TJ and the Sports Fanatic

by Hazel Hutchins

  “Guess how many pairs of shoes a professional team goes through in a year,” he said.

  “A couple of hundred?” offered Mr. G.

  “Two and a half thousand,” said Seymour, “for grass and artificial turf and rain and snow and everything in between. I saw it on a website. They also go through seven thousand sticks of chewing gum.”

  Once Seymour begins doing research, all kinds of strange information comes spilling out of him.

  A lot of people had already arrived at the field. There was a buzz of excitement in the air—the kind of buzz that’s hard to resist, even for someone who flunked T-ball. Seymour was right. It was a good time to join. Kids who played hockey or baseball were milling around with kids who’d never played organized sports. No one had played football. No one knew quite what to expect. And then Amanda and Meg walked across the field toward us.

  “Oh no!” said Seymour.

  Amanda is nice, which makes it hard to hate her, but she beats Seymour at things without even meaning to. It drives him nuts at school. It was going to drive him completely bonkers if it started happening on the football field. Luckily, Amanda is pretty straightforward.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, walking right up to us. “My sport is swimming. Meg’s the one who wants to play football.”

  Meg’s a good athlete. She plays hockey with the girls’ team and the boys’ team. Seymour, however, was still looking at Amanda suspiciously.

  “Okay, okay,” said Amanda. “My swim coach is dropping by. She’s super interested in sports medicine and training for all kinds of athletics. I learn things just by hanging out with her. I might even help, if she’ll let me, but I’m not going to play football.”

  A tall guy with a clipboard blew the whistle and called us together. His name was Coach Billings and he was the head coach. He talked about dedication. He talked about determination. He talked about the rewards of playing football, team spirit, responsibility and why all kids should play the game. Yup—he had the coaching disease… at least, he had stage one of it.

  Mr. G. was offensive coach. Coach Mac was defensive coach. Coach Winguard was special teams coach, which meant he helped us with things like kick returns and placekicks and punting. Some high school players were helping too. Apparently football needs a lot of coaches.

  First we did warm-ups. Then we did stretches. Then we did crazy sideways crossover steps, the running high-step and short runs back and forth on the field. Coach Billings called them conditioning exercises and agility drills.

  “Pretty good, eh?” panted Seymour, coming up behind me. “The practice, I mean. Just like the pros.”

  I thought it was more like gym class. I like gym class and running around. I decided to enjoy things while they lasted. The yelling would start soon enough.

  The coaches divided us into smaller groups and taught us stances, blocking and tackling. I was surprised we were already learning real football moves, but it was okay because they were just at a beginners’ level. We worked with a partner and walked through the moves in slow motion. The coaches called it doing fit-up drills. Coach Billings said we wouldn’t actually hit each other until we got our pads and helmets.

  Pads and helmets? I hadn’t thought about pads and helmets. Was that what made the mini-monster guys in the book look so big?

  There wasn’t time to think about it. There was way more to learn than I’d thought. It was simple stuff like “keep your head up, your butt low, your weight forward,” but it was hard to put it all together. I had brain overload even if it was my body that was supposed to be doing the work. One great big guy named Gibson was having the same problem.

  “How can I stay low and keep my head up at the same time?” he kept asking. “It’d be way better if I just put my head down and rammed through.”

  “Not if you value your head,” said Mr. G., “which I do even if you don’t.” He worked with Gibson until he got it right.

  “Bend your knees!”

  Yup, the yelling had started. Coach Billings was walking around the field bellowing. “All the leg muscles in the world won’t do you any good if your legs are straight. Bend your knees!”

  After that, the coaches taught us simple pass routes, and they began throwing out the ball for us to catch.

  “Do your best,” said Seymour. “They’re pretending it’s all just for fun, but they’re really watching us.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To see what positions they’ll assign us. Who can run. Who can catch. Who gets to do the good stuff.”

  They didn’t have to watch me for very long. I couldn’t run as fast as Shimu, Gabe, Meg or Leroy. I can’t catch and I didn’t even try throwing because I knew how bad I was at that from T-ball. And when I went off to stand on the sidelines, Coach Billings bellowed at me.

  “You on the sidelines! Ten push-ups if you’ve got nothing better to do.”

  That’s the kind of thing my old T-ball coach used to do—single a kid out and yell at him. I could feel my face getting redder and redder. I wasn’t six years old anymore. I didn’t like being yelled at. I walked off the field.

  Well, I turned to walk off the field, but I didn’t actually get there. I bumped into Gibson and two other guys who’d also been standing on the sidelines. I guess the coach hadn’t singled me out after all.

  We looked at each other. It didn’t seem so bad if Coach was yelling at all four of us.

  One kid rolled his eyes. Another kid called out “Yes sir, Coach, sir!” as if we were in the army. I thought Coach Billings would go all red-faced and throw the kid off the field for being smart. He didn’t. He simply bellowed again.

  “Ten of the best!”

  While we were counting our way through the push-ups, Gabe stopped nearby to tie a shoe that didn’t need tying.

  “Next time you feel like a break, don’t just head off on your own,” he said. “Mill around with the rest of the team.”

