The Extra Yard

by Mike Lupica

  Teddy’s dad tried to console him on the sideline. But Teddy didn’t want to be consoled. He was way too angry at himself over what had just happened on the field.

  “Lot of football to be played,” his dad said. “A lot.”

  “Yeah, a lot of bad football if I keep going like this.”

  “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know that!” Teddy said. “I know you know a lot about playing quarterback, but you don’t know everything!”

  He started to walk away, to get a drink and try to calm himself down. His dad stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “I get it,” Teddy said. “But you can’t play for me. I gotta figure this out myself.”

  Now his dad put hands on both of Teddy’s shoulders and turned him around so they were facing each other. “You need to listen even if you don’t want to. If you start pressing after you make a couple of mistakes, all that does is produce more mistakes. That fumble happened because you were trying to make a play. That wasn’t a bad thing, you just pulled a bad result.” He smiled. “Now the throw you just made, I can’t lie, that was god-awful.”

  “Thanks for sharing, Dad. I hadn’t picked up on that myself.”

  “But everybody makes bad throws! Look at the throw Russell Wilson made that time when the Seahawks blew it against the Patriots. And that happened in the last minute of the Super Bowl! You’ve got all day to make up for your lousy throw. Okay?”

  He was right. Teddy knew he was right. “Okay,” he said.

  “Now go get a drink,” his dad said. “And when you get back out there, just tell yourself that you’re starting the game all over again, and that all we’ve done is spot those guys one score.”

  But he was still pressing when he got back out there. He missed throws that he’d been making all season, that he thought he could make in his sleep. Because he was missing, the Bengals started putting more and more guys in the box, stopping Jake and Brian when the Wildcats tried to run the ball, almost daring Teddy to find his form throwing the ball.

  But he couldn’t, at least not consistently. This close to a perfect ending to their season, it was like he was all the way back at the beginning and had never played a game at quarterback in his life.

  It was still 6–0 at the half. The second time the Wildcats got the ball in the third quarter, Teddy got sacked and fumbled again, again deep in Bengals territory. He’d made some decent throws getting his team down there. But all he had to show was another wasted drive.

  Once again the Wildcats’ defense picked him up, forcing the Bengals into a quick three-and-out. It was starting to look as if their opponents were never going to score an offensive touchdown, not the way Max Conte and Andre Williams and Gregg Leonard were flying around the field. But Teddy really was starting to wonder, the way he was playing, if he was capable of putting any points on the board himself.

  Jack kept trying to pump him up on the sideline, the same way Gus and Teddy’s dad were. Nothing was working. And the clock kept running.

  “Remember way back at the beginning, when I told you to trust your arm?” Jack said as the two teams changed sides to start the fourth quarter. “This would be a good time to try that.”

  “It’s not just my arm!” Teddy said. “I’m not trusting me.”

  They were sitting next to each other on the bench. When the quarter started, it would be Brenham’s ball, second down, their own forty.

  “You sound like a loser,” Jack said in a voice only loud enough for Teddy to hear. “That’s not you.”

  “But we are losing,” Teddy said. “And I’m the biggest reason we are.”

  “You need to start thinking about how you’re going to win the game,” Jack said.

  “Maybe I don’t know how to do that today.”

  “I’m sorry. Did the game just end, or the third quarter?”

  “It just might not be my day,” Teddy said.

  “If you really feel that way, I’ve got nothing.” Jack stood up. “You sound like you’ve given up.”

  “Wait,” Teddy said. “I promise to stop whining. Tell me what I need to do to turn this around before it’s too late.”

  “You know what to do. Forget what’s gone wrong so far. Remember all the plays you’ve made this season, and go make a few more. That’s what I always try to do.”

  “I’m not you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d rather be you today,” Jack said. “Because you’ve still got a game to play.”

  • • •

  The Bengals ran their best drive of the game once the quarter started, and ran off a lot of clock in the process, making one third down play after another. All Teddy could do was stand and watch from the sideline. They finally ended up at the Wildcats’ eleven. But then their quarterback was the one being the drive killer.

  He waited too long to pitch the ball on the option play they’d been running for most of the drive. When he did get rid of the ball, Max Conte was right there and tried to launch him into outer space. The Bengals’ quarterback went flying in one direction, the ball went flying in another. Max recovered it. The Wildcats had the ball back at their own fifteen.

  Four and a half minutes left.

  They needed a score, and then a conversion. They had to get a win, not a tie. In Teddy’s mind, a real unbeaten record didn’t have a tie on it.

  There was a delay on the field, because one of the Bengals’ offensive linemen was being helped to his feet by his teammates. Teddy turned and took a look up into the stands, where his mom was standing along with the other Walton parents. One more time this season, it was as if she was waiting for him to look up there. As soon as he did, she gave him the signal she always did: she pounded her heart twice. Teddy did the same.

  “Hey.”

  It was his dad.

  “Trust your arm,” he said.

  “You sound like Jack.”

  “Great minds,” his dad said.

  “Jack said he’d give anything to be me right now.”

  His dad grinned. “So would I.”

  Then his dad said, “When you get out there, short post slot.”

  “Got it.”

