Brittney Loudin
I was in the second semester of my senior year when it happened. If I close my eyes now I can still smell the crisp scent of freshly trimmed grass and the deep musk of hard-earned sweat that never seemed to fade, whether the sport was in season or not. I remember that hot Alabama night so clearly, it replays like a movie in my mind. We were the fashionable subject of gossip, the real talk of the town for months after. Little did I know it would change my life, her life and the perspective of the tiny, rural town forever.
My old teammates and the rest of the student body would tell you differently. Every single one of them would recite his or her own version of the story. Some of their variations would be only partially wrong, simply depicting the major events of the game. Others would narrate complete delusions packed with fabricated details. Regardless of the many different ways the story has been and will be told, only Karen and I know the truth. Only we know what really happened the night a miracle found Southern Crosses High School.
Coach vehemently kicked at the dirt beneath his sneakers and swore into his clenched fist. He knew better than anyone in that stadium that if he didn’t find a perfect replacement and soon, they could kiss the game and their shot at nationals good-bye. It was fourth down and fifteen yards to go until our very own Eagles took the all-state championship. With twenty-one seconds left on the clock, the whole of the spectators were on their feet in the bleachers, gawking with unbelieving eyes as our third wide receiver of the year was hauled off the field by EMTs.
The team had been through hell and back this season but managed to pull off back-to-back wins at the cost of several injured key players. Short four men already and without a quick-footed athlete to run the last play, the team would have no choice but to forfeit.
Standing stationary behind the water cooler, I was the only creature for miles thinking the crazy thought that buzzed between my temples. Any other girl at the school wouldn’t have once considered the same solution, but my passion—my passion for the game and my passion for her—ran deeper than all the prejudice the folks in Belmont possessed.
I scanned the corners of the field until my gaze at last landed on the sight I so desperately needed to see, the cheerleaders. In the forefront of the gaggle was the head cheerleader, Karen Peters. I watched as she repeatedly circled the group of glittered-up girls, barking instructions and words of encouragement to those who needed it.
Karen and I had been secretly dating for four months, and as far as I was concerned, she was the sun, the moon, the stars and the very rock of earth beneath my feet. At the young age of seventeen I knew what true love was. I knew what love felt like and looked like because it brought me to my knees every time I saw my own heart reflected in her eyes.
Everybody and their mother could go on for days talking about young love, summer love and even more so, high school sweethearts, but I was fully convinced that what Karen and I had was a love like no other. We connected so easily I couldn’t actually recall the first time we met. As far back as my memory stretched, Karen was always there. Best friends for years until conventionality was no longer enough and we had to privately venture into more intimate regions of our relationship to satiate our needs.
She understood me on levels that my peers and family never did. We often stayed up nights, sharing our secret thoughts and dreams, fantasizing about packing up and moving out to New York together, leaving everything and everyone else behind. Karen told me she desperately wanted to become a world-famous dancer, something she wouldn’t dare tell her parents, let alone actually do. I divulged the fact that more than anything I wanted to play football in school and then eventually in the NFL. Though my dream was near to impossible, Karen was always a beacon of endless support.
As a matter of fact, it was on one of those days we were babbling on about our hopes and dreams that I asked Karen to marry me. One late afternoon a few weeks prior to the game, we were lying out in her backyard in our swimsuits, chatting away and sipping down pitcher after pitcher of her mama’s sweet iced tea. I lifted up my sunglasses and watched her lie there, sprawled out on an old beach towel, trying to steal a tan from overcast clouds.
“Marry you?” She laughed freely into the breeze. “Baby, in this town?” Her Southern twang rode heavily on the back of her innocent treble voice. “People here wouldn’t let you wear your hat backward if you wanted to. You know I would tie the knot with you in a heartbeat, baby, but that’ll happen the day you win a football game. I’ll tell you that.”
The day I win a game. Though I knew Karen had used football as a simple comparison to make her point, my brain was saturated with her words. I wanted to play so badly. I wanted her so badly.
So when the night of the championship rolled around and the school was in a panic, it was evident to me what I had to do. Nearly paralyzed by the absurdity of my own idea, I forced my feet to shuffle over to the distressed man pacing back and forth on the sideline.
“Coach…” My shaking voice mimicked my trembling hands. “Coach!” Whether he was ignoring my calls or just plumb deep in thought, I couldn’t tell. “Daddy!”
The man whipped around. “What is it, darlin’? I’m tryin’ to run a show here!”
