Jessup doesn’t argue with any of what Diggins says. It’s true. He doesn’t talk much in groups, doesn’t talk more than he needs to in class. Gives answers but keeps them short. He keeps to himself too much. He knows that. He isn’t a follower, but he isn’t a leader either. He’s just Jessup. But it gets under his skin that he isn’t a captain. Plus, the college coaches recruiting him—mostly starting this year—have asked why he isn’t in a leadership role. How come the best defensive player on the field, the best player on the team, doesn’t go out to call the coin flip?
What’s Jessup supposed to say to the college coaches? That Diggins is black and there’s no way he’s going to pick Jessup to be a captain? That Diggins has never brought up Jessup’s brother and stepfather or their church, has always acted like none of it matters, but of course it matters?
Diggins is a big man, but not as big as Jessup would have expected for somebody who played in the NFL. Though Coach is quick to point out that he was on the bubble for all eight years he played pro. “The only reason I stayed in the league as long as I did was because I was smart,” he likes to say. “I couldn’t make myself any faster, but I could learn the game and see it faster. All the same”—and with this he’d always grin—“best player or worst player on the team, you all get a ring.” National championship his junior year in college at Alabama, when he was one of the better players on the team, and Super Bowl ring his last year in the pros, when he didn’t take a snap until his team was already up four touchdowns. He’s a good coach, even a great coach at the high school level, but he’s not a lightning-and-thunder guy. He rarely raises his voice except to be heard. Work hard, do your job, understand the game better than the boy across the line from you.
Jessup watches Diggins shake hands with the ref and then trot over to the sideline and up to where the fence separates the bleachers from the field. His wife, Melissa, leans over for a kiss. Diggins is born and raised Mississippi, played college in Alabama, and bounced around in the pros. He met Melissa while he was playing in San Francisco. Coach is late forties, Mrs. Diggins a couple of years younger but looks midthirties. She’s a California girl: white and blond and an athletic kind of skinny, like her job is to work out, except that her actual job is doing something up at Cortaca University. Jessup doesn’t know what, except that she’s the reason the Diggins family moved here, the reason why Coach Diggins was willing to try to turn around Cortaca High’s football team.
At least that’s what Deanne says. Deanne is a junior and Coach Diggins and Mrs. Diggins’s daughter. Coach is dark and Mrs. Diggins isn’t, and Deanne is a mix of the two of them. She gets mad at him when he compares her skin to food, says he’s exoticizing her, but it’s become a joke between the two of them. At least he thinks it’s a joke. They’ve been dating for four months. Jessup worked at the golf course doing grounds six days a week over the summer, worked at the movie theater six nights. Gave up the golf course when football started but still works at the cinema, Saturdays and some Sundays after film study at Coach’s house. Needs the money. Deanne worked at the movie theater over the summer and has kept it up during the school year, Saturdays and some Sundays, too, schedules in sync. They’d met before that, but they’d never spent real time together. He’s still not exactly sure how they started dating. In any case, they’ve kept it discreet. Deanne’s told her friends, and word has gotten around at school. Jessup’s quiet, but he’s not low profile. And Deanne’s black. That means something with his family history. Mrs. Diggins knows they’re dating, but he’s pretty sure Coach doesn’t know. If he does, he hasn’t let on to Jessup.
He watches Deanne lean over the fence, too, kiss her dad on the cheek, and then straighten up. She looks at him and gives him something approximating a smile. They’re going to meet up later, at the party, the two of them planning to sneak off and park somewhere. They slept together for the first time about two weeks ago, and he thinks he might love her, but that’s something else Jessup shouldn’t be thinking about right now.
Behind Mrs. Diggins and Deanne, two rows up, he sees an assistant coach from Syracuse University. This is the second game he’s been to, and a scholarship offer is forthcoming. That’s what Jessup has heard. He’s not good enough for big-time football schools, but he’s good enough to get offers from the bottom-feeding Division I schools. More important, his grades combined with his play on the field means the Ivies have started calling. An assistant coach from Brown University is at tonight’s game, and Yale and Princeton have both been recruiting him. If he didn’t play football, he’d be unsure about getting into Ivy League schools on his own merits, but he does play football, so the Ivy League coaches are salivating. His grades and SAT scores are high enough that he’s an easy sell to administrators. The Ivies don’t offer athletic scholarships, but he’s poor as shit, so they’ll give him a full ride. His mom wants him to stay home and play for Cortaca University—though she’d be okay with Syracuse, only an hour away, if that comes through, or the University at Buffalo, which offered already, too—but Jessup wants to put some miles between himself and Cortaca.
He knows the Cortaca University coach thinks he’s in the bag, and he’s pretty sure Syracuse feels the same way. Local kid? Why wouldn’t he want to stay? But that’s just it. He doesn’t want to stay. He wants to get as far away from Cortaca as he can, and he wants to make sure he never has to come back. He hasn’t said this out loud yet. His mom doesn’t know he applied early decision to Yale. He’ll hear at the beginning of December. If that doesn’t work out, he’s got applications out to Dartmouth, Brown, and Princeton, and just last week he got a scholarship offer from Duke. Bye-bye, upstate New York.
He takes another quick scan of the stands. His mom usually sits right in the middle, up high, her back against the fence, but there’s a group of kids from the high school already there.
He doesn’t see her, but they haven’t kicked off yet. She texted him and said that the pickup at the prison went fine and that she’d be at the game. He’s not worried. She’s always there. She works days as a cleaning lady and a few nights a week at Target on the register, but she’s always been clear with her manager that if she has to choose between taking a shift on a Friday night and losing her job, well, in a town like Cortaca, there are plenty of places she can work part time making a dollar and fifty cents an hour more than minimum wage.