Backing up the Beast

by Josh Anderson

  The Crocs never retake the lead, and lose the game, 35-14. While you wish the team had won, it’s not the worst thing in the world for you that Juan Garcia was mostly terrible running the offense. The junior made a few poor decisions, including throwing an interception into triple coverage right after halftime, which pretty much sealed the game for the Jackals.

  After the game, you feel regretful about changing the play in the huddle and hope to still be “QB2” for the next game. Even though Juan played poorly, at least he ran the plays Coach called.

  You pass Dankert on the way to the locker room, and he grabs your shoulder pad. “You feeling better?” he asks.

  “Yes, sir,” you answer. “I’m sorry.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Because I need you out at practice Monday,” he says, with a hint of a smile. “You owe me fifty laps for that dumb stunt you pulled.”

  You smile at Coach and try to apologize again. “Save it,” Coach says. “We all make mistakes. But, let me tell you – you pull that again, and you certainly won’t see the field again for a very long time.”

  You nod, thankful that the coach is in a forgiving mood, especially after a loss.

  You’re not in the mood to go out for pizza with your teammates after the game. You decide to walk home and clear your head. It’s going to take you a long time to get past your dumb decision tonight.

  As you replay the game in your head, the honk of a car horn makes you jump. The loud noise makes it feel like your head is going to implode. Startled, you turn and see Sara’s car pull up next to you. She opens the window. “Want a ride?” she yells out.

  “Promise to keep the music real low?” you answer. “My head is killing me.”

  “I promise,” she answers, and you pull open the door. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance you’ll get past your dumb decision a little faster than you thought.

  THE END

  You stay inbounds and try to outrun the safety. Ryan misses you, but somehow grabs a hold of your ankle and trips you up. You somersault forward and wind up on the 15-yard line.

  As you get up and flip the ball to the ref, you stare down Ryan. By not running out of bounds, you feel like you’ve shown him you can’t be intimidated.

  The run is a turning point in the game and the Crocs never get a chance to miss their injured superstar. You run for one touchdown, throw for three more, and destroy the Jackals 51-17.

  You hear that the Beast will probably be back for the next game, and you’re honestly happy about it. You know that backing him up for a season will teach you a lot.

  After the game, the Beast sits down next to you in the locker room. “You made it look easy out there, Fresh,” he says, smacking your shoulder pads. “I’ve had games like that too.”

  “Thanks,” you say.

  “They won’t all be easy, especially when you’re not prepared,” he says. “Game film of our next opponent arrives in Coach’s office on Mondays. Usually, he copies the discs for me, and I take them home. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night are my big football study nights,” the Beast says.

  “Really?” you ask. You never thought about the Beast having to work hard off the field. He makes everything about being a star quarterback look easy.

  “You want to be QB1 next year, it’s time to start earning it,” the Beast says, standing up. “I’ll see you at my house Monday night.”

  You’ll be there, of course, because there’s nothing in this world you can think of that you want more than being QB1 of the Murrow High Crocs.

  THE END

  You walk back over to Coach Dankert and tell him you’d like to play another position. You consider explaining your ADHD, and why it might be hard to stand on the sideline. But, you decide against it.

  Dankert looks at you like you’ve just laid a piece of decomposing roadkill at this feet.

  “You know what, Reardon?” he says. “I can’t deal with this. I’ve got forty guys here, and the rest of them are just fine with their roles on the team. I need players to get with the program, or get out of the way.”

  “But you said I was talented enough to start at another position.”

  “We can talk about this next week, Reardon,” he says. “I have a game to coach. You don’t want to be the backup to Bobby? Fine. Garcia will be thrilled to have your spot.”

  You wish you’d kept your mouth shut, but Coach is already talking with one of the assistant coaches and another player.

  You think about just going home. You’re on Coach’s bad side and you’re not even one game into your freshman season. Will you and Dankert really be able to work together for four years?

  You realize now that he mentioned playing another position as a test. He wanted you to show him your commitment, and you didn’t. Do you really want to play for someone who tests you like that?

  You start walking off the field and spot your dad in the stands, settling in to enjoy a night of football. It’s a sport he taught you to love when you were just a little kid. You climb up to the bench he’s on and sit down next to him. There aren’t many people in the crowd yet, nearly an hour before kickoff, but you feel like everyone is staring at you.

  “Can we go?” you ask your dad.

  He looks puzzled. “Go?”

  “I don’t think Coach and I are going to get along,” you tell him.

  “Dankert? I know he can be tough, but how else do you win four state championships in the last fifteen years?” your dad answers.

  “I just want to go home,” you say. “Can we talk about it later?”

  Your dad stands up. “Let’s go take a walk, Scotty.”

  Your dad leads you to the top of the stands and down a narrow staircase to the parking lot behind the field. At the bottom of the stairs, he puts his arms around you. Ever since your mom died, he’s made an effort to show affection. “I’ve got an idea,” he says. “Follow me.”

  Dad leads you to the parking lot, and opens his trunk. He pulls out a football and hands it to you. “C’mon,” he says, walking away.

