Backfield Boys

by John Feinstein

  “And then what happens?” Tom said.

  “Honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care,” Coach Johnson answered. “The stories you’ve heard are true. I’m going to Alabama. Everything is done except actually signing the contract, which can’t happen until Coach Daboll signs his new contract.”

  “Where’s he going?” Billy Bob asked, even though it really didn’t matter to any of them.

  “None of your business, Anderson,” Coach Johnson said. “I made a terrible mistake when I recruited you two.” He pointed at Tom and Jason. “I should have known New York kids would be a couple of know-it-alls. But your dad’s a cop, Roddin; I thought you’d have some respect for authority.

  “So I got that wrong, and poor Tom Gatch is paying the price. He can’t sell the school now or go to Alabama with me because of all this Klan stuff you’ve managed to sell people. I have no idea what will happen to the school down the road or to the football team.” He smiled and leaned forward. “Fortunately, it’s not my problem. It probably won’t even be your problem. I’m guessing that, one way or the other, you won’t be back next semester.” He looked down at his phone as if something very important had just popped up. “Have to go meet with the media,” he said. “That’s all.”

  The boys turned to leave, only Billy Bob lingering. “By the way, you’re welcome,” he said.

  “For what?” Coach Johnson asked.

  “For saving your butt—again—tonight.”

  They all walked out—smiling in spite of themselves.

  * * *

  The decision not to defy Coach Johnson on the way to the bus was a fairly easy one.

  “We’d accomplish nothing,” Tom said. “The cops won’t let us talk anyway, and we’d just be hurting ourselves. Let’s hold our fire for now.”

  After getting out of the shower, Tom had gotten a text from Teel saying that Coach Johnson was being peppered with questions about the dance but was using the “I wasn’t there” and “I have complete faith in Tom Gatch” dodges to every question.

  A swarm of media was waiting as they exited. Tom was the lucky one—almost no one wanted to talk to him. It took four cops—two Fairfax officers and two state troopers—to get Billy Bob to the bus.

  Once aboard, they headed to the back rows only to find Coach Ingelsby sitting there.

  “You boys don’t mind some company, do you?” he said with his ever-present sneer.

  So much for discussing what to do next on the trip home.

  Since there was no point in talking or texting, Tom tried to sleep. It didn’t work. His mind was churning. He was happy for his three friends because they’d all played a key role in winning the game, but part of him wished they had lost, if only to get the whole mess over with one way or the other. Now they had at least one more important game to play, so they’d have to put up with Coach Johnson and drones like Coach Ingelsby for another week.

  “What now?” Anthony asked as they all walked wearily from the bus back to the dorm. It was almost one o’clock in the morning.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Tom said. “Gatch can’t stay on vacation forever, can he?”

  “At least it looks like we screwed up his sale of the school,” Jason said.

  “Temporarily probably,” Billy Bob said. “Bad guys always figure a way out of trouble.”

  “Good point,” Tom said. “Alex Rodriguez got a standing ovation in his last at-bat at Yankee Stadium.”

  “Different kind of bad guy,” Jason said.

  “True,” Tom said. “But Donald Trump got elected president.”

  There was no real answer for that, so they walked silently to their rooms and fell into bed. Tom’s last thought before he fell asleep was the same one he’d had for more than two months in response to so many of the things that had happened at TGP: How in the world did we get ourselves into this? At least, as Coach Johnson had pointed out, it was almost over.

  31

  Tom and Anthony both slept in the next morning, choosing shut-eye over breakfast. Shortly after ten o’clock, they were awakened by someone banging on their door.

  “Did you lock it?” Tom said, looking wearily at Anthony.

  “Yeah,” Anthony said. “Friday night, after a game, all that’s been going on, I thought some of the guys might try to mess with us.”

  Tom nodded. “Then you open it,” he said.

  “Hey,” a voice came from the other side of the door. “Wake up in there!”

  It was Jason.

