tight spiral to him, as good a pass as he’d thrown all day, the ball feeling just right coming out of his right hand. It came at Shawn like a perfect strike in baseball, down the middle of the plate. He wore “11,” like his dad had before him.

  If he’d taken his hands out of the way, the ball would have hit him right between the ones.

  Shawn dropped it.

  Maybe he’d taken his eyes off it just for a split second, having seen what Ben saw, all that open field in front of him. Knowing all he had to do was catch it and run. But he didn’t. He dropped it the way Ben had earlier in the season, when Shawn was the one doing the throwing.

  Shawn ended up staring at the ball on the ground in front of him like some bottle he’d just dropped and smashed all over the kitchen floor.

  He finally jogged back to the huddle, head down.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ben said. “It was only first down.”

  In a voice Ben could barely hear, Shawn said, “Don’t try to make me feel better.”

  Nothing more to say, because Darrelle brought in the next play then. Another simple name for it: “Post.” Sam over the middle. Another one where he was just supposed to get his shoulder inside the corner covering him and make one of his quick cuts over the middle. As much of a money play as they had.

  Until Ben changed it.

  In the huddle he said, “We’re gonna run Lookaway again.”

  In a voice almost as quiet as Shawn’s had been, Sam Brown said, “You’re calling an audible? Now?”

  Coop said, “Dude. You haven’t called an audible all year.”

  “They won’t be expecting it,” Ben said.

  “You mean, because we aren’t, either?” Coop said.

  Shawn acted as if he wasn’t listening to the others, just looked at Ben now and said, “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because it gives us our best chance to win the game,” Ben said.

  “My dad knows better,” Shawn said.

  Ben said, “Not everything.”

  Ben told Sam he could even yell for the ball this time. To Shawn he said, “Don’t stop running until you get to the end zone. That’s where the ball will be.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Run or catch?” Ben said. “You can do both.”

  Before Coop walked up and bent over the ball he said to Ben, “You do know what you’re doing, right?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Always have, always will.”

  Sam was actually a yard behind the coverage when he yelled for the ball. Ben almost threw it to him. Didn’t. Sold his fake again, turned, and picked up Shawn, sprinting down the sideline. Only this time the kid covering him hadn’t bit on the fake, was running almost shoulder to shoulder with him.

  Trust it, Ben told himself.

  Trust yourself and trust him.

  He thought he’d led Shawn just right, until he saw at the last second that he’d put the ball too far out in front of him.

  But then he saw something else, the way everybody at The Rock and everybody from the two towns did. Saw Shawn O’Brien laying out as far as he could, like he was doing a racing dive off the side of a swimming pool. Saw him stretching out his arms and his big hands as he hit the ground hard, bouncing a couple of times before he showed the ref that he’d held on.

  The ref puts his own arms and hands up and signaled touchdown.

  And in that moment, Shawn became a Ram.

  Not a scared kid now. Just a big, happy one. He jumped up and handed the ball to the ref and then put his arms in the air, pumping them up and down as he sprinted for his teammates.

  Like he really was one of them now.

  “What the heck?” Ben heard Coop say. “What the heck?” And ran straight for Shawn, the two of them launching each other into a crazed, flying chest bump.

  For this one moment, Shawn O’Brien looked happy. Or maybe, Ben thought, he just looked like a football player.

  At last.

  Shawn didn’t celebrate with Ben, didn’t say anything to Ben until the game was over, until Ben had run around le
ft end for the conversion that made the final score 8–0, Rams. Until Sam, playing the deepest safety he’d ever played, had intercepted a long pass intended for Ryan Hurley on the last play of the game.

  Then Shawn came walking over to where Ben stood at midfield.

  Ben could see how awkward this was for him, knew at the same time there was nothing he could do to make it any easier for him.

  Shawn put out a fist, Ben bumped it, Shawn said, “I owe you one.”

  Ben could see he surprised him when he came back with, “Yeah, you do.”

  “Well, go ahead and name it,” Shawn said.

  “I want you to make me a promise,” Ben said.

