The next day, I was tossing a football with some friends in the park. Damon Wilson, who played on my Pop Warner team, had joined me and a few other guys. In my mind, I didn’t have a real best friend my own age. No big reason why—I just didn’t. I’d always try to spend time around Carter and his friends, whenever he’d let me. But if I had to pick somebody like that, Damon would have been the closest to it. He was a big, stocky kid who’d played on my offensive line for a couple of years, protecting me from getting sacked.
I was still riding high over throwing in front of Coach G.
“I swear he worked on my mechanics for something like thirty seconds. That’s it. Fixing my release point and stuff,” I said, before taking a pretend snap and dropping back. “After that, I was passing like a pro. That’s how much better he is than any of the coaches we’ve ever had.”
I raised the ball up to my left ear as my eyes darted back and forth along a row of apple trees, maybe twenty-five yards away.
“That’s probably why his name’s God-ard,” Damon said. “He’s like a coaching god.”
“It’s a coincidence,” argued another kid. “Coach had that name from when he was born.”
“I don’t know about any of that,” I said, focusing on the narrowest tree. “I only know the results.”
Then I released the tightest spiral of my life. I watched the football slice straight through the air like an arrow, hitting the trunk of that oak dead-center. There were ooohs and aaahs from every kid there. I always had a strong arm. But suddenly, I felt like a different player, better and more confident.
“Hey, go stand by that same tree,” I told the kid who’d argued against Coach G. “Let me see if I can knock an apple off your head with this football.”
Everybody laughed over that, even the kid I’d said it to. But part of me wasn’t joking. I believed I could do it.
A few minutes later, Carter passed by with one of his Beauchamp teammates. All of my friends wanted to get a game of touch going, especially one with Carter, an almost-Gator, in it. Carter and his teammate didn’t want to risk getting hurt against a bunch of kids. But they each agreed to play all-time QB for one of the teams, while we did all the running. That got under my skin, because I knew I had better skills.
Carter’s teammate didn’t have much of an arm, missing on five straight passes for our side.
“Let’s try something different. Pitch the ball out to me for a running play,” I told the Beauchamp guy in our huddle.
When he turned his head away, I drew an L with my finger on the front of my shirt for Damon to see. That was the diagram for Damon to run a down-and-out pattern.
I took the pitch and ran a few steps before I threw on the brakes.
“Watch out! It’s a pass!” Carter screamed to his guys.
Damon made his cut and was running wide open. I lofted him a high, soft one over the tree branches. He caught the football in stride. When Damon crossed the second cement path for a touchdown, he spiked it. For me, that was the last word on who should have been playing quarterback for our team from the beginning.
* * *
That week, Mike Harkey, Gainesville’s strength and conditioning coach, phoned Carter. He invited my brother down to the football complex on campus to see the Gators’ multi-million dollar weight room and training facility. I practically begged Carter to let me tag along. But for two days he said no and wouldn’t budge.
“This isn’t kiddy play time, Travis. This is serious. My future,” he told me.
“Mom, Carter’s acting selfish,” I said, trying to play her against him.
But she backed up Carter on everything.
“Your brother has to worry about making a good impression, not looking after you,” she said.
So I kept quiet on the whole idea for a few days. Then, the Saturday morning when Carter was headed there, I put on a Gainesville football jersey and used my body to block the front door.
“Come on. Please. Players my age don’t get chances like this. Maybe I can pick up some lifting techniques, move ahead of other kids,” I said, praying he’d take pity on me.
Carter exhaled and put his hands on his hips.
“If I say yes, you won’t get in the way?” he asked.
“I won’t. I promise.”
“You won’t pick up any weights? Drive Coach Harkey crazy with questions?” Carter continued, as I accepted each condition. “You understand that this is my meeting, not yours?”
“I get it, completely,” I said, opening the door for us.
Mom needed the car to go to her job at the dental office. So we hopped a downtown bus that took us past Beauchamp High, my school—Westside Middle—and then to University Avenue, where we caught a second bus to the campus.
From the outside, the football complex looked like a fancy hotel: tall sheets of glass, palm trees, a smooth marble column, and a bronze statue of a gator. Inside, the lobby was decked out in the Gators’ orange and blue, with life-size photos of Gainesville’s all-time greatest players lining the walls.
“Someday, my picture’s going to be up there,” Carter whispered to me.
“Think so?” I said, almost as a challenge.
“Long before yours ever will,” he said with confidence.
Then we came to a pair of crystal footballs, each in its own glass case. Those were the trophies for Coach Goddard’s two national championships. The light sparkled and shined off them both, casting two rainbows on the wall behind.
“I don’t even know how to describe what I’m seeing,” I said.
“You don’t,” replied Carter. “You just appreciate the beauty of it. And work hard to take that same ride one day.”
On the other side of the automatic sliding glass doors was a huge weight room, bigger than my middle school’s entire gym. It had every workout machine and weight set you could think of. The hundreds of fluorescent lights shining down from the ceiling made it look like some kind of workout heaven.
Carter spotted Harkey kneeling beside a weight bench. When Harkey stood up to greet us, I wasn’t that impressed with him physically. He was short with a big barrel chest and stubby arms. He reminded me of the fire hydrant on the street outside our house. I tried hard not to laugh. Because somewhere in the back of my mind, I had the image of Galaxy walking up to Harkey, sniffing at him, and then lifting his leg.
“Good to meet you, Carter,” said Harkey, shaking his hand. “Who’s this young stud wearing the right jersey?”
“This is my little brother, Travis,” he said, as Harkey offered me his hand next.
“His younger brother,” I countered.
Without showing any effort, Harkey nearly broke my hand inside his steel grip. And I started to rethink my first impression of him.