  Anthony pulled himself up and opened the door. Jason and Billy Bob, both in sweats, were standing there. Tom guessed they hadn’t been up for long either.

  “What in the world is so important?” Anthony said as Jason and Billy Bob pushed past him into the room.

  “This,” Billy Bob said, holding up his phone. “It’s a text from Coach Cruikshank. He says he’s on his way over here to see us and it’s important. I told him to come here because I figured you guys would still be sleeping.”

  “What could possibly be so important?” Tom asked.

  “Maybe Bobo’s finally given in and is going to start you”—Anthony pointed at Billy Bob—“on Friday.”

  Billy Bob shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t come racing over here for that. It has to be something bigger than that.”

  “Maybe Bobo’s not even sticking around for the last game,” Jason said.

  “Nah, he wants the shot at the title,” Tom said. “You heard him last night.”

  “Even if he did leave, we’d just get Ingelsby,” Anthony pointed out.

  Fortunately, they didn’t have to guess for long at what the news might be. Coach Cruikshank knocked on the door less than five minutes later.

  “It’s open,” Tom said.

  Coach Cruikshank pushed the door open and walked in. His face was flushed and he appeared to be out of breath. He was carrying a travel cup of coffee.

  “Shouldn’t be drinking this,” he said. “Fourth cup. But I needed it to get going this morning.”

  “You okay, Coach?” Billy Bob asked. He got up to offer him his chair, but Coach Cruikshank waved him off and sat on the edge of Tom’s bed.

  “I’m fine,” he said, taking a sip of the coffee. “But I thought you guys needed to know right away what’s going on. I know you and those two reporters have been going after Mr. Gatch, and I know what you believe about Coach Johnson.”

  “You mean, what we believe isn’t true?” Billy Bob asked.

  Coach Cruikshank held up a hand. “Of course it’s true. It’s all true. But I need you to listen to something and then we can talk.”

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, pressed several buttons, and then put the phone on Tom’s desk.

  “We had a coaches’ meeting this morning,” he said. “We never meet on Saturday, but Coach Johnson told us to all be in his office at eight-thirty. Except it wasn’t all of us. It was just the white coaches. Once I saw that, I thought it might be a good idea to tape the meeting. Something was clearly up. So I excused myself for a second to get more coffee, turned on the recorder on my phone, then just put it on top of my notepad like I normally do during meetings.”

  The boys were rapt now.

  “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.”

  He pressed the Play button and sat back on the bed. Loud and clear, Coach Johnson’s voice boomed through the room.

  “I’m pretty sure y’all know why we’re here this morning. Sorry to wake you, but this has to be dealt with right away and without our darker-skinned colleagues.”

  There was a pause, and for a panicked second Tom wondered if the recording had somehow cut off at that moment. It hadn’t.

  “I talked to Gatch a little while ago. The board’s meeting at two o’clock this afternoon. He’ll be back for the meeting. It’s already been decided what we’re gonna do.”

  Another pause, this one a little bit longer.

  “I’m gonna hold a press conference on Monday afternoon before practice to announce
I’m goin’ to leave at the end of the season. I can’t actually say I’m takin’ the Alabama coordinator’s job because Daboll hasn’t announced where he’s gonna be goin’ yet. But I’ll say that there have been stories written about my future and I’m not prepared to deny any of them, and that I’m very excited about what the future holds.”

  Another pause. This one the longest of all.

  “And then … Gatch is gonna introduce my successor. He’s gonna say he’s consulted with me, with all the coaches, and with the board of trustees and that there’s no doubt the right man for the job is … Marco Thurman.”

  The four boys all looked at one another in shock. Marco Thurman, the offensive line coach? The black offensive line coach?

  They heard a cacophony of raised voices on the recording, and then Coach Ingelsby’s voice rose above the others.

  “Hang on, Bobo! You said the job was mine.”

  “It was, Don, you know that,” Bobo’s voice answered. “But things have changed. Tom Gatch is fighting for his life right now, and this is probably the only way to save the school and the football program.”

