by Mike Lupica
But he held on and saw the ref closest to him signaling that it was a first down.
He was on the board.
On the way back to the huddle, he couldn’t help himself. He looked up into the stands to where his mom and dad were. But he was only looking for his mom. It was as if she’d been waiting for him to look over there, because as soon as he did, she patted her heart twice, while Teddy saw his dad high-fiving Mr. Morales.
Teddy quickly patted his own heart, his hand there and gone, hoping she had noticed.
Three plays later the Wildcats scored their first touchdown of the season. Jack delivered another strike, this one to Gus Morales. Gus put a killer move on the cornerback covering him and broke free between the goal posts. It was 6–0.
The rules of their league were like a lot of Pop Warner leagues: You got two points on the conversion for a kick, just because there weren’t a lot of good placekickers their age. You got one point if you ran it in or threw. Jack handed the ball to Jake, Teddy helped him by blasting the Bears’ middle linebacker, and Jake went into the end zone untouched. It was 7–0, Wildcats.
“It’s like you’ve been making catches like that your whole life,” Coach Gilbert said when Teddy got to the sideline.
“I have,” Teddy said. “Just in my dreams.”
The Bears came right back with a drive of their own. Their quarterback didn’t have the arm that Jack did, but he could throw well enough, and run it even better. He finally called a quarterback draw for himself for his team’s first score and ran an option play to perfection on the conversion. It was 7-all.
“Boys,” Gus said to the other guys on the offense, “I do believe a game just broke out here.”
But then both defenses, almost acting insulted about the way the game had begun, dominated the first half from there. Teddy thought they might get to halftime with the score still 7–7 until Jack completed a couple of passes, one to Gus and one to Mike O’Keeffe, in the last two minutes.
They finally ended up at the Bears’ twelve yard line, fourth-and-one, ten seconds left, the Wildcats out of time-outs.
At this point, Jack made the kind of play that star players just made in sports, out of the shotgun, the kind of play that can change everything.
And did.
• • •
As Jack called out the signals, he clapped his hands right before Charlie Lyons, their center, was supposed to snap him the ball. Jack was trying to get Gus’s attention, wanting him to go in motion.
But when he clapped his hands, Charlie thought Jack wanted the ball and snapped it, even though Jack’s head was turned. The ball banged off Jack’s shoulder pads, bouncing away from him, to his left.
At this point, the whole thing turned into the kind of play that Coach Gilbert liked to call a jailbreak.
Jack managed to get to the ball before the Bears’ outside linebacker did, scooped it up, immediately reversed his field, and started running to his right. The play he’d called in the huddle was supposed to be a fade pass to Mike O’Keeffe in the right corner of the end zone, but that wasn’t happening now.
Teddy was on the opposite side of the field from Jack, looking for open spaces while so much of the Bears’ defense chased Jack.
Then he remembered something:
When in doubt, follow Jack Callahan.
He was still in the back field, trying to pick up blockers and get outside. Teddy was open by now, heading his way, waving his arm for the ball. But as he did, he saw that Jack was going to run for it.
He couldn’t get to the sideline to stop the clock; the Bears had cut that off. And by now, even if he tried to throw the ball away, the half was probably going to be over by the time he did.
It meant Teddy was a blocker now, as soon as he could find somebody to block.
He saw the Bears’ middle linebacker sprinting from Jack’s left as Jack cut toward the orange pylon. But Teddy didn’t move quickly enough to cut him off or even get in his way.
He stopped and watched what happened next as if it were happening in slow motion.
He saw Jack dive for the pylon, extending the ball as he did, at the same moment the middle linebacker launched himself at him.
Saw the midair collision that knocked Jack sideways, even as he was trying to jam the ball down on the pylon before his body hit the ground, like a basketball player jamming home a dunk.
Saw Jack land hard on his right shoulder.
The ref’s arms went straight up in the air, meaning touchdown, Wildcats.
But the Wildcats’ quarterback was still down.
