Backfield Boys

by John Feinstein

  “That is good news,” Jason said. He was now wide awake. “What got you the extra four days? The crack to the TV guys?”

  “Bingo,” Billy Bob said. “First thing Coach Cruikshank said was, ‘You couldn’t just keep your mouth shut and get this over with for both of us?’ I knew exactly what he was saying, and I feel bad for him. But four more days, really?”

  “Guess Coach doesn’t think he’s gonna need you rested for Danville.”

  “Did you check last night’s scores yet? They lost to Roanoke, forty-seven to fourteen.”

  “Roanoke’s supposed to be good.”

  “Not that good.”

  “By the way, how many rows of seats on the west side of the stadium? I assume you ran that side since it’s clearly got more seats than the east side.”

  “Boy, your brain is functioning full power early today, isn’t it?” He smiled wanly. “Forty-seven.”

  “Sure?”

  “Never been more certain of anything in my life.”

  “So there’s more good news, then. You now know something almost no one else on the team knows. Something to be proud of, my friend.”

  Billy Bob sighed. “I’m taking a shower. My whole body feels like it’s going to fall off.”

  “Interesting visual,” Jason said.

  “Shut up,” Billy Bob said.

  Jason searched his usually upbeat friend’s face for a smile. There wasn’t even a hint of one.

  * * *

  Billy Bob decided to sleep through breakfast. When Tom and Anthony knocked on the door, Jason opened it a crack and put a finger to his lips.

  “Sleeping child inside,” he whispered, slipping out to join them.

  “How bad?” they both asked.

  “Worse than bad. Ten times up and down the steps this morning and, for his comment to the TV folks last night, more of the same for four mornings this week.”

  “Let me guess,” Tom said. “He gets tomorrow morning off.”

  “Go with God, my friend. You are correct. And to answer your other question for the morning, there are forty-seven rows of steps on the west side of the stadium.”

  “Guess he had plenty of opportunity to pin that number down,” Anthony said.

  “If the question ever comes up on ‘Final Jeopardy,’ he’s a lock winner,” Jason said. “Meanwhile, any word from our newspaper pals?”

  Tom nodded, holding up his phone. “They’re both home tonight. They’re fresh out of excuses to get us off campus, but they say they have a lot more info on Mr. Gatch. They don’t want to talk about it by text or e-mail.”

  “So what do we do?” Jason asked.

  “We hope to hear from them tomorrow morning. Meantime…”

  “We wait,” Jason said.

  “I was going to say we eat, but that works, too,” Tom answered. “And you might want to bring something back for your wounded roommate.”

  “He’s not wounded.”

  “Yes he is,” Anthony said. “He’s wounded thinking about what next week’s going to be like. He can sleep after he runs today. Not so starting Monday. He’ll be lucky if he has time to shower and get to breakfast before class.”

  “I guess he could always start earlier,” Jason said.

  “Great roommate you are,” Tom said.

  They walked into the dining room grinning but, as Jason pointed out to Billy Bob later, feeling bad about it. But not that bad.

  * * *

  “They both think we need to hold off a week because if they keep showing up here, someone’s going to get suspicious.”

  Tom was sitting in Jason’s room on Sunday morning, looking at the text he’d just gotten from David Teel. Billy Bob and Anthony were at church.

  “But they cover TGP and we’re three and oh,” Jason said. “Why shouldn’t they be here?”

  Tom shook his head. “They don’t cover us that much. They’re lead columnists at their papers. Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Old Dominion are all much more important to them. Richmond and VCU during basketball season.”

  “This isn’t basketball season,” Jason said, a little bit irritated. He wasn’t feeling very patient. He wanted to know what Teel and Robinson had learned about Mr. Gatch. He understood their reluctance to put anything in a text or an e-mail. But why not a phone call? Apparently it wasn’t quite as important to them as it was to him. He felt like he was stuck inside some kind of straitjacket.