  Your dad stops on a grassy strip between the parking lot and the football field. It’s dark in the shadow of the stadium’s bleachers. He grabs a big metal garbage can and drags it to the middle of the grass.

  “Okay,” he says to you, standing next to the garbage can. “Back up until you’re about 40 yards away.”

  You do what he says, and now he has to yell for you to hear him.

  “I’ll give you three tries to throw the ball into this garbage bin. If you do, we’ll leave and I won’t ask you another question about it.”

  “It’s impossible,” you yell back.

  “Just throw it,” your dad screams.

  You laugh to yourself. Forty yards is almost as far as you can throw. The idea of dropping it straight into a garbage can is insane. You pretend to hike the ball, take a couple of steps backward and heave the ball in the direction of your dad and the can. Your dad tracks it, and catches it only a few feet to the left of the garbage can.

  Your dad tosses the ball back, and you throw it again. But this time, your dad never even makes a move to catch it. You watch as he follows it with his eyes, and there’s a loud ping as it lands inside the metal can. You can’t believe it and run over to see what you’ve done.

  “That was ridiculous luck!” you say to your dad.

  “It wasn’t luck, son,” he says. “There’s a lot of things you don’t think you can do. Then, you just do them and all of a sudden you know you can. We can go home now, if that’s really what you want.”

  You wonder if the Beast could make that throw. As much as you hate to admit it, Coach was right when he told you that you were the future of this team. You’re not ready to walk away, not by a long shot.

  Today, you’re backing up the Beast. Your big challenge is having the patience, and the attention span, to wait until you’re called upon. But, your journey is just beginning.

  You’ve got four years to make your mark on the Crocs. As you
jog back to the field to go apologize to Coach, you have no doubt that you your time will come.

  THE END

  You want to avoid the chance of an interception, so you throw it short to Leo Ralphie in the flat. He’s about to get squashed by the Jackals’ huge nose tackle, Elias Brooks, who saw the play developing before any of his teammates. But, Ralphie puts a move on Brooks that leaves the lumbering big man empty-handed.

  All of a sudden, your conservative throw looks like it could go for some big yardage. Ralphie’s at the 15-yard line now, racing for the end zone.

  One of the Jackal cornerbacks meets him at the 10-yard line. He misses the tackle, but manages to poke the ball out of Ralphie’s grip. The fumbled football falls to the ground and starts tumbling toward the end zone.

  You start running for the ball, along with every other player on the field. As the ball takes strange bounces across the grass, every player close by tries to grab it, but no one can. The ball bounces into the end zone and you have a clear path to it.

  If the Crocs can recover the fumble in the end zone, you’ll take the lead with just more than a minute left in the game. If the Jackals recover, it’s assured that the Crocs will go home on the losing end.

  About five yards away, you put your head down, ready to dive on top of the ball. You see Jake Douglas, about the same distance away, with a head of steam behind him. He’s much bigger than you are. You wish there was some way to avoid the collision. But, if you want to walk away from your first high school game victorious, avoiding the collision seems unlikely.

  You leave your feet and extend your arms toward the ball. Jake decides his best chance is to dive into you, trying to knock you away from the ball. He drives his shoulder hard into your ribs. You absorb the blow and still manage to get the fingertips of your right hand on the football.

  You and Jake Douglas, the all-state linebacker, are both grabbing the ball. Players from both teams dive on top of you and try to influence the outcome.

  The feeling of so many bodies on top of you is suffocating. Your face mask is pressed into the grass and you can smell the dirt. You pull at the ball with every ounce of strength you have. Someone in the pile is scratching at your arm, trying to pry it from the ball.

  You feel a huge sense of relief when you can finally turn your head and see the referees pulling guys off of the pile. You know you have both arms around the ball, but there are other arms in there too. As the refs pull everyone except you and Douglas away, you see his hand right in front of your helmet. He’s got an arm between the ball and your chest, but you’ve got both arms clearly around the ball.

  One of the refs reaches down and picks up the ball. He tosses it to the line judge and then raises two arms in the air: Touchdown!

  Your teammates mob you in the end zone, and the entire sideline rushes toward the celebration. It’s the most dramatic ending to a football game you’ve ever seen, and you had a starring role.

  You learn after the game that the Beast will be back on the field next week, after his scary incident tonight. But, the memory of tonight will be more than enough to hold you over until you get your shot to be the starting quarterback for the Murrow High Crocs!

  THE END

  “I know the playbook,” you tell Dankert, even though it’s not the whole truth. “Just tell me what you want me to run.”

  You hope you won’t disappoint him. Juan appears at your side, helmet on, ready to jump at an opportunity if he gets one. Coach looks at him, then back at you.

  “Reardon, I want you to hand off to Henderson here on third down. Call the I-form 21 Lead Dive,” he tells you. “If Norm gets the first down, then go with a quick slant play on first down. Then, sprint back over here and I’ll get you the next play.”

  You nod to Coach and run out to the huddle.

  “What’s the call, Ten?” Oliver Pembratt asks. He’s the center – the anchor of the offensive line, and one of the senior captains. There’s only one player on the Crocs who’s called by his number, and it’s the starting quarterback.

