I can’t say for certain that it was intentional, but I think it was. Dillon launched himself at Jackson’s knees and when he hit, he turned his body and rolled so that Jackson went down face-first with his knees twisted beneath him.
“Jackson!” I screamed.
His howl made me shiver and I ran over to him.
He lay on his back, wincing in pain, gritting his teeth, and breathing fast and shallow. “My knee, Ry-Guy. They got my knee.”
Tears welled in his eyes and it scared me.
The coaches and trainer swept me and everyone else aside. They helped Jackson up and carried him to the bench. The crowd politely applauded.
“Ry, don’t worry about me. We’re so close. We can’t stop now.”
I nodded and looked at the scoreboard.
We were down by three and out of time. The clock read :07.
It was fourth down. We had just one play to win or lose the game.
In that brief moment, I thought about who I was and what I’d proven that day. The times I got smashed into the dirt, I bounced back up. When I had twisted an ankle, I walked it off. When blood poured from the missing chunk of flesh on the back of my hand—removed courtesy of Dillon Peebles’s helmet in the third quarter—I had ignored it as Coach Vickerson wrapped it in tape. I proved to my teammates that day, and even more to myself, that I belonged there. Would I end up as an All-American or in the NFL?
No idea. The odds were against me, but I was a football player through and through.
But then there was the contest between Ben Sauer and Eiland, me and Dillon. If the TV cameras hadn’t made that clear, Mr. Dietrich’s presence certainly did. One of us would win, one would lose. One would be the kid owner of the Dallas Cowboys, the other would not. These were the thoughts running through my mind as I jogged over to Coach Hubbard and Coach Vickerson to talk things over.
They had spent our last time-out to consider what our final play would be without Jackson Shockey in the backfield. Coach Vickerson looked angry, not at me, but at the gods of football for bringing us this close without a very good prospect to pull off a win in the end. Coach Hubbard looked frightened, not by losing, but by making the wrong call and opening himself up to criticism from others as the coach who couldn’t finish the deal.
The three of us leaned into a mini huddle and Coach Hubbard gripped my arm tight enough to make me wince. “What do you think, Ryan?”
Bootlegs and throwbacks and double passes skittered across my brain, maybe a hook and lateral, something really big, something that would make me the hero and win us the game.
But then it came to me.
I didn’t like it at all, but I could see no real choice.
I knew what we had to do.