ELEVEN
Jack’s parents were there right away. So was Coach Gilbert, and Coach Williams, and Dr. McAuley, Brian’s dad, who served as the Wildcats’ team doctor.
Teddy’s dad was standing behind them.
“Same thing happened to me once,” Teddy could hear him saying to Dr. McAuley. “It’s like a fighter getting a free swing at a guy. You’re defenseless.”
Coach Gilbert had told all of Jack’s teammates to stay back. But none of them had stayed back very far. Teddy was closest to Jack, feeling like he wanted to cry. Or like he might be sick. If he had just been a step quicker, just that, he could have at least gotten between the linebacker and Jack.
Coach Gilbert and Coach Williams gently rolled Jack over so he was on his back. Jack’s dad helped them, whispering something to his son as he did.
Teddy moved a couple of steps closer. He wanted to hear everything they were saying.
“Where does it hurt?” Dr. McAuley was saying now.
“Everywhere,” Jack said.
“Back of the shoulder or front?”
“Both.”
“Jack,” Dr. McAuley said, “we’re going to try to gently lift you so you can sit up.”
They did that. Teddy looked at Jack’s mom, whose eyes were very wide. Coach Gilbert took Jack’s helmet off. Teddy could see the pain on Jack’s face. Then Dr. McAuley was between Teddy and Jack, speaking quietly. Teddy saw Jack nodding. Then Dr. McAuley said something to Coach Williams, who ran back to the oversize first aid kit behind the bench that reminded Teddy more of a cooler and came back with a sling.
To Teddy, it already felt as if Jack had scored his touchdown an hour ago.
After Jack’s arm was in the sling, he stood up. The people in the stands and players on both teams applauded as he walked slowly back toward the Wildcats’ bench.
Once Jack and the adults with him were off the field, the refs motioned for both teams to line up for the conversion. Teddy took another look back at their bench and saw Danny Hayes, the backup quarterback, running onto the field, fastening his chin strap as he did. He knelt down, talking fast, told them the play was a fake to Jake and a pass in the left corner to Mike O’Keeffe. The pass fell way short of Mike and was nearly intercepted. It was still Wildcats 13, Bears 7 at the half.
By the time they came off the field, Jack was already on his way to the hospital for X-rays.
Coach Gilbert gathered the team around him right away.
“Listen,” he said, “we all know this isn’t the game we thought we were going to play. It might not even be the same season we thought it was going to be. We’ll know more about that later.”
They had made a big circle around him. Coach kept turning as he spoke, as a way of talking to all of them at once.
“But as great a player as Jack is, and I really believe he’s a great player, one guy is never a team. And Danny here”—he pointed at Danny Hayes—“wouldn’t be on this team if I didn’t think he could do the job at quarterback.”
Teddy could see some of the guys nodding their heads in agreement, even though nobody had any idea how Danny was going to do in the second half.
“I’m not one of those guys who tries to tell you what somebody else would want,” Coach said. “But I’m pretty doggone sure, knowing Jack the way I do, that he wouldn’t want you to be worrying about him right now. I’m pretty sure he’d want us to go win this game.”
Teddy could see him smiling. “And since we’re all here, and there’s still a whole half left to play, why don’t we just go ahead and do that?”
• • •
But the Bears scored the second time they had the ball in the third quarter, after the cornerback covering Gus had intercepted the second pass Danny tried. Five plays later their quarterback found their tight end wide open in the end zone. The quarterback ran it in himself on the conversion, and the Bears were ahead 14–13.
As nervous as Teddy had been trying to make the Wildcats, Danny was even more nervous trying to replace Jack at quarterback. He nearly fumbled a couple of simple handoffs, one to Jake and one to Brian. And when he did try a couple of throws on their next drive, they didn’t come close to connecting. Teddy wanted to tell him to relax, the way Jack was always telling him to relax. But he wasn’t sure, in the first game he’d ever played, that it was his place, as much as he wanted to be a good teammate. On top of that, he barely knew Danny Hayes.
