Jason was still trying to figure out how to respond to Coach Reilly’s question about whether he was in the wrong place when he noticed Tom and a coach he couldn’t identify walking in their direction.
“Coach Reilly, I think we’ve got a couple of newcomers who are a bit confused,” the coach said as he and Tom reached the receiver group.
“Well, Coach Ingelsby, I’ve got one youngster here who isn’t on the receiver list, so maybe you can clear things up for all of us,” Coach Reilly answered, a snarky smile—at least it looked snarky to Jason—on his face.
Jason realized then that the other coach was Don Ingelsby, the offensive coordinator; he’d heard of him but hadn’t ever met him during the seven-on-seven camp.
“This is Thomas Jefferson,” Coach Ingelsby said, putting an arm around Tom. “He thought he was supposed to be with the quarterbacks. I’m betting you have Jason Roddin here with you when he should be with the QBs.”
“That explains it,” Coach Reilly said.
“Roddin, you need to report to Coach Cruikshank—and you better do it on the double.” He smiled the same snarky smile. “Jefferson, better late than never. Welcome.”
Jason looked at Tom, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say, I don’t get it either.
“Coach, excuse me,” Jason said, “but there’s been a mistake.”
“And we’ve cleared it up,” Coach Ingelsby said before Jason could go any further.
Jason shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t think so—”
Coach Ingelsby held up a hand to stop him. “Roddin, this is your first day, so I’m going to cut you some slack. But you need to learn that at TGP you don’t contradict your coaches—especially on the practice field. When practice is over you can ask your position coach a question if you’re confused about something. Now I’d suggest you get over to the QB group in a hurry, because you’re about five seconds away from a long run and I doubt that’s how you want to start your first practice.”
Once again, everyone was looking at Jason. Once again, his thought was that the coach had it wrong; Jason did want to run—and keep going until he got to I-64 and could hitch back to New York from there.
Instead, without saying another word, he began walking, then jogging, in the direction of midfield, where the quarterbacks were gathered.
* * *
When he arrived, much to his surprise, Coach Cruikshank didn’t give him a hard time.
“Some confusion I take it, Jason?” he said. “We’ll straighten it out after practice, okay?”
Jason was surprised by the friendly tone, and by being called by his first name. He just nodded and went to line up for the sprints that were apparently first on the practice agenda.
His adrenaline still up, Jason finished well ahead of the other quarterbacks at all three distances—even the 10-yard sprint, where he finished a full step ahead of Billy Bob, who was second.
“Why are you here?” Billy Bob said quietly as they walked back to the starting line. “I thought Tom was the QB.”
“He is,” Jason said, but didn’t have time to say anything more.
When it came time to throw, Jason didn’t do badly, but the star was Billy Bob. The kid could throw the ball over the moon, Jason decided after watching him. He had to admit, the Alabama boy’s arm was stronger than Tom’s, but he’d still bet on Tom when it came to accuracy. There was one other QB who caught Jason’s eye—Jamie Dixon, a rangy kid who looked to be about six foot four and who, he remembered hearing, had been tabbed as the heir apparent to the two quarterbacks who had graduated.
The sun was still blazing hot and the humidity still thick enough to peel when Coach Johnson’s whistle brought all the players and position coaches to the midfield area.
“Take a knee,” Coach Johnson ordered, and they all did. Tom had veered away from the receivers and was kneeling next to Jason.
“Good first day,” Coach Johnson said. He pointed in the direction of the top row of stands, where cameras were set up. “As you know, we tape everything that goes on here. I know it’s all digital nowadays, but I’m old-school and I still call it tape. By the time we practice tomorrow, the coaches will have some comments for you based on what they see on the tape tomorrow morning.
“They’ll also start scheduling you for individual tape sessions and, once we get all the plays in place this week, we’ll spend some time on tape before practices. Tape, gentlemen, is a key to opening the door to football success. Come to those sessions ready to focus and work!”
They were all nodding. Jason felt himself dreading tape sessions already.
“We’ll scrimmage on Saturday,” Coach Johnson continued, “and that will go a long way toward establishing a depth chart for the opener. We only get two weeks of preseason practice, so come prepared mentally and physically every day.” He paused, then finished, “Okay, that’s it. Hit the showers.”
Everyone stood up, and most of the players began walking slowly in the direction of the locker room. Billy Bob came over to where Tom and Jason were standing.