  Leroy walked past on his way to get a drink of water.

  “You guys are such wimps,” he said.

  Leroy can be a real jerk. Gibson, however, just looked up and grinned.

  “Ten!” called out Gibson, even though the push-up count was only at seven. He jumped to his feet and headed back onto the field. The rest of us followed.

  We ended up in the line for passing drills. Or dropping drills in my case. Either way it meant more running. I was pretty much beat by the time Coach blew his whistle.

  “Good practice!” he bellowed.

  Except we weren’t finished. It was time to run wind sprints. How could they make us run around like crazy when we were already exhausted?

  After that, Coach Billings gave us the same lecture he’d started with, only in reverse order—responsibility, team spirit, rewards, determination, dedication.

  Mr. G. walked over with a football. “Seymour, you’re pretty fast on your feet, but I’m guessing you haven’t played a lot of ball sports. Am I right?”

  Seymour went into deep-think mode. One eyebrow went up and one eyebrow went down. Mr. G. looked at me for a translation. I had no idea what was going on in Seymour’s head. When it came to football, things were definitely weird.

  Mr. G. held out the ball. I knew it was time for the same line I’d heard when I was in T-ball—Get your dad to throw you a few. It had never worked for me because my dad doesn’t play sports. It wasn’t going to work with Seymour either, because Seymour lives with his mom. I guess Mr. G. knew that because he said things differently.

  “Take this football home,” said Mr. G. “Get used to handling it. Get someone to throw it to you—your mom, a neighbor, maybe TJ if you can talk him into it.”

  He turned to me.

  “And TJ, I want you to remember something because I think you’re going to need it.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “A second is five yards,” he said.

  Before I could ask what he meant, he walked away.

  Chapter 4

  �
��It means we’re both lousy football players, that’s what it means,” said Seymour as we walked back to my place.

  I’d known I’d be lousy—why was I feeling down about it? And what had Mr. G. really meant by “a second is five yards”?

  I looked at Seymour. He was feeling way worse than I was. He was practically dragging along the sidewalk. Talk about over-reacting. I was the one who was lousy at football, and he was the one acting like it was the end of the world.

  “Come on, Seymour,” I said. “At least Mr. G. thinks you’ll be able to catch once you have a chance to practice. And you can actually run.”

  “Not as fast as I need to,” said Seymour.

  “Need to for what?” I asked. “This isn’t the pros, for crying out loud. It doesn’t matter!”

  Seymour looked at the sky. He looked at the trees. He wasn’t in his deep-think coma, but something was definitely churning around in his brain, and it was something I didn’t understand at all. Without saying goodbye, he turned and walked away.

  Seymour never just turns and walks away! He’s not like that. But I’d had it with Seymour. I was tired. I was suffering from football overload. No way was I going to run after him.

  Some people have a watchdog. I have my own personal watchcat, complete with TJ radar. Alaska spends most of her day asleep, but no matter what time I come home, she’s always awake and watching out the window when I arrive.

  Too bad I couldn’t teach her to answer the phone because I could hear it ringing like crazy. I hurried to unlock the door, leapt over T-Rex as he rushed toward me, and got to the phone just before the answering machine cut in.

  Mom was living up to her “worrywart” prediction when it came to football. “Are you still in one piece?” she asked.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “Is Seymour in one piece too?”

  “Yup,” I said, “except he’s even weirder than usual.”

  Mom sighed.

  “Try and be patient with him. It’s family stuff, TJ.”

  I knew from the way she said it that Seymour’s mom had told her something about Seymour and then sworn her to secrecy, or whatever moms do when they talk about things but don’t want it blabbed around. Before I could try to pry it out of her, however, she went off on another track. “Which reminds me, your dad has a meeting at the bank today so we might be late. Could you throw the casserole in the oven? Oops, gotta run—a real live customer is headed my way. They’re an endangered species these days.”

  As I hung up I heard thumpety-thump noises down the hall. Before I could check on the cats, the phone rang again. This time it was Gran.

  “How was football?” she asked. “Are the coaches still in one piece?”

  Gran always has a different take on things.

  “The head coach yelled himself hoarse,” I said.

  “Seems to go with the territory,” said Gran. “Has the local paper been delivered over there yet?”

  The only thing I’d tripped over on the way into the house had been T-Rex, so I knew it hadn’t arrived.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “When it shows up, put it where your folks will see it,” said Gran. “I’ll phone them later.”

  What was that all about? I didn’t have time to wonder. Something gray and black streaked through the kitchen followed by a long white streamer. Oh joy. The cats were decorating the house with toilet paper.

  It was everywhere—long streamers down the hall, fancy loops around the furniture. I’d only been on the phone a few minutes! I rolled the toilet paper back on the roll. It didn’t fit very well. I knew why the cats had done it. They wanted to play.

  Late afternoon sun is almost as good as morning sun for playing chase-the-crazy-light-spot. T-Rex had a great time jumping higher and higher. I was so busy watching him that I didn’t see the mouse until it landed in my lap.

  A mouse! It took me a second to realize it wasn’t a real mouse. It was the fake-fur kind I’d brought from the store. Alaska was sitting on the carpet staring at me. Had she dropped it in my lap?