The first time Danny threw a ball Teddy’s way, a simple slant pattern on the Wildcats’ last drive of the third quarter, the ball was so far behind Teddy it nearly got picked by the cornerback covering Gus. The only reason the kid dropped the ball was because he seemed shocked it was anywhere close to him.
The Wildcats punted again. They held the Bears again, three and out. The Bears punted. Another three and out for the Wildcats, still down a point. And the deeper the game went into the fourth quarter, the bigger that point looked.
“We are not losing this game,” Gus said to Teddy on the sideline as their defense tried to get them another stop and get the offense back on the field.
“You are aware,” Teddy said, “that you said the exact same thing every time we were trailing in a baseball game?”
“Your point being?”
“Got nothing,” Teddy said. “You’re right. My point is that we’re not letting that stupid point on the board stand up for those guys.”
The Bears were deep into Wildcats territory by then. But on a third-and-three play at the twenty yard line, Max Conte fought off a couple of blocks, caught up with the Bears’ quarterback just as he was getting to the edge, knocked the ball loose with his right hand, and recovered it.
Three minutes left. Eighty yards to go. No Jack. Right before Teddy ran back onto the field with the rest of the offense, he looked over and noticed that his dad was standing next to Coach Gilbert. And that his dad was doing most of the talking.
“What’s he doing down here?” Teddy said.
“He was a quarterback, right?” Gus said. “Maybe he’s our new quarterback coach.”
Teddy’s mom had said before the game that this wasn’t about his dad. But maybe his dad thought everything was.
When they were all in the huddle, Danny said, “We’re gonna pound it with Jake and Brian, and then try to move the ball with short passes.” He looked around at his teammates and said, “Coaches figure even I can accurately throw a ball five yards.”
Now Teddy spoke. “You throw,” he said. “We’ll catch.”
Jake ran for eight yards. Brian ran for six. First down. But after the Bears stuffed Jake for no gain, Danny completed his first pass of the second half, a little dump-off throw to Gus in the flat. Gus dusted the linebacker closest to him with a great move and ran for twenty yards before one of the Bears’ safeties knocked him out of bounds. Now the Wildcats were in Bears territory.
Under two minutes to go.
Jake, who had been a horse all day, ran straight up the middle for ten more yards. Danny completed another short pass, this one to Mike O’Keeffe. Right at the end of the play Teddy threw a huge block, and Mike gained five extra yards.
Just like that they were at the Bears’ nineteen yard line.
Brian ran for five yards, couldn’t get out of bounds.
Thirty-eight seconds left.
Coach called time-out. Teddy took another look up into the stands. He saw his mom on her feet with the rest of the Wildcats parents, her hands clasped in front of her, looking nervous and happy and excited all at the same time. It meant she felt pretty much the way he did right now.
He looked over at his dad now, couldn’t help himself, saw him leaning forward, hands on his knees, looking as fierce as guys like Jim Harbaugh did on the sideline. Like he was coaching the team as much as Coach Gilbert was. Like he was the one calling the plays. Maybe he was.
Danny had run over to their bench during the time-out and came sprinting back to the huddle now.
“Tight end screen to Teddy,” he said.
It was a play they hadn’t run all day and really didn’t run that often in practice. But one that required almost perfect timing, from Danny, from the blockers, from Teddy, who when the play started was supposed to look like a blocker himself.
Danny did his job perfectly, looking away from Teddy at first as the rush came up on him, then turning and throwing at the last second while the guys on the right side of the line and Jake had set up a wall of blockers.
The problem was that it was one of the worst throws of all time.
Danny, under pressure, had short-armed the ball. Teddy had done it himself his first few games in baseball, when he’d tried to throw out guys trying to steal second on him.
As the ball started to drop, Teddy thought he had no shot at it, that it was going to hit the ground, incomplete, play over. But somehow he managed to get to it in time and clearly get his big hands underneath it.
That was the good news.
Bad news?