  It was worse, he knew, for Tom. As good a quarterback as Billy Bob was, Jason knew that Tom was better. He was just as fast as Billy Bob, could throw the ball at least as far, and was more accurate. And yet, every day in practice, he got to run a few pass patterns, was almost never thrown the ball, and then stood with his helmet under his arm throughout most of the scrimmages.

  Then, during games, he got to watch Ronnie Thompson start and play, at least until things got desperate and Coach Johnson was forced to send Billy Bob into the game. Tom was a better quarterback than Thompson playing lefty.

  And now, they knew—or at least suspected—that they were playing for both a coach and a school founder who were textbook racists straight out of another era. But the two reporters whose help they desperately needed to prove that to the world were taking their sweet time getting to the story.

  He swore out loud, using a word his mother didn’t especially like. His father used it, but only when he was really upset about something and at the risk of incurring his mother’s wrath. “Robert,” she would say—calling her husband by his full name—“save that kind of language for the squad room!”

  Tom looked up, surprised. It wasn’t as if Jason didn’t use profanity on occasion, but it didn’t usually come while he was sitting on his bed thinking.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  Jason shrugged. “It’s just making me crazy sitting around here doing nothing—not able to accomplish anything. We shouldn’t be here. We should have gone home when we had the chance.”

  “We can call our parents right now,” Tom said. “If we tell them what’s been going on, they’ll be down here to pick us up before dark.”

  Jason thought about that for a minute. Tom was right. But it was now mid-September. School was well under way in New York, and so was football season. At the very least, they had to suck it up until the end of the semester. And, once again, the thought that they had to expose Mr. Gatch and Coach Johnson went through his mind.

  “No,” he said finally. “We have to stick it out. We’ve got to prove that these guys are as messed up as we think. Did Teel say anything about when we might be able to talk to them again?”

  Tom nodded. “UVA is at home this week, and Virginia Tech is playing a I-AA team—”

  “You mean an FCS team.”

  “Whatever. Point is, maybe they will come over Friday night for our game and find us afterward. Even if people see them talking to us, they can just say they were catching up since they’ve both written about you and talked to me the last couple of weeks. It won’t look all that suspicious.”

  “Yeah and maybe Billy Bob will be allowed to talk to the media this week.”

  Tom smiled. “Wouldn’t count on it.”

  “You’re right,” Jason said. “He might be too tired to talk, anyway.”

  “Think he’ll play Friday?”

  Jason shook his head. “Only if we get behind.”

  21

  They didn’t get behind. Danville Prep wasn’t as weak as South Hill had been, but it wasn’t as good as Culpeper. TGP was too strong on defense for the Rally Cats, who had as many turnovers—two—as first downs in the first half.

  The two turnovers led to short touchdown drives and, soon after that, fullback Danny Nobis burst through the bunched-up Danville defense on a third-and-one and, with no one deep, raced seventy-one yards for a third touchdown. That made the score 21–0 at halftime. Nobis only played in short-yardage situations because, the joke went, he was timed in the 100 on a sundial. But no one from Danville could catch him.

  A third
turnover, this one a fumble on a quarterback sack inside the 10-yard line, led to a fourth touchdown that made it 28–0 midway through the third quarter.

  Coach Johnson substituted liberally in the fourth quarter—except at quarterback, where Ronnie Thompson took every snap.

  “He’s not going to put me in ahead of you because that would lead to questions he doesn’t want from the media,” Jason said to Billy Bob as the fourth quarter dragged on. “But you aren’t playing, either—”

  “Because he’s not needed tonight,” Tom put in, finishing Jason’s sentence accurately.

  Billy Bob shrugged. “Honestly, as long as I don’t have to get up and run again in the morning, I don’t care,” he said. He smiled when he said it, but he clearly wasn’t happy. Jason didn’t blame him.

  The final was 28–0.

  In the locker room, Coach Johnson said there would be two game balls handed out. The first, he said, would go to defensive coordinator Andy Fallon, for being the “mastermind” behind the shutout and the four turnovers the defense had accumulated. Everyone liked Coach Fallon. He’d been a high school coach his entire career and apparently was asked questions on occasion like “So what was Red Grange really like?” because he’d been around so long.