“So what happened?” he asked, glancing around as if wanting to be sure no one else was listening. “Why’d they switch y’all?”
“No idea,” Tom said.
“I think we need to talk to Coach Johnson,” Jason said.
“Bad idea,” Tom said. “My guess is that this is a place where, if you go over someone’s head, it won’t be looked on kindly. I think we go to the position coaches.”
“Equally bad idea,” Jason said. “I was only with Coach Reilly a couple of minutes, but my sense is that he’s a serious jerk.”
Tom nodded. “Unfortunately, your sense is correct.”
“Why don’t you compromise?” Billy Bob said. “Go to the offensive coordinator. He’d be the one who had input, if not final say, into position assignments anyway.”
“Coach Ingelsby?” Jason said. “He didn’t strike me as a charmer either.”
“If you’re looking for charm, you’re in the wrong place,” Billy Bob said.
“I’ve been thinking that most of the afternoon,” Tom said.
Jason was about to agree when they looked up and saw Coach Ingelsby walking in their direction.
“Ready or not…” Billy Bob muttered, and he turned and headed to the locker room, leaving Jason and Tom to meet their fate, in the form of their coordinator.
* * *
“You guys like standing in the hot sun?” Coach Ingelsby said, taking off his cap to wipe his brow, the hint of a smile curling his lips just a bit. The effect was more frightening than friendly.
“No, sir,” Tom said. “But we were hoping to talk to you for a moment.”
Coach Ingelsby turned his palms up and spread them. “Talk,” he said. “Floor’s yours.”
Jason and Tom glanced at each other. Tom was a lot better speaking on his feet than Jason, so he took the lead.
“Coach, we think there’s been some confusion—”
“About what?” Coach Ingelsby broke in. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t feeling terribly patient, despite saying that the boys had the floor.
Tom picked up on the fact that he’d better cut to the chase. “I’m a quarterback,” he said. “Jason’s a receiver. Somehow I ended up today with the receivers, and Jason ended up with the quarterbacks.”
Coach Ingelsby folded his arms. “You boys were both in seven-on-seven camp a year ago, weren’t you?”
They both nodded.
“You know we taped everything there, just like we tape practices here, don’t you?”
They both knew it because one of the things the camp did was offer to let players buy their tapes to look at and analyze after they went home. They both nodded again.
“So don’t you think that the staff looked at your tapes from the camp before we decided where to assign you?”
“Did you look at Jason’s sprint times?” Tom asked. “Did you look at how he runs a route and catches anything within his air space?”
“Did you watch Tom throw?” Jason added.
The curled smile disappeared from Coach Ingelsby’s face.
“If you two would like to apply for coaching jobs here so you can make decisions on who should play what positions, feel free. If you get hired, I’ll be glad to listen to your input on every player we have on the offensive side of the football. Until then, do me and yourselves a favor: keep your opinions to yourselves unless I ask for them.”
“Do you ever ask players for their opinions?” Tom said.
“No,” Coach Ingelsby said. He turned and walked away.
Jason watched Coach Ingelsby stalk across the field toward the locker room without glancing back. “I thought that went well, didn’t you?”
Tom didn’t answer for a moment, ignoring Jason’s joke. He had his arms folded, his helmet dangling from his right hand. Finally, he shook his head.
“Look, these are bad guys,” he said. “At least this Ingelsby guy is, and so is Reilly. Haven’t seen enough of Coach Johnson yet to know if he’s the nice guy we met at seven-on-seven camp or—”
“He’s not,” Jason said. “Remember, he was recruiting us then—trying to charm us—sell us on this place. He’s done selling. We’ve already bought. My guess is that the real Bobo is as big a jerk as Ingelsby and Reilly, and they’re taking their cues from him.”
“Probably true,” Tom said. “We knew this was a jock factory when we signed up. I think we can live with that, especially going for free. I can deal with being yelled at by coaches, and so can you.” He thought for a moment, then added, “But there’s something rotten in Denmark.”
“Huh?” Jason said.
“Come on, you read Hamlet in English last year, didn’t you?”
Jason shook his head. “CliffsNotes,” he said. “Got a B on the paper. What in the world are you talking about?”
“One of the most famous quotes in literature, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.’”
“Oh yeah,” Jason said, still embarrassed but trying to recover. “I remember now. Hamlet says it.”
Tom shook his head. “No, Marcellus says it in the first act. But he’s saying that something is wrong with the way Denmark is being ruled and—”
“I get it. Something’s rotten in the state of Virginia—at TGP.”