  I threw the mouse down the hall. Alaska disappeared after it and I went back to playing light-spot with T-Rex.

  Plop. The mouse appeared on the carpet in front of me this time. Alaska was sitting beside it.

  I threw the mouse. Alaska brought it back. I threw the mouse again. Alaska brought it back again. While I was being amazed at Alaska, my brain was working away just beneath the surface. Pretty soon I’d figured things out.

  If Seymour had family stuff going on, then there weren’t a lot of possibilities. He didn’t have brothers and sisters. His dad had died a long time ago. He’d never mentioned grandparents. Family stuff would have to mean his mom, and that probably meant it was boyfriend stuff.

  Yuck! No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it! Either the boyfriend was a sports nut who Seymour wanted to impress or he was a complete jerk who Seymour was trying to escape. Either way, the last thing he needed was to sit around moping about it.

  I phoned Seymour.

  “Guess what,” I told him. “Alaska can fetch.”

  Seymour hung up on me. I could tell by the sound of the click that it meant we were friends again. I was right. Ten minutes later he walked in the door. The paper had arrived and he put it on the coffee table as he sat down.

  “Cats don’t fetch,” he said.

  I handed him the mouse.

  “Throw it down the hall,” I said.

  Seymour threw. Alaska retrieved. Seymour grinned from ear to ear.

  “Are you a dog?” he asked Alaska.

  Alaska turned her butt on him, walked three feet away and sat down primly. She was definitely all cat.

  Seymour played fetch with Alaska. I played light-spot with T-Rex.

  “Look at the way T-Rex crouches before he jumps,” I told Seymour. “It’s like what Coach was yelling, the bit about bending our legs to have power.”

  “Plus his back legs are the size of turkey drumsticks,” said Seymour. One eyebrow went up, one eyebrow went down. “Wait a minute! I don’t know about cats, but I read about turkey drumsticks and sports—slow-twitch versus fast-twitch muscle fiber stuff. Do you still have the books?”

  He found a diagram of muscles as if the skin had been peeled away. Gross but interesting.

  I read over his shoulder. First the book explained it in turkey terms. Drumsticks are dark meat—lots of slow-twitch muscle fiber, good for running around all day. Wings are white meat—fast-twitch muscle fiber, good for flying out of danger with a quick burst of speed.

  Then it explained it in people terms. Human legs have both kinds of muscle fiber. People born with a high percentage of slow-twitch muscle fiber in their legs are better at endurance sports and running long-distance races. People born with lots of fast-twitch muscle fiber are better at running short, fast sprints—like football players!

  “Do you think they actually twitch?” I asked. I had a bizarre mental image of the illustrations in the book suddenly beginning to quiver. Seymour ignored me.

  “Different people are born with different percentages. I can’t do a lot to change the actual percentage,” said Seymour, “but I’m sure I saw something about how to improve what I do have.”

  He flipped through the books again. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he stood up.

  “See you later. Take care of the fetching cat.”

  After he left, I read more about different body types and different sports. The section about water sports really caught my eye. Long-distance swimming is one of the few sports where the female body has a natural advantage over the male body… more buoyancy, less resistance, less bothered by the cold. I would have kept reading but the cats started making a pathetic sound.

  Meoooooooow.

  It was feeding time at the zoo.

  I filled their dishes with crunchies, put the casserole in the oven and made myself a gigantic snack. While I hunted for the TV remote, I accidentally knocked the newspa
per off the coffee table. A bunch of advertising flyers fell out. A big new store that had been operating all spring was now having its “official grand opening.”

  Grand Opening Specials

  Super Spectacular Prices for

  Home and Garden

  Weekly Sale Specials on

  Power Tools

  If that was what Gran wanted to tell Mom and Dad about, they probably wouldn’t be interested. Mom and Dad don’t buy a lot of stuff, especially if they can already get it through our store.

  I shoved everything under the table. It was messy, but the cats would like it. Cats like to sit on newspapers almost as much as they like to sit on library books.

  Chapter 5

  Summer holidays are good for just drifting along. No need to think. No need to hassle. I tried to drift but it didn’t work very well. Football reminders kept interrupting my drifting.

  My body was one reminder. Every time I found a new part that was sore, I looked at the books Seymour had left at my house. Yup—an entire muscle group I’d never heard about before.

  The second reminder was Mr. G. He kept asking if I’d figured out about a second being five yards. I had a few ideas, but I wasn’t going to let on until I was sure.

  And then there was Gran.

  “Do you have your game schedule yet?” she asked. “Shall I come and watch you practice? How about watching a tape of a pro game with me? I know who won but I haven’t actually watched it.”

  “I thought you liked science shows,” I told her. “When did you start watching football?”

  “One of my friends likes football. It’s kind of addictive once you begin to follow a team.”

  Another reminder was when kids dropped by the store.

  Shimu dropped by.

  “I hope they put me in at wide receiver,” he said.

  Apparently Seymour wasn’t the only one worrying about what position he’d play.

  Gibson stopped by.

  “Coach Billings is going to pop a tonsil if he keeps yelling across the field,” he said.