  Ingelsby responded, “Well, I sure as hell am not working for a goddamn…”

  And then he said it, the n-word. It hit like an electric shock.

  “Me neither,” another voice said.

  “That’s Coach Reilly,” Coach Cruikshank said, in case they were wondering.

  No surprise there.

  Coach Johnson began speaking again. “Look, fellas, I don’t blame you one bit. But we all have to make sacrifices in today’s world. Bad enough we had to put up with a black president in this country. Hell, bad enough I’ll have to work with black quarterbacks at Alabama. Every man has his price, and Coach Saban is going to meet mine … Don, Terry, I will help you find jobs. Anyone else who feels the same, let me know and I’ll try to help.”

  “I’m fine with it,” a voice Tom recognized as Coach Gutekunst’s said. “I think Marco’s a fine coach and a better man. I’d be proud to work for him.”

  “Not surprised to hear you say that, Rich,” Coach Johnson said. “You and Mark have always had your notions. I assume you’re fine with it, too, right, Mark?”

  “Absolutely, Coach.”

  “Well, then, there’s one more thing you’ll like. We’re also moving the Jefferson kid to quarterback this week. He’ll back Anderson and Thompson up on Friday. That way it’ll be tough for anyone to say I won’t play a black quarterback.”

  “I don’t think making a black kid your third-string quarterback is going to fool people,” they all heard Coach Cruikshank say on the tape.

  “Mark, did I ask you what you thought?” Bobo said. “You coach him up in case—God forbid—we need him.”

  “Why would we need him?” Coach Ingelsby said.

  “Because something could happen to Anderson and, honestly, I don’t know how long we could afford to leave Thompson in the game if it came to that. I’ve pushed that envelope as far as I can. Jefferson does have some talent—long as we call plays that don’t require any deep thinking.”

  “He’s a straight-A student, Coach,” Cruikshank said.

  “I couldn’t care less,” Coach Johnson said. “They can study and get by. It’s thinking they have trouble with.”

  “What do we say if someone asks why he was moved to quarterback?” Coach Gutekunst asked.

  “Or why he wasn’t there in the first place?” Coach Cruikshank added.

  “Under normal circumstances, Gatch wouldn’t let me play a black boy at quarterback, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. But these are not normal circumstances. We’ll say he’d shown some talent in seven-on-seven there and we needed some depth at the position this week because Thompson got banged up at Fairfax and we already lost Dixon in preseason. We thought he’d have a better chance to contribute as a receiver because of his speed.”

  “He’s got no speed, Coach,” Cruikshank said.

  “Okay then, because Bobo Johnson is color-blind when it comes to football.”

  There was some laughter in response to that line. Coach Cruikshank turned the recording off.

  There was silence in the room for a moment. It was the coach who spoke first. “You guys got your smoking gun on Mr. Gatch last week. This is your smoking gun on Coach Johnson.”

  Tom stood and began to pace, which he did when he was nervous and wound up. “Question is, what do we do with it?” he said. “Do we nail him with it now, or do we wait until after the game on Friday?”

  “Personally, I’d like to play the game on Friday,” Billy Bob said, and then turned to Tom. “Especially with you as my backup.”

  “I’m not your backup, I’m third string.”

  They thought about it some more.

  It was Jason who spoke next. “Here’s what we do,” he said. “Let Coach Johnson have his press conference on Monday. They’ll obviously let all the media onto campus for that. We e-mail this file to Teel and Robinson and tell them not to use it before Monday. As soon as the press conference is over and Coach Thurman’s been named coach, they play it for everybody there. Hold their own impromptu press conference.” He paused, then added, “That will blow them all up at once.”

  “Only problem is, Coach Johnson will know that I was the one who recorded him,” Cruikshank said. “He’ll fire me on the spot.”

  “No he won’t,” Billy Bob said.

  “Why not?” Coach Cruikshank said.

  “Because he won’t have a job. They’ll have to fire him immediately. There’s no way to spin this. This gun’s not smoking; it’s still firing.”