  Still, Jason couldn’t help but wonder how the guys on the defense—the ones who had actually created the four turnovers and pitched the shutout—felt about that decision. Everyone cheered as Coach Johnson tossed a ball to Coach Fallon, who held it up and said, “No up-downs for the defense on Monday!”

  That drew lusty cheers from the defenders. Up-downs were a dreaded pre-practice conditioning drill, except when they were used as punishment. On the first whistle, while running in place, you hit the ground on your stomach and then jumped up. Then you did it again and again and again. It was not uncommon for players to get sick before the drill was over—especially in the preseason August heat.

  “We’ll talk about that Monday, Coach,” Bobo said, flashing a rare smile. “Second game ball”—he paused and held a ball over his head—“goes to Ronnie Thompson, for a perfect game behind center tonight! Way to go, Ronnie!”

  He tossed the ball to Thompson, who was so stunned that he almost dropped it.

  He wasn’t the only one who was stunned. It took a moment for the standard cheer given to game-ball winners to start. It was as if everyone was waiting to hear Coach Johnson say, Just kidding. Only when he actually tossed the ball to Thompson did the cheer—not exactly a lusty one—go up.

  It was nothing personal. It was just that everyone in the room knew that if Billy Bob had been playing quarterback that night, the final would have been more like 56–0. Jason couldn’t help but think it might have been even more one-sided than that if Tom ever got to play.

  “It’s like the emperor’s new clothes,” Jason whispered to Tom, remembering the old fairy tale in which the emperor had insisted his new clothes were beautiful when, in truth, they didn’t exist.

  “Yeah, but where’s the little kid to shout, ‘He’s naked!’?” Tom said.

  They both stifled a laugh.

  Coach Ingelsby, the sullen-faced offensive coordinator, appeared as if by magic behind them. “Something funny, gentlemen?” he asked in a sneering voice.

  “Nothing at all, Coach,” Tom said quickly.

  Coach Ingelsby didn’t respond. He just stood directly behind them as Coach Johnson finished up.

  “Boys, we’re four-and-oh and two-and-oh and that’s all good,” he said. “But we’re into the grinding part of the season now. Everyone’s a little bit tired and banged up. Midterms aren’t that far off. We’ve got to keep focusing and refocusing. It’s important that you catch up on your schoolwork over the weekend so that you’re ready to go from minute one at practice on Monday.” He dropped to one knee. “Now let’s give thanks.”

  Everyone else in the room knelt, too. Jason felt awkward at these team-prayer moments but knew he would feel more awkward if he remained standing. He bowed his head and said nothing as Coach Johnson prayed.

  “We thank you, Lord, for the great execution of our defense and the wonderful pad level from our O-line.”

  Jason resisted the urge to look at Tom because he knew they’d both start cracking up at the notion that God paid any attention to TGP’s defensive execution or pad level. When Coach Johnson finally wrapped up with “Amen,” everyone stood.

  “Nice of you two to kneel along with your teammates,” Coach Ingelsby said.

  “I believe in showing respect for all religions, Coach,” Jason said, knowing his voice probably had more steel in it than was prudent. “Mine and others.”

  Coach Ingelsby stared at him for a moment, then walked off.

  “And amen to that,” Tom said when the coach was out of earshot.

  “I might dislike him more than any of them,” Jason said.

  “That takes in a lot of ground, doesn’t it?” Tom suggested.

  “Amen, brother,” Jason said. “Amen.”

  * * *

  Coach Johnson had been right about one thing: it was a grinding time—both in school and on the practice field. Midterms were a couple of weeks away, but there were quizzes to take and papers to finish. That left little time to do much more than study, eat, sleep, and go to practice. Their reporter friends offered no relief, texting that they’d gotten tied up.

  “I guess I should be glad I’m not up running every morning this week,” Billy Bob said on Wednesday night while they were at dinner. “I’d probably flunk out.”

  “We’d all flunk out,” Tom said.

  Jason, though, knew his friend was breezing academically.