Tom sighed. “Close enough.”
“Well, sweet prince, we better go shower before we get in trouble for being late for dinner.”
“Et tu, Jason?”
“Whaa?”
“Forget it,” Tom said, throwing his arm around his friend. “One Shakespeare play a day is enough. Let’s go eat.”
* * *
They walked over to the dining hall with Billy Bob, who was already out of the shower by the time they got to the locker room but had waited for them.
Even though he’d eaten three meals a day there during the seven-on-seven camp, Jason still found the dining hall—the Robert G. Durant Dining Hall, apparently named for a donor rather than a general or a former president—overwhelming.
The room was big enough to easily fit every TGP student into it with space to spare. It had seemed relatively empty the previous summer since there were only about four hundred campers—football players, boys’ and girls’ basketball and soccer players—eating in there every day. The skylights built into the high ceiling seemed to make everything in the room shine.
Now, with the entire student body gathering three times a day for meals, it was quite loud, despite the high ceiling. Even amid the noise, Jason couldn’t help but notice that, although no one had been assigned a seat, there seemed to be very few coed tables and that for the most part players from each different team sat with one another.
“So what happened out there with Ingelsby?” Billy Bob asked as they loaded their trays in the cafeteria line. “Y’all in trouble?”
“Not yet,” Jason answered.
They filled him in on the conversation.
Billy Bob shook his head. “Makes no sense, really,” he said. “They need a quarterback this year, and I know good old Coach Johnson doesn’t like losin’. In fact, my daddy says there’s been talk around the Southeastern Conference that if Brian Daboll gets a job, Coach Johnson might be in line to be the next offensive coordinator at Alabama. If we’re good this season.”
“Why would he leave a job where he has absolute power to be a coordinator and have to work for someone—even if it is Nick Saban?” Tom asked.
“Because the head coach here only gets paid a hundred and fifty grand a year,” Billy Bob said. “The coordinators at Alabama make a million-plus.”
“Coordinators?” Jason said, stunned.
Billy Bob laughed. “You boys just don’t understand the South. “Everyone in the Southeastern Conference gets paid a lot of money.”
They found their table just as the school chaplain was walking to a podium in the front of the room to deliver the premeal blessing. As quietly as they could, they slid into three empty chairs near the back of the room that Tom’s roommate, Anthony, had saved for them.
“Welcome home, ladies and gentlemen,” the chaplain said before starting his blessing.
“If this is home, how do I run away?” Jason whispered to Tom, causing him to snort with laughter.
“Hey, freshmen, you need to shut up and show some respect during the blessing,” some kid hissed at them from across the table.
“Blessing hasn’t started yet,” Tom hissed back.
The hisser didn’t respond because the blessing had gotten under way and he had bowed his head.
“Dear Lord,” prayed the chaplain, “we thank thee for our food today. May we be faithful stewards of thy bounty. Grant us the grace to walk where your son Jesus’s feet have gone…”
Jason wouldn’t bow his head for a prayer mentioning Jesus as the son of God (and he thought praying about someone’s feet was an odd choice for mealtime). Tom didn’t bow his head because he believed that all prayer should be silent and private.
Somehow, the hisser took time out of his own praying to make note that neither of them had bowed his head or murmured an Amen when the chaplain finished. “What’s the matter, you big-city boys don’t believe in God?” he snarled.
Jason started to answer, but Tom put a hand on his arm in an I-got-this gesture.
“How about we all mind our own business?” Tom said.
The hisser glared at Tom but said nothing.
The kid next to him, whom Jason recognized as Ronnie Thompson, one of the other quarterbacks, looked at Tom and said, “Are you Muslim or something? You pray to Allah?”
“I’m not, but if I were, so what?” Tom said. “You pray to whomever you want, and I’ll pray to whomever I want, and we’ll leave it at that.”
“Except you guys don’t pray at all, do you?” the hisser said.
Billy Bob jumped in. “Fellas, I’m a good old boy from Gadsden, Alabama, and I go to church every Sunday and pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, just like you do. But at this school we’ve got folks from all over, and we all”—he glanced at Jason and Tom—“better learn that not everyone’s the same as us. Now can we all just eat? I’m starvin’.”
“I say amen to that,” Tom said.
There was a good deal of glaring in response to that comment, but Anthony reached for the plate of chicken in front of him and the table fell silent as everyone began chowing down.
Amen, Jason thought, to that.