The play had taken way too long to develop, and a whole bunch of defenders were about to be all over him. As Teddy turned back toward the line of scrimmage, so he could get himself going in the right direction, it looked like there were suddenly two Bears to every one Wildcats blocker.
But what the defenders from the Bears didn’t know, because how could they, was how long Teddy Madden had waited for a moment like this.
He didn’t know whether the first guy with a shot at him was a defensive tackle or linebacker. No time to check the guy’s number. But Teddy thought, Take a number, bud. Teddy straight-armed the kid and broke to the outside at the same time.
The next kid tried to hit him high. It would have done the job once, with the old Teddy. But not now. Teddy shrugged off the hit and kept on going.
Somebody—Jake?—cleared out a linebacker. Teddy was at the ten yard line by now, Gus right ahead of him, trying to pick out one of the two guys in front of him to block.
Wait for it, Teddy told himself.
Gus took the kid on the outside. Teddy broke to the inside, seeing the Bears’ safety with a clear path to him, thinking he had Teddy lined up.
And he did.
He came in low with his front shoulder, catching Teddy above the knees. It should have made for a good, solid tackle.
Except it wasn’t a tackle if the guy with the ball wouldn’t go down. Teddy Madden wouldn’t go down.
Somehow he kept his legs driving. The safety had grabbed hold of Teddy’s right leg. Still Teddy wouldn’t go down, dragging the kid along with him toward the goal line.
He was at the two or three by now, feeling himself start to fall, taking one more giant step and reaching out with his right hand as he did, the ball firmly in his grip; reaching out the way his man Beckham did with his own big hands sometimes.
Right before either of his knees touched the ground, the ball crossed the plane, he was sure of it.
The ref was right in front of Teddy, yelling “Touchdown!” even before he got his arms up in the air.
Wildcats 19, Bears 14.
Teddy just got up and handed the ball to the ref, even though he wanted to do one of those Rob Gronkowski spikes. He let his teammates pound on him briefly, before they all collected themselves and lined up for the conversion. The guys on the O-line blew everybody off the ball, and Brian could have walked the ball into the end zone.
Wildcats 20, Bears 14.
The guys on defens
e knocked down four straight desperation passes from the Bears’ quarterback, and it was over.
David Madden came running down the sideline, got in front of Teddy, grabbed him by his shoulder pads, and yelled, “Was that a great call from your old man, or what?”
TWELVE
Teddy just said, “Yeah, great call,” to his dad, even though he was amazed that his father would rather talk about the play call than the play Teddy had made.
Then Teddy broke away from him and walked over to where his mom was standing. As happy as she’d looked watching the game, she looked even happier now, like one of her favorite expressions: over the moon.
“Can’t we just call it a season right here?” she said after she’d hugged him, not caring about the dirt on the front of his uniform.
“Pretty sure we’ll keep going,” he said.
“Like you kept going with half the town of Hollis Hills trying to tackle you?”
“Coach always tells us that if you keep your legs moving, good things will happen in football.”
“Or great things.”
“Not so great about Jack,” Teddy said. “Have you heard anything about how he’s doing?”
His mom turned Teddy slightly and pointed. “Why don’t you go ask him yourself?”
Jack was behind the Wildcats’ bench with his mom and dad, Mr. and Mrs. Morales, Cassie, and Gus. Jack had a different sling on, one that looked bigger and stronger than the one Dr. McAuley had put on after the injury. Teddy ran over to him, but when he got close, Jack grinned and put up his left arm, even being careful with that one.
“Slow down,” he said. “You already scored.”
“You saw?”
“I got back just in time,” Jack said. “It was like a play I saw once on NFL Films, Mark Bavaro, an old Giants tight end, practically carrying the whole 49ers defense on his back.”
Teddy knew the play too. He loved looking up stuff on the old teams that had won the Giants’ first Super Bowls. He had always liked history in school, but he liked Giants history most of all.
“Forget about me,” Teddy said. “How are you?”