“So, Carter, how much?” he asked.
Carter seemed confused for a second. “How much weight can I lift?”
“No. How much of a price are you willing to pay?” Harkey asked. “See that sign on the wall?”
It read: BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS.
“Go ahead. Touch it, Carter,” said Harkey, picking up a blue binder from his desk a few feet away.
Carter ran his hand over the sign. Then I touched it too.
“You know why those letters are raised?” asked Harkey.
We both shook our heads.
“So you can really feel it. So they’re not just words,” he said. “Everything you want, everything you gain, you pay a price for. Blood, sweat, and tears—that’s what lives in here. It comes before all of the glory out on the football field. A scholarship doesn’t entitle you to anything. Egos don’t survive in this room. The players who succeed are afraid to fail, to lose their starting jobs. They outwork everybody else. Now, are you willing to reach deep inside, scrape the bottom of your soul to pay that price?”
“Absolutely,” said Carter, without hesitating.
I would have answered exactly the same way.
“Well, we’ll see. Here’s a workout schedule for you to follow at home and in your gym at school,” Harkey said, handing Carter the binder. “We’ve had players from Beauchamp High before. They weight-train okay over there. You look like you’re carrying some decent flesh. But you’ll be a different animal when I get through with you.”
That’s when I puffed out my chest and tightened my abs beneath my jersey. Only, Harkey didn’t seem to notice.
* * *
Dad was supposed to spend five days in Florida for Carter’s high school graduation. That was his idea. We’d planned a day at Disney World, one on Daytona Beach—which is awesome in early June—and one to go deep-sea fishing. It was supposed to make up for Dad not coming to visit us in more than a year—for him driving his stepson to high school swim meets up and down the coast of California on weekends while he missed nearly two entire seasons of our football games.
Then, less than a week before Dad’s visit, he called Carter’s phone. When he heard me in the background, he asked my brother to put the call on speaker.
“Here’s the situation, guys. My company needs me to make some presentations at an insurance conference in Columbus, Ohio,” Dad said, in a slow and steady voice that picked up speed the longer he talked. “Unfortunately, the meat of that conference is during the days we had planned together. In fact, the conference actually runs through your graduation ceremony, son. What I can do is fly out of Columbus early in the morning and just go missing for a while. I’ll watch you graduate in the afternoon, maybe have a nice celebration lunch at a place close to the airport, and then fly right back out again.”
“It’s that important?” asked Carter, staring at the phone in his hand.
“Your graduation?” answered Dad. “I should hope so. It is to me. That’s why I’m willing to jump through hoops to get there.”
“No, I meant the conference,” said Carter, shifting his eyes to mine.
I just shook my head and put my hands over my ears. But I could still make out parts of what Dad said after that: “the economy . . . lucky to have this job . . . you’ll see when you have bosses.” That’s when I started humming to myself, muffling out the rest.
The day Dad flew in, he never came to our house. That was probably because any talk between him and Mom had become an argument waiting to happen. Instead, Dad met us at the ceremony. The auditorium at Beauchamp High isn’t big enough to seat five hundred graduates and their families. So the school rented out the main hall on the campus of Gainesville U. Dad stood waiting for us outside the hall, wearing a business suit and a red-striped tie. He looked the same as I remembered, except for a few gray hairs and some extra weight around his midsection.
I’d had the idea of running up to hug Dad. But when I saw him standing there, it just didn’t feel right. Besides, his arms weren’t opened wide. They were hanging down at his sides.
For the first few minutes, Carter, dressed in his cap and gown, got all of Dad’s attention.
“Son, I just can’t believe they gave you a scholarship here,” he said, draping his right arm around Carter’s shoulder. “They obviously know real talent when they see it.”
Dad handed me his camera and asked for a photo of him and Carter.
When I finished, Mom took the camera from me and said, “Now you get into this one too, Travis. I know your father wants a picture with both his boys.”
“That’s right, Travis,” Dad said, pulling me in close, inside of his other arm. “One day you’ll be grown like your brother. If you work as hard as Carter, it’ll be your turn in the spotlight.”
Dad still had more than an inch in height on me, while Carter towered over us both. When Mom showed us the photo, it reminded me of Mount Rushmore, with the heads shrinking down from left to right.
After a while, Carter had to get into line with the rest of the graduates. That left me as the only buffer between Mom and Dad. I sat between them in the hall. I was talking mostly to Dad. But I was trying not to ignore Mom, either.
“You know, Travis, you’ve got a great body to be a swimmer. You’ve got length and a lot of lean muscle,” said Dad, taking his nose out of the graduation program and looking at me over the top of his reading glasses. “I’ve seen plenty of high school swimmers lately, and you have the build. Ever think of trying out for the swim team when you get to Beauchamp?”
“Nah, I’m going to stick with football,” I told him, making a throwing motion with my left arm. “If I’m on the water, it’ll be ’cause I’m fishing.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll reschedule that deep-sea trip,” he said, almost like an apology. “But if it’s definitely going to be football, you might think about becoming a receiver or a tight end like Carter. Quarterback’s one of those singular positions. A team can only start one at a time. The odds of making it are much tougher. On top of that, you’re a southpaw.”
Before I could say anything, the music started and we all stood up as the graduates marched into the hall. There were a bunch of boring speeches from the stage that took almost an hour and a half to get through. The only highlight came when I killed a monster fly that had been dive-bombing us, smashing him flat against the back of the seat in front of me with a rolled-up program. Finally, one by one, the graduates got called up to receive their diplomas. When the principal announced “Carter Gardner” and my brother walked across the stage, I made it a point to clap louder and longer than anyone, especially Dad.