  It was a pass over the middle to Gus, maybe ten yards up the field. Teddy knew there would be traffic. There always was when you threw into the belly of the defense trying to make a play. He nearly threw the ball too hard—and nearly too high—as Gus broke free, wanting to make sure only Gus had a chance to catch it. But Gus went up and got it, and secured possession before he hit the ground. First down.

  Teddy threw it again on the next play, a short, safe pass to Nate Vinton in the flat. The Wildcats gained eight more yards. Jake ran for a first down. Just like that, they were out to their forty.

  Three minutes left.

  Teddy knew they weren’t playing for their season. They could tie or lose today and still make the championship game. But it still felt as if this game was everything. Maybe it was because he’d played so badly for most of the game. Maybe that was why he wanted this game so badly.

  He missed Gus on first down. But he came right back to him on second, a twelve-yard completion to the left sideline, the Wildcats’ side of the field, stopping the clock. Under two minutes. But they were in Bengals’ territory.

  Jake ran it. Brian ran it. The Wildcats had another first down. Now they were inside the Bengals’ forty. Teddy threw the best ball he had all day to Mike O’Keeffe, deep down the middle. The Bengals finally brought Mike down at the fifteen.

  Coach Gilbert called time-out.

  The clock showed a minute and thirty left.

  “You’re hot now,” Coach Gilbert said to Teddy.

  “It had to happen eventually,” Teddy said, grinning. “Law of averages.”

  Coach Gilbert nodded at Teddy’s dad. “We think it’s a perfect time for a quarterback draw.”

  “But to make it work, you’ve got to sell it better than you have all season, starting with when you drop back,” Teddy’s
dad said. “Get that ball up on your shoulder right away, like you are throwing all the way. Then stop and run right behind Charlie Lyons’s big old butt.”

  “I won’t tell Charlie that part,” Teddy said.

  “One other thing?” his dad said.

  “Hold on to the ball?”

  His dad pointed at him. “There you go.”

  They used a formation where Mike O’Keeffe, their tight end, moved outside, making it a three-wideout look. It was another way of selling the idea that they were throwing. The Brenham middle linebacker shaded toward Mike and away from the middle. It would give Teddy some room to run, if he could get there.

  Teddy went with a long count, stepped back from center, and set the ball on his right shoulder. Ahead of him he saw Charlie Lyons clear out the Brenham nose tackle.

  After a three-step drop, Teddy pulled the ball down and ran.

  He was already at the ten, with more open field in front of him, before linebackers started coming at him from both sides. But they were late, behind him, trying to catch up. By now Teddy was at full speed. He felt as if he were running downhill.

  The last guy to beat was one of their safeties, at about the two yard line. Teddy didn’t slow down, not wanting to bring the guys chasing back into the play. He simply lowered his shoulder and plowed right through the kid, until he was in the end zone standing up.

  It was 6–6.

  Teddy handed the ball to the ref and waved off Gus and Mike as they ran toward him, wanting to celebrate. Nothing to celebrate yet. There was still work to do. They still needed one more point to close the deal.

  Brian brought the play in from the sideline.

  “Roll option right,” he said.

  “Yes!” Gus Morales said, the word coming out of him like steam.

  If he got open, the ball was coming to him. He would line up in the left slot. Teddy would roll to his right. Gus would cut all the way across the field, to the right corner of the end zone. He would be the only Wildcats receiver on that side of the field. If he was covered, Teddy had to find somebody all the way over on the left side, or run it himself.

  “You be there,” Teddy said to Gus.

  “You get it there.”

  The outside linebacker to Teddy’s right nearly blew up the play. He almost beat the snap count and was past Mike O’Keeffe before Mike could even think about putting a block on him, and then he was all over Teddy before he could even get to the outside.

  But in that moment Teddy wasn’t a quarterback. He was a tight end again, using his size and his strength to shed the kid as he tried to bring him down and keep the game tied.

  He stumbled slightly as he got away. Somehow he managed to keep his balance as he kept moving to his right. As he did, he saw Gus clear his coverage.

  He couldn’t risk stopping to set his feet. Gus was too close to the sideline and too close to the back of the end zone.

  Now.

  Teddy, still on the move, slung the ball sidearm, trying to be as accurate as he could, trying to put the ball in a spot where only Gus had a chance to catch it. He was worried after he let the ball go that he might have led Gus too much; led him right off the field.

  Only then Gus Morales was the one reaching out and trying to make a play. Teddy had led him too much, but not so much that Gus couldn’t catch his fingertips on the ball and pull it close to him, managing to keep both feet inbounds as he did. The ref’s arms shot up in the air. The Wildcats had their point.

  Three plays later Henry Koepp intercepted a desperation throw from the Bengals’ quarterback.

  Teddy ran back onto the field. He took two knees. The game was over. Wildcats 7, Bengals 6. When the ref blew his whistle, Teddy ran right for Jack Callahan.

  “You were right!” he yelled. “The game wasn’t over!”

  Jack smiled.

  “Well, it is now,” he said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  It had turned into the most exciting week of Teddy’s life, on and off the field.