  “I can’t,” Shawn said.

  This was at McBain Field, an hour after the game had ended, Ben having waited to tell Shawn what he wanted.

  “You ever notice how much you say that?” Ben said. “That you can’t do something?”

  “Just let me wait until the season’s over,” Shawn said.

  Ben said, “Man, there really is a ton of stuff you just don’t get. The season’s just getting started, that’s the way I look at it. And the way you ought to be looking at it.”

  It was just the two of them, far end of the field near the swings, Shawn having ridden his bike over, Ben having laid it all out for him, like a homework assignment:

  Shawn had to tell his dad all of it. Now. That he didn’t want to be a quarterback, never wanted to be a quarterback, didn’t want to be the player his dad had been.

  “I’d have to admit I lied,” Shawn said. “My dad hates lying.”

  “You think mine doesn’t?” Ben said. “But the longer you let the lie go on, the worse it’s going to be when you do tell. Like any dumb lie. That’s why you’re gonna do it now.”

  They were sitting in the grass near the swings. Shawn had told Ben he wasn’t going to sit in some little kid’s swing, Ben wanting to tell him he ought to try it, he did some of his very best thinking sitting in those swings.

  For now they were in the grass instead, facing each other, Shawn wearing a “Maryland Football” T-shirt. His dad’s old school.

  “The day he put you in at quarterback, that was the day I told him I was going to try harder than ever to be one. A QB.”

  “Another lie.”

  “I know.”

  “After you caught the touchdown pass today, you said you owed me one, all I had to do was name it. This is the one.”

  Shawn said, “I didn’t know what you wanted me to promise.”

  “Tough,” Ben said, grinning at him as he did. “It’s like you’ve been telling me. A promise is a promise. You gotta go home and tell your dad the player you were today — that’s the player you’re supposed to be.”

  “You’re sure about that because I caught one touchdown pass?”

  “Totally!” Ben said. “Seriously, dude, how dense can you be? Everybody saw.”

  “I’m gonna tell my dad, you do have my word on that. Just let me wait. If we win two more games, we win the championship, he’ll be happy, I’ll be happy, everybody will be happy. It will be easier then.”

  “Who said anything about easy?” Ben said. Shook his head. “Nope. Do it today.”

  Shawn started to say something, but Ben held up a hand. “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

  “You can’t,” Shawn said. “You did promise.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, “I did. But I’ve been thinkin’ on that one. And here’s what I came up with: Before I made that promise to you, I made the same promise to myself I make before every season.”

  “Which is?”

  “To be the best teammate I can possibly be. Which is what I’m trying to be now with you.”

  “By making me do something I don’t want to do?”

  “No,” Ben said. “By getting you to get over yourself.” Grinning at him again.

  Shawn said, “I’ve been trying to tell you something all season: I’m not like you. I want to be more like you, I think that’s why I came to you in the first place, as messed up as I acted after, even though it killed me to admit that to myself. But I’m not … like … you.”

  Ben said, “But, see, that’s how this thing did get messed up. And that’s as much my fault as yours. You’re not supposed to be me. Or Sam. Or Coop. They tell me all the time that you’re not like us. Well, guess what, dude? You’re not! You gotta be the player you want to be. Not the one your dad wants you to be. Because that would be really messed up.”

  Shawn just studied him, listening, as Ben said, “I know you better than I used to, but I’m not gonna say I know you that well. But even I know you’ve been playing for him and not for you.”

  “My dad never asked me to do it for him.”

  Ben could hear his own dad’s voice inside his head now, talking about Ben’s grandfather and baseball and pitching and all the rest of it.

  He said, “Sometimes dads don’t have to ask.”

  Now Shawn got up, walked over to one of the swings, sat down in it, pushed off, rocked back and forth for a minute. When he stopped he said, “After the season.”

  Ben shook his head again.

  Shawn said, “You always get what you want?”

  Ben laughed. “Heck, no,” he said. “You might have noticed, sometimes I have to wait for stuff.”

  Shawn hopped off the swing now.

  “I’m gonna head,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m still not promising anything,” he said.

