If watching her school lose was Andi’s wish, she got it. Ben Franklin led 3–0 at halftime before two goals by Ron Arlow midway through the second half—each half was thirty minutes long—cut the margin to 3–2.
But Ben Franklin scored with about eight minutes left to up the lead to 4–2, which was when Jeff Michaels got into the game. He was the last of Merion’s fifteen players to see the field, and he actually played the last eight minutes—only because the game was a lost cause, he figured.
Ben Franklin scored once more in the final minute, and then it was over. The good news was this was a nonleague game. There were nine teams in Merion’s conference, which meant there would be two nonleague games and then one game against each of the other eight teams in the conference.
Andi watched as the two teams lined up for handshakes. After the two coaches had shaken hands, Mr. Michaels appeared, as if by magic, at Coach J’s side. Andi couldn’t hear but could tell the conversation was animated. At one point, Coach J pointed a finger at Mr. Michaels, who waved a disgusted hand in his direction and walked away.
“Hey, how’d it go with my dad?”
Andi looked up and saw that Jeff was standing right next to her.
“Good, I guess,” she answered. “I just did what he told me to do—which was tell the truth.” She gestured in the direction of Jeff’s dad, who was now talking to Danny Diskin and waving his cameraman over. “Didn’t look like it went so well with Coach.”
Jeff shrugged. “He told us before the game that he wasn’t going to be bullied into talking by, I think he said, ‘some over-the-hill columnist,’ and while he couldn’t censor us, if he didn’t like what we said, there might be consequences—like a lot of running at practice tomorrow.”
“Danny doesn’t seem too worried.”
Jeff laughed. “Danny’s not afraid of anything or anyone. Even Arlow won’t mess around with him.”
“You think anybody else will talk?”
“Arlow said he’d talk, but I doubt if he’ll be taking our side … I mean, your side.” He paused, cheeks a bit flushed. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” she said. “I thought you played well today.”
“How could you tell?” he said. “I only touched the ball a few times.”
“And made a great tackle and a nice pass.”
“You noticed?” he said. “Glad someone did.”
She laughed. “I’m betting your dad noticed, too,” she said.
“Yeah, probably,” he said. “Unfortunately, he’s not coaching the team.”
“Unfortunately is right,” she said, watching as Danny Diskin, interview over, walked away and Ron Arlow took his place in front of the camera.
Jeff texted Andi during dinner.
Dad says story will air tonight. Probably about 10:15. Then again in the morning, and tmrrw on 6 pm show. Lot of exposure.
Andi usually went to bed at about nine thirty on a school night, but there was no way she wasn’t going to stay up to see Mr. Michaels’s story. Steve Bucci had told her mom his story would air late, on the eleven o’clock news. She wouldn’t stay up for that, but they would DVR it to watch in the morning.
Her parents were fine with the notion of her staying up a little late to watch the NBCSP report. The first fifteen minutes of the show seemed to take an hour. At least.
Finally, coming out of a commercial, anchor Dei Lynam set the piece up by saying: “It is the year 2019, more than forty years after girls first began playing Little League baseball. And yet, here in Philadelphia, there’s at least one coach and one school that is still living in the past. Tom Michaels has more.”
The piece opened with a shot of that day’s game—showing one of Ben Franklin’s goals.
Mr. Michaels’s voice came from the television set as the Ben Franklin boys celebrated the goal: “Opening day for the sixth-grade soccer teams from Merion and Ben Franklin middle schools, and the visitors have just scored to wrap up a five–two victory over Merion.”
The camera cut to a shot of Ron Arlow—which surprised Andi.
“First game, we’re still getting used to one another,” Arlow said. “We’ll be better by Friday.”
Then, suddenly, Andi was on camera, standing and watching the game with her mom.
“Experience may help Merion on Friday, but, unless Coach Hal Johnston backs away from his ‘no girls on my team’ edict, one of Merion’s most talented players won’t be in uniform—again.”
The next shot was Andi talking about believing she had proven she had made the team during tryouts and that a number of the boys had clearly wanted her on the team.
As soon as she finished, Danny Diskin came on camera: “She was probably one of our three or four best players,” he said. “If we had her playing up front, we’d be much tougher to stop. Today, we absolutely could have used her speed and touch with the ball.”
The next shot was Principal Block. Mr. Michaels talked over him for a moment, identifying him and then letting him talk.
“It’s a very uncomfortable situation,” Block said. “I’m told Miss Carillo was clearly good enough to make the team, but I gave my word to Coach Johnston he’d have final say on who made the team. He believes, for morale reasons, having a girl on the team is the wrong thing to do.”
The camera switched to Mr. Michaels sitting across from Mr. Block.
“You don’t see that as a somewhat outdated approach?” Mr. Michaels said.
Mr. Block smiled sadly and shook his head. “I’d be hard-pressed to argue with you on that,” he answered.
The next shot was of Mr. Michaels looking into the camera. “I tried to talk to Coach Johnston after today’s game, but he was adamant in refusing to come on camera, saying he had nothing to say on the subject of”—he looked down at a notebook—“‘girls trying to play on boys’ teams.’
“He’s right of course. Girls shouldn’t play on boys’ teams—unless they’ve earned a spot. Which is apparently the case with Andi Carillo here at Merion Middle School. Dei, back to you.”
“Wow!” Andi’s dad said. “That will stir things up. There’s no way they can ignore that.”
“And there’s more to come,” Andi’s mom said.
Andi was texting Jeff. Pls tell your dad THANKS, she wrote.
His answer came right back. Glad you liked it. We’ll see what happens.
He was right. The question now was what would come next.