  There was Saturday’s game against the Greenacres Giants, who had one loss and were tied with Norris in second place. But because the possibility of Greenacres beating them and Norris winning its last regular season game set up the possibility of a three-way tie for first, the Wildcats-Giants game was the same as a play-off game.

  Coach Gilbert had told them the night before at practice that the board members running the league didn’t want to push back the championship game, not with the county championship already scheduled in two weeks. So they’d brought the three coaches in and had them flip coins, just in case there was a three-way tie.

  And Coach had lost the coin flip. “First thing we’ve lost all season,” he told the team. “So we better keep winning.”

  The game against Greenacres was a win-or-go-home game. It was like they were playing one championship game to get to another, and then another after that, if they wanted to make it to MetLife Stadium.

  It almost made Teddy glad he had The Voice to at least take his mind off football.

  Teddy hadn’t done any coaching about singing with Gregg Leonard, his guy in the competition, from the start. He hadn’t talked about what songs Gregg should pick or anything like that. The best he could do was treat it like sports and continue to give Gregg coaching advice. Mostly it was about trusting his talent, and telling him that this was a different way of trying to make a play to win a big game, before they’d both get the chance to do the same thing against Greenacres.

  His mom had been on fire all week and was even more crazed now that it was Thursday and the big night had finally arrived. Teddy had shown up early with her and couldn’t believe how cool the lobby of Walton Middle looked, all these tables set up with silent auction items that school parents and their friends and local businesspeople had donated as a way of raising even more money than they already had. There were tickets to Patriots games and Red Sox games and the use of a private suite for a Giants game at MetLife Stadium and even a trip to the Bahamas somebody had donated just the day before.

  “Some of this stuff is amazing,” Teddy said.

  “It is,” his mom said. “But people better come up big, because we’re still not there.”

  As they got closer to the start of the show, his mom kept going back and forth from the stage to the lobby every few minutes. She said she was pretty sure they were going to have a sellout, that she wasn’t worried about that; she had a good idea of the amount of money ticket sales were going to bring in. Now she needed those auction items to come through for her.

  “You keep saying we’re going to be short,” Teddy said backstage.

  He was wearing his blazer and a tie and khaki pants and loafers. All the judges were dressed up. Cassie was wearing a new dress her mother had bought her for the occasion.

  “I’m better at math than you are,” his mom said, taking another peek through the curtains.

  “Ouch.”

  “Tonight is all-or-nothing,” she said. “The town won’t extend the deadline. If we do come up short when we total up the money, then everything we’ve raised goes to Walton Middle for its new fields project, and there’s no music department next semester.”

  “Our fields are fine, by the way.”

  “Tell our town that,” she said.

  “So people have to come up big at the auction?” Teddy said.

  “They have to come up huge.”

  “You’re the one who keeps telling us that it’s never over till it’s over,” Teddy said. “Or until the fat lady sings.”

  That at least got a grin out of his mom. “Well,” she said, “the singing is about to begin, isn’t it?”

  The time came to close the auction. Before his mom walked back to the lobby, she said to him, “Your dad is here, by the way.”

  It surprised Teddy. “He is?”

  “He said that if I could go to your games, he could come to mine,” she said.

  Then she was gone. Teddy peeked through the curtains and watched her walk down
the middle aisle, waving at friends who were already in their seats.

  Fifteen minutes later, it was showtime.

  He wanted this for Gregg, because he knew how hard Gregg had worked, and he couldn’t imagine the pressure of performing in front of this many adults. He wanted this for Mrs. Brandon, because he knew how hard she’d worked, and he’d come to understand that she did love her music as much as he and his friends loved their sports.

  But he was surprised, now that the show was starting, how much he wanted this for his mom.

  It felt as good as she said it would doing something for somebody else:

  Her.

  • • •

  It was a great show.

  The band had added a couple of members, which made the music sound better than ever. The two losing semifinalists, Vi and Angela, sang a duet. Some of the girls from Mrs. Brandon’s chorale sang two songs. After they did, Mrs. B came back out and thanked everybody for their support all over again.

  Teddy’s mom had been right about the crowd: the gym was completely full. They’d even had to roll out bleachers on one side to handle the overflow. Maybe his mom wouldn’t need as much money from the auction as she thought. Maybe, he thought, they’d get their happy ending after all.

  Even here they’d used a coin flip, to determine which of the finalists would go first. Katie won the toss and said she’d rather go last. Gregg had told Teddy that if he could play baseball in the Little League World Series on ESPN, he could get through tonight. But Teddy still watched in awe as he walked to the microphone and proceeded to belt out Justin Timberlake’s song “Mirrors.”

  Gregg got a standing ovation. As he did, Teddy and Cassie turned their backs to him, just like the coaches did on The Voice. As Gregg walked off the stage, he leaned down and said into Teddy’s ear, “I won’t be as happy if I win as I am that I’m done!”

  It was Katie’s turn. She had picked a Katy Perry song, “Roar.” When she was done, and the people in the gym jumped to their feet and roared for her, Cassie didn’t turn around this time. She jumped up from her seat and ran across the stage and hugged Katie.

  When she came back to their small table, Teddy said, “I thought I was going to have to flag you for excessive celebration.”