  Ben reminded him for the last time that he already had.

  He didn’t hear from Shawn Saturday night. No messages from him when he got back from church on Sunday morning, on the answering machine or on e-mail.

  Now it was early Sunday afternoon, the Clayton brothers on their way over to McBain Field for the touch football game they’d planned. Sam and Coop were already at Ben’s house, on the back porch, drinking lemonade, hanging. Lily was with them, even threatening to play today, the rest of the Core Four knowing she could more than hold her own with the guys, she was that good and that fast.

  Not one of them ever daring to add, For a girl.

  Ben had filled them in on his conversation with Shawn the night before, telling them as much as he could without telling everything. Lily, as always, was the one listening closest.

  “Let me understand you,” she said. “You’re making him tell his dad he wants to be a receiver? Why does that matter to you so much?”

  “Makes us a better team,” he said. “His dad probably feels bad that he had to move Shawn off quarterback. And I’m thinking Shawn feels bad because his dad feels bad.”

  “Really,” Lily said.

  “Lils,” Ben said, “you didn’t see the catch he made yesterday.”

  “So you’ve got it in your head that if everybody is happy at his house, this will make him an even better receiver somehow?”

  Staying with him. Like she was covering him in a game.

  “Pretty much,” Ben said.

  “I still don’t get why it’s such a big deal,” Lily said.

  “I’m kind of clueless, too,” Coop said.

  “There’s a shocker,” Sam said.

  “Can I take one more shot at explaining this?” Ben said.

  Coop said, “Quiet, everybody. McBain speaks.”

  “Shawn has spent the whole year getting in his own way,” Ben said.

  “And yours,” Sam said.

  “Whatever,” Ben said. “Now I’m thinking that if he can get out of his own way, he won’t just be a good player, he could even be, like, great.”

  Lily said, “Off one catch.”

  Ben said, “Listen, I’m not smart enough to figure this all out —”

  “Liar,” Lily said. But smiling as she did.

  “— but I think getting it out in the open that he’s doing what he likes to do instead of what he thinks he has to do for his dad, it will make him better and us better and end of story, I’m tired of talking about this now.”
r />   “All about the team,” Lily said.

  “Basically.”

  Lily smiled again. “Liar,” she said again.

  “Why do I have to be lying?” Ben said. “You know how much I want to win. In everything.”

  Coop jumped in now, saying, “It sounds like Ben is saying that if Shawn just chills with his dad, he’ll have more fun, and having more fun will make him a better player. Am I right?”

  “Exactly!” Ben said. “Look at the Coop man, explaining it better than I did.”

  “I did?” Coop said.

  They ended up playing three-on-three, Lily even scoring a couple of touchdowns for Ben’s team, a fun game finishing about three o’clock. Still plenty of time before the Packers played. Sam and Coop said they were going to ride their bikes into town to get ice cream, they’d be back before the kickoff. Lily left for soccer practice.

  Ben thought about just calling Shawn for an update, decided instead to do what he’d done the last time, get on his bike and take a ride over there. Just show up. It was a Sunday in the fall, Shawn’s dad had played in the NFL, they had to be home watching football, probably the Colts game Ben knew had started at one.

  Ben told his dad where he was going.

  “So things are better between Shawn and you?” Jeff McBain said.

  “Sort of why I’m going over there,” Ben said. “To find out.”

  When Ben got to Shawn’s house, he pushed the intercom button, waited until he heard Mrs. O’Brien’s voice, told her it was Ben McBain to see Shawn.

  Mrs. O’Brien said, “Hey, Ben. Shawn and his dad are back on the field. They have been for a while. I’m up to my elbows making lasagna, you can find your own way back, right?”

  He said he could as the gate opened.

  This time he made it all the way up the driveway without getting off his bike, like doing that was some kind of challenge for him. Like one more hill for him to climb today. When he got to the top, he left the bike leaning against their front porch, went around the big house and back to where the cool turf field was.

  When he got close, he stopped near a big old tree, just so he could see Shawn and his dad before they saw him.