  Once Billy Bob’s words sank in, the boys and Coach Cruikshank decided not to take any chances. The coach e-mailed the voice recording to all four of them, and the boys decided to leave the dorm before taking any further action. The coach left first, and a few minutes later the boys followed. Once they’d crossed the campus, Jason and Tom called Teel and Robinson and told them the latest. Then they e-mailed them the recording.

  * * *

  After that, it became a waiting game. Over the weekend and in classes on Monday morning, there were congratulations from some students and the ongoing glares from others. At lunchtime on Monday, everyone on the football team received a text:

  Mandatory: At end of classes today, come to team meeting room; press conference to begin at 3:10. Please stand in back; media will take up seats. Start of practice delayed until 4:00. BIG NEWS!

  The dining hall was immediately filled with speculation about what the big announcement could be. Most of the football players seemed to be in agreement: Coach Johnson was going to take the job at Alabama at season’s end and Coach Ingelsby would be his replacement.

  Tom, Jason, Billy Bob, and Anthony listened in silence as people ran various theories by them. They played dumb. Their afternoon classes seemed to last forever.

  Finally, they followed the crowd of players down the hall from the locker room to the meeting room, everyone buzzing in anticipation.

  Only one person, Ronnie Thompson, made any sort of derogatory comment. “If whatever this is happened because of you four, you better be ready to run,” he said.

  Anthony looked like he was about to say something, but Tom grabbed his shoulder. No sense starting anything right now.

  The room was absolutely packed. A line of TV cameras perched on a platform at the back of the room. Every seat, as predicted, was taken. Tom spotted Teel and Robinson sitting near the front, a row apart, both on the aisle.

  At the front of the room, on either side of the riser, several campus security guards stood, apparently there to ensure that no one tried to approach the participants once the press conference was over.

  The players spread out, finding places in the back or along the walls on either side of the room.

  “I hope nobody calls the fire marshal,” Jason whispered to Tom.

  At 3:15, five minutes late, a side door at the front of the room opened and five men walked through it: Tom Gatch, Coaches J
ohnson and Thurman, Ed Seaman, and someone Tom didn’t recognize. Seaman walked to the podium; the others took seats alongside.

  Seaman introduced himself, thanked everyone for coming, and then introduced the panel, as he called it. The fifth man, it turned out, was Harrison Ballard III, chairman of the board of trustees.

  Seaman then turned the podium over to Coach James “Bobo” Johnson.

  Tom heard a smattering of applause from some of the players as Coach Johnson approached the podium and, from the front row, some more applause. He noticed that none of the people in the very front row were holding digital recorders or notebook computers.

  “Rest of the board down there,” Billy Bob said softly, apparently reading Tom’s mind.

  Coach Johnson launched into a lengthy speech about how much TGP meant to him, about how proud he had been to be its head football coach, and about how much his friendship with Tom Gatch also meant to him. Finally, after a couple more minutes of filibustering, he came to the point: “At season’s end, I’ll be leaving this great school. I’ve been offered another opportunity, one I can’t talk about today, but one that is simply too challenging to turn my back on. I can assure you that, even though I won’t be physically present at TGP anymore, my heart will always beat within these walls.”

  Cameras flashed, reporters pecked at their notebooks, and pockets of applause sounded in the room.

  “I’m going to be sick,” Billy Bob said.

  The head coach went on about his great staff and then said, finally, “There’s not a man coaching here right now who isn’t capable of carrying on the Gatch football tradition. But when Mr. Gatch and I sat down and talked, there was one man we kept coming back to as our choice to succeed me. I will now turn it over to Mr. Gatch to introduce that man.”

  More applause came from players and board members as Gatch walked up and hugged his soon-to-be-former coach.

  “Thank you, Coach Johnson, from the bottom of my heart for everything you’ve meant to this school. You do, however, have one last job to complete, and that’s leading us to a win on Friday so that we can go on to take the state championship!”

  Now there was lots of applause from around the room.