Down in the corner of their end zone, the Bronxville team sat flopped down in a small cluster around their coach and his brother-in-law, wheezing to catch their breaths between mouthfuls of orange slices.
“You guys can do this!” Jonathan Wagner pounded a fist into his hand and paced like a caged panther.
“Catch your breaths, guys,” Coach Bell said. “Get some Gatorade and let’s talk about what’s going on. Linemen, you’ve gotta cut those guys on the back side. You don’t have to block them, but you’ve gotta cut their legs out to keep ’em from busting clean into our backfield. Can you do that?”
The offensive line nodded fiercely. Coach Bell and Jonathan Wagner huddled up, just the two of them while the players gasped for breath. The coaches exchanged heated ideas before they nodded together and turned to the team.
The high school band finished their halftime show and filed past, grinning and snickering like fools at the sight of the exhausted kids.
“Okay, listen up!” Coach Bell barked. “We gotta have someone else play quarterback. We gotta try. Anyone, Gunner, Torin, I don’t care, but we gotta get Brett back on the line or we don’t stand a chance. Someone has to be able to take a snap and hand it off to Layne. Someone . . .”
Coach Bell and Jonathan Wagner looked around, expecting a reply.
Behind them, someone jostled the line of band members and finally pushed through to say, “I’ve got a quarterback for you, Coach.”