  You call the play Coach gave you.

  The hole Henderson tries to run through is filled by Jake Douglas. Henderson hesitates and tries to hop left away from the defenders, but a huge lineman wraps him up and takes him down. He loses a yard or two on the play.

  You run off, as the punt team takes the field. The Beast is throwing with Juan, grimacing in pain as he moves his arm. But you see that Bobby’s passes have the same zip on them that they always do. You wonder whether you’ll even get a chance to throw a pass before the Beast is ready to come back in.

  On the sideline, Dankert lets you know how he wants to handle the next offensive series.

  Six plays into the drive, the Jackals score a touchdown and take a 7-0 lead. The Beast is still in too much pain to come back, so Coach sends you out again. He calls a Quarterback Bootleg to the left side – the same side where Jake Douglas is standing, kicking dirt behind him like a bull.

  You take a second now to look around you. You feel a hole in the pit of your stomach when you consider how many people are in the stands. Every single one of them is looking at you, waiting for you to snap the ball.

  Even though you’re in a shotgun formation, the Jackals defense is lined up to protect against the run, and they’ve got two extra defenders on the side you’re headed to. From the looks of it, they’ve called exactly the right play to defend against your bootleg.

  On your right, you see their weakest cornerback lined up in single coverage against your best wide receiver, Brooklyn Dogar. You know that the Beast would audible out of the run play, but he’s earned Dankert’s trust already - you haven’t. You can already hear Coach screaming at you on the sideline if you change the play and it doesn’t work …

  GO TO PAGE 23. You run the Bootleg Left which Coach called.

  GO TO PAGE 34. You call an audible, changing the play to a pass.

  You’re exhausted the next morning after choosing to stay up all night and learn the final five plays.

  As you’re passing from homeroom to your first class, you walk by the bathroom. You consider ducking in for a 10-minute nap. Unfortunately, you know that it’s more than 10 minutes of sleep you need. But there isn’t a variation on the Shotgun Heavy - Z Streak or the Shotgun Tight Flex TE Cross that you don’t know backward and forward now. As excited as you are for your first game, you know it’s for the best that you probably won’t get on the field tonight. You’re so tired you can barely think straight.

  You spot Sara standing near her locker, talking to a couple of other sophomore girls. Even though she’s not the type to normally show her school spirit, today she’s wearing a purple Crocs sweater. It looks amazing on her. She walks up to you with a huge smile and gives you a hug. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to a football game,” she says.

  “I’m not even gonna break a sweat tonight,” you tell her with a laugh. “Well, unless we’re winning by so much that Coach decides to pull Bobby from the game to protect him from getting injured.”

  Reminding people that you’re probably not going to play becomes a recurring theme of your day. The 9th-graders have rallied around you, making you a bit of a celebrity in your classes. Even your grumpy math teacher, Ms. Adebajo, seems excited for you. It’s not often that a freshman makes the varsity squad, especially a freshman quarterback.

  Later that day, about an hour before the game, you toss the football to warm up your arm with Dane. Even though Dane’s in 10th grade, he’s also playing his first varsity game tonight.

  “You nervous?” he asks. Dane’s been your best buddy since grade school. Now the two of you are living out your dream of playing high school football for the Crocs.

  “Why would I be nervous? I’m not even going to step onto the field tonight,” you yell across the field to him. You and Dane grew up always talking about your plans to be Murrow High’s best players by the time he was a senior and you were a junior. Tonight, you feel like you don’t want to wait that
long.

  Your coach walks past. He stops and gently taps you on your shoulder pads. “I need you ready tonight,” Coach Dankert says. “You never know what happens out there.” Coach walks away and heads toward a group of former Crocs players scheduled to be honored at halftime of the game. All of the best players in your school’s history are here tonight. They’ll wear their uniforms on the field at halftime and be inducted into the Murrow High Crocs Hall of Fame. Maybe one day, you’ll join them.

  Coach has told you over and over what a unique position it is to be the backup quarterback. “You need to be patient enough to not play, even though you might be a better football player than some of the guys out on the field. But, you also need to be ready. At any moment, you could go from standing on the sideline to being the most important player on the field.”

  Coach stops and turns around. He points a finger at you, smiling to himself. “How you doing with that playbook?” he asks.

  “Okay, Coach,” you say. “I think I’ve got everything in my head.” And you know you do too, but you’re afraid you’re too tired to remember anything right now.

  “Let’s say I call a Wing Right 31 Dive,” Dankert says. He’s describing a run play where your fullback tries to run into the “hole” in the offensive line between the center and the left guard. He continues: “But you see the defense jamming the box on the left side, with eight men crowding the line. Give me a play you might audible to … ”

  Your head is spinning with play diagrams. You’ve got so much information, you wonder if it’s too much. You take a deep breath to slow your mind down. “Wing Right 36 Y,” you answer. It’s a passing play where your primary receiver runs an Out pattern to the right sideline.

  Coach doesn’t say a word, but smiles and nods his head before he walks away. You wouldn’t have gotten the answer right without last night’s studying. You smile too and rifle the ball back to Dane.