  Wednesday had been a big day at practice for Jason. He had successfully caught two punts without fumbling while being rushed, and on the second one had actually picked up some yardage—three yards to be exact. The first time, he had thought he saw some daylight if he ran wide right, but someone had missed a block and he’d run about twenty yards to the right while picking up exactly zero yards going forward.

  “First rule of punt returning,” Coach Gutekunst had said, “is always run forward first. You start running sideways, the best thing that happens most of the time is you go nowhere. The worst thing that happens is one of your blockers gets called for holding or clipping. We’ll try it again tomorrow.”

  It occurred to Jason that if they wanted him to catch punts because of his speed, having him run straight ahead sort of defeated that purpose. He decided not to debate the issue. He actually like Coach Gutekunst and, until he got to the point where he could routinely catch a punt and start running with it, there wasn’t much point in debating where he should run.

  * * *

  The last tests and quizzes of the week were always on Thursday. The older players explained this wasn’t a coincidence. TGP’s teams—football, soccer, volleyball, tennis, and golf—almost always had a game or a match or a tournament on Fridays, throughout the year. Without tests or quizzes on Friday, teams that had to travel could leave in plenty of time and everyone could get some rest the night before.

  Jason, Billy Bob, Tom, and Anthony were relaxing in Jason and Billy Bob’s room that Thursday night, joking about the fact that Anthony was probably the only one in the group who really needed his rest. After all, Tom was still zero-for-the-field in games, Jason might get in for a few plays on special teams, and Billy Bob was very much in Coach Johnson’s doghouse. During practice that week, Billy Bob and Jason had actually split the second-team snaps at quarterback.

  “Yeah, but if the game’s close, you think he’s putting me in?” Jason said when Billy Bob brought up the possibility that he and Tom had an exactly equal chance—zero—to get into the game the next night.

  “He might take a loss just to prove his point,” Billy Bob said.

  “Well, it won’t be the next two weeks,” Tom said. “Lynchburg and James Madison are both supposed to be pretty bad.”

  Jason was about to respond when there was a knock on the door. They all yelled,
“Come in!” and looked up to see Juan del Potro and Jimmy Gomez standing there.

  “What’s up?” Tom said.

  “This,” Juan said, handing what looked like a printout to Jason.

  It was a story that had apparently appeared in the Birmingham News that day.

  “I put Gatch and Johnson on Google Alerts just for the heck of it,” Juan said. “Read it aloud for everyone.”

  Jason complied.

  With offensive coordinator Brian Daboll almost certain to receive multiple offers at season’s end to become a head coach again, people are starting to toss the names of possible successors around even as Alabama prepares to open conference play this weekend against Mississippi.

  The name mentioned most often is that of Georgia graduate James “Bobo” Johnson, who has been wildly successful the last eleven years as the head coach at Thomas Gatch Prep, the prestigious athletic/academic academy in central Virginia.

  “Prestigious?” Tom said. “When did this place become prestigious?”

  Everyone quickly shushed him. Jason continued.

  Johnson’s team is currently 4–0 and has a bevy of big-time recruits on the roster. At least six of his seniors are reportedly being recruited by Nick Saban and his staff this fall, and the Crimson Tide is apparently scouting another half-dozen TGP juniors with great interest.

  In a possible twist to the story, Johnson’s boss, TGP founder Thomas Gatch, is reportedly negotiating to sell the school to one of several sports management companies that are bidding to purchase it. The prep school, which Gatch started eighteen years ago, is a copycat of the IMG Academy in Florida. IMG, the world’s largest management company, purchased Nick Bollettieri’s tennis academy in 1987 and has since built it into an athletic and academic monolith and has made huge profits—charging most students $70,000 a year to attend.

  Apparently several powerful management companies see the potential for that kind of profit in Gatch’s relatively new operation. Sources in Tuscaloosa say that Johnson’s hiring could be part of a major package deal: Johnson would become the O-coordinator at a salary north of $1 million a year; Gatch, who stands to make millions if he sells his school, would be hired as vice president for development—a newly created position—and most, if not all, of the seniors being recruited by ’Bama would likely end up in Tuscaloosa.