Week Four,
Friday Night

Chapter Thirteen: Luke

Normally, Friday night is like every other night of the week for me: washing one of Dad's cars that he recently bought or doing some other car-related chore like vacuuming the insides, eating dinner with Mom since Dad's at work, doing homework, and then watching some sport on TV. Mom and Dad have never bothered giving me a curfew because I don't have anywhere to go. But Allen invited me to go to the home football game with him because his older brother Russell was taking him. Russell teaches at another district school and has coached all kinds of sports, including the baseball team that Allen and I were on last year. I don't care anything about watching high school football, but the real reason I came was that Allen invited me to spend the night at his house, so that Russell could take us fishing early the next morning. Allen said that Russell knew about this farm pond that was just full of big largemouth bass.

When we were walking to the stands to get a seat, we saw Elly, Paige, and Mary heading the same way. Allen has been telling me that he has been sort of hinting around with Paige about asking her out for a date, but he hasn't been able to get a read on how interested she might be. I told him not to expect any help from me on how to go about figuring out how interested Paige is. Who knows what girls mean when they do the things they do. so the five of us stopped to talk while Russell went on up into the stands to find us seats.

Well, I should say four of us stopped to talk. I took one look at Elly, and she smiled at me, said something about something I don't remember what, and then my stomach and nerves started fighting with each other, and the next thing I heard was Allen saying that we had better go find our seat. Did I even say anything to Elly? Allen told me later that he should have invited the girls to sit with us, but who can think of such things when the pressure is on. He's a lot smoother with girls than I am, but he's got a ways to go. Inviting the girls to sit with us would never have occurred to me. But it sure would have been great to have sat next to Elly and gotten to know her better. I don't know what I would have said to her, though. Maybe she would have done all the talking. Girls are good at doing most of the talking, I know that much.

While we were waiting for the game to begin, Russell asked me if I was going to try out in the spring for the high school baseball team. I told him no, that I was done with baseball. To my absolute shock, he told me I could make the team, though I would probably never be a starter all four years. I wouldn't mind riding the pines, just getting to play in practice would be enough for me. Then I asked him why he thought I could make the team, given my .185 batting average last year.

"Why do you think you batted leadoff," he said. "Your on-base percentage was probably close to .500 with all your walks and getting hit by a pitch. After you got on, you almost always stole second right away."

Russell said that I could really help the team as a pinch runner and pinch hitter, though I would very likely not get on base as much from walks or being hit since the pitchers' control would be better at the high school level. Then he said something that surprised me and made me feel really proud...that I was a good teammate and he could tell that I really studied what was going on and tried to get better.

Russell was full of surprises all night. Later, part-way through the third quarter, after Caleb and Marcus had hooked up for two long touchdown bombs, and the school was up 1410, Russell asked Allen if Caleb and Marcus ever talked about playing college football. Allen said all the time, and Russell replied that he thought that they might could play D-I ball, but definitely D-II. Allen then got into an argument with his older brother and said both guys were aiming for the NFL. Russell guffawed (that's a vocabulary word meaning loud laughing) so hard that I thought he was going to have a coughing fit.

Do you realize how many high school football players, said Russell, are out there playing right now? Do you realize how many of them think they are going to be pros, do you realize what the odds are of making the NFL? Thousands and thousands to one. Allen kept arguing and said that both players were way above average, that they were high school superstars.

Russell said right back that both of them have some serious flaws. As a quarterback, Caleb has no touch, no feel for the ball or the game. He's got a very good arm, but all he wants to do is throw the long pass, that when he needs to hit Marcus or somebody else across the middle, he relies on arm strength instead of touch. The result is a ball that often comes in too fast to the receiver, or either too high or too low or behind the player, said Russell.

If all Caleb needs to do to complete the pass is dump it off to a back coming out the backfield, he zips it into too fast even when the guy is wide open or hesitates when he should just throw a touch pass. Russell really lit into Caleb for his attitude toward his offensive linemen. All three times that Caleb was sacked, we could see him yelling like forever at his linesmen when he should have been getting ready for the next play. Just as bad, said Russell, was Caleb later began to get happy feet when he was under pressure...throwing the ball too soon before the receiver had run his complete route.

Next, Russell starting criticizing Marcus as being too soft, that Russell had recognized a definite tendency for Marcus to hesitate when he was called to run his routes across the middle—that he was afraid of getting hit. That Marcus also didn't understand how to use his height and size to get in between a player and the ball and that when Marcus was not the hot receiver on a play that he had a tendency to half run his routes. Marcus is pretty good at catching the long ball and he has very good speed, said Russell, which should make him a lock for II, possibly I. Caleb should be able to make a II squad somewhere, said Russell.

The real test, the real crisis for Caleb and Marcus, said Russell, would be how they reacted when the bitter truth hit them...when they finally realized as juniors or seniors that their NFL dreams were hopeless. Would they be men enough to understand that life goes on after high school, especially if it's a life different from what they thought it was going to be? We won the game 28-21 to make us 4-0 for the season, but Russell said just wait until the team played its last two games on the road...that the team was going to get stomped.