A handful of signs taped to broomsticks and stuck into orange highway cones directed Landon and his father to the Westchester Youth Football League weigh-ins. They could have just as easily followed the crowd of parents and their sons ranging in age from four to fourteen.
People were putting baked goods on the check-in table as if they were making an offering to the gods of football. Landon’s mom had had to work late, so his father set the oatmeal cookies made with honey down beside a plate of brownies. Landon’s father also had the list of things she wanted him to tell the officials, including the doctor’s clearance. Under an overhang outside the middle school gym, they got in line in front of the seventh-grade team check-in table. Landon mostly kept his eyes ahead, but stole secret glances all around and tugged his Browns cap down snug on his head. The man behind the desk wore stylish metal-framed glasses. When he saw Landon he reared back. “Whoa! Heh, heh. Guys, this is the seventh-grade line. Eighth is over there.”
“No,” Landon’s dad said, getting out his checkbook. “He’s in seventh grade.”
The man with glasses turned and nudged the tall man sitting next to him. “Bob, we got a bison here, for sure a Double X.”
“What’s your name?” the man with glasses asked.
“He’s Landon Dorch,” Landon’s father answered for him. “What’s that mean? Double X?”
“Dorch, I got it.” The man with the glasses drew a line through Landon’s name on his list of registrants from the league’s website. “Uh, it means he can only play right tackle on offense and left end on defense. No big deal. A kid his size is a hog anyway, right?”
Landon’s father frowned and he straightened his back. “Hog?”
The man with the glasses laughed in a friendly way. “A lineman. A hog. It’s a good thing. A football term. We love a kid as big as yours. Coach Bell was a hog, right, Coach?” He turned to the man standing at the scale with a clipboard. Beside him was a boy nearly as big as Landon, but harder looking, like a big sack of rocks.
“Yes, and so is my boy.” Coach Bell clapped the big bruiser on the shoulder. “You and Brett will be on the line together.”
“Hi, I’m Brett.” Brett Bell stepped forward without hesitation and gave Landon a firm handshake and a smile. “See you out there.”
Landon watched Brett march off toward the exit before turning toward the coach. Coach Bell was about six feet tall and easily three hundred pounds. He wore a bright green T-shirt, a Bronxville Football cap, and a whistle around his neck.
“Coach Bell was a Division III All-American at Union, and his wife’s little brother plays for the Giants. You know, Jonathan Wagner? He’s the right tackle.” The man with glasses gazed at Coach Bell with respect. “Here, let’s get Landon on that scale, and Mr. Dorch, you’ll need to sign up for at least two volunteer jobs with Bob, but we’d be happy if you took three or four, depending on your work schedule.”
“Let’s get Landon weighed,” Coach Bell said.
“Should I take off my shoes?” Landon asked Coach Bell, awed by the coach’s All-American status and relationship to a real NFL player.
At the sound of Landon’s garbled voice, all three men from the league looked at each other with alarm. The man with the glasses turned to Landon’s dad and spoke in a low voice so that it was hard for Landon to make out what he was saying. But if Landon read his lips right, he said, “Uh, Mr. Dorch. Is your son . . . uh, does he have a problem we should know about?”
Landon’s dad gave Landon a nervous glance, then shook his head at the man with glasses. “Landon has a slight difficulty speaking, but he’s a B-plus student. He has cochlear implants to help him hear, so we’ve got a special helmet on order and a doctor’s clearance for him to play.”
“Wait a minute,” the man said. “I need more than that.”
Standing by the scale, Landon swallowed hard and bit his lip. This wasn’t how he wanted to begin his football career.