With a hard gulp, I found my words. “Put me in.”
“What?”
“Put me in!” My offer now carried the tone of a demand.
He didn’t smile but his grimace lost some of its potency and I knew under any less stressful circumstances he would have laughed.
“Ericson, get over here,” he shouted to the burly, stocky boy streaming Gatorade into his mouth before turning back to me. “Sweetie, I don’t have time for this! I’m gonna pull Ericson from running back and have him make the catch.”
“Daddy, you know he can’t make it. He’s not fast enough. He doesn’t even know the play that well!”
“I don’t have a choice, honey.”
“Yes, you do. Me. I know it. I know that play better than any of those meatheads. You know I can, you’ve seen me run it a million times.”
To this day I have never seen such desperation in my father’s eyes as I did that night while he stood there staring down at me, silently weighing his longing for the win and his pre-programmed mentality that told him no girl would ever, could ever, be good enough to really play.
Ericson finally trotted over to my side, beads of sweat flying from his forehead. “Yeah, Coach?”
With a gathered brow, my father’s regard hung on me a moment longer and then he turned to the boy. “Get your helmet. Then take your shoulder pads and jersey off and give them to Jane here.”
With confusion, the young man acquiesced.
“Two minutes, kid,” he ordered before spitting in the grass and walking off.
I donned the pads like they were pieces of armor and I was preparing for battle. After slipping the jersey, stained green and brown, over my head, I snatched the oversized helmet from its seat on the bench and made my descent onto the field.
The murmurs of the crowd swelled into a bellowing roar as they slowly recognized my smaller frame jogging toward the nest of bewildered players waiting for Coach’s orders.
I whistled sharply and when I had the team’s undivided attention I signed the code for the play and motioned for them to get into form. Not one boy commented or argued with my self-appointed authority. I’m sure that any other day of the week I would have been blown back by snide remarks and sexist jests, but the energy in the air that night was far too intense for jokes. I had often practiced with the boys during off seasons and my competence wasn’t in question. For one evening our mutual desire put us on the same level. We were one team.
Squatting into our designated positions, we waited for the opposing team to follow suit. The fire building in my gut evaporated all my anxieties. This was it. This was the moment I had envisioned since childhood. With a final glance over at Karen’s concerned face across the field, I shut my eyes and knelt to touch the grass, securing my hunched stance. The stadium was silent apart from the banging sound of my heart floundering about underneath the pads and the nasal wheezing of my accelerated breath.
The call was made and within seconds my feet were a blur under my body as I bolted toward the goalpost. Dashing into the end zone, I twisted my torso back and checked the air. Sure enough, the ball was hurtling right for my head. Kicking hard off the ground, I leapt into the air, throwing my arms as wide as I possibly could. I grabbed the ball, cradling it into my chest as I fell to the dirt.
The referee’s whistle couldn’t be heard over the audience’s cheers. Still grasping the ball for dear life, I stood and saw my teammates pouncing on one another, beating on their chests and howling with excitement. Then it hit me. We won. I had been so overwhelmed by the fact that I was playing in a real game I had forgotten all about the possible outcome.
When I felt arms swing around my neck, I thought they belonged to another player reveling in the victory, but then I saw Karen. Her ear-to-ear smile melted my racing heart. She was beyond elated.
Unable to contain her bliss, she screamed, “Baby, you did it! We won the championship and you did it.” She was literally jumping for joy.
I tossed my helmet on the ground, and in a moment of unadulterated euphoria, grabbed Karen by her waist and picked her up, allowing her to snake her tan, lean legs around my hips. Looking into each other’s eyes, we both knew it wasn’t really me. It was fate.
“The day I win a game, right?” My lips lightly brushed her cheek and my chest heaved from loss of breath. “I do believe you owe me a wedding, ma’am.”
Karen discarded her rattling pom-poms and weaved her fingers through the cropped, damp, clustered hair sticking to my face. “Let’s do it, baby. Jane Adams, let’s leave and I will marry you tonight, tomorrow night or any night you want. I’m yours. I love you, baby.”
“I love you, too.” With that, I kissed Karen hard on her lips, right smack-dab in the middle of the end zone. I didn’t care that all of Belmont was watching. I didn’t care if her daddy would shoot me or hell, if my own daddy would shoot me. If that night proved anything, it was that Karen and I were destined, written in the stars, and we both knew it. It was all we talked about on the flight to New York, graduation night.