I TAKE a deep breath and sit down at the media table. I adjust the microphones and smile at the horde of reporters who are here for the postgame news conference. The press room is always busy these days, packed from end to end with a sea of faces, iPhones and tape recorders, but it’s almost overflowing this evening.
It’s the effect of being undefeated in a tough division, a Cinderella story four years in the making. I remember the days when there were only a handful of journalists who stuck around after the games, six rickety chairs set up in a small cluster to make it look busier than it was.
There’s a different energy when you’re winning, a hot streak you hope to push to the next game, then the next. There’s a buzz, a whisper of electricity, the slow build of something very big, very important on the horizon.
“Nice win, Coach.”
“Shawn, do you have any comments about Darius Wallace’s injury?”
“One at a time, yeah?” I ask the crowd, twisting off the cap of a water bottle and chugging half its contents. I nod at Marcus Monroe, a beat writer I’ve known since college. He’s the only one in the room who stuck around when we were in the dredges of hell, and I always let him ask his questions first. “Go ahead.”
“Darius’ injury,” he starts, and I wait for him to continue. “Have you talked to him? We saw him in the medical tent, then he went to the locker room at the start of the fourth quarter.”
“Yeah, I sat with him for a few minutes after the game. He’s in good spirits. We’ll get an MRI done, but right now it doesn’t look like an ACL tear. When I know a timeline, I’ll share that with you,” I say. Marcus gives me a salute, and I point to a woman sitting in the front row. A notebook balances on her skirt, and there’s a tape recorder in her hand. “Tell me your name?”
She blushes. “Sammie,” she says. “Sammie Stone from The D.C. Sentinel’s digital division.”
“Thanks, Sammie. What do you have for me?”
“You allowed Chase Jones to throw for three touchdowns, and the Raptors’ offense rushed for a hundred and fifty yards. Any adjustments as you get ready for a Thanksgiving showdown against the Minnesota Tornadoes in two weeks?”
“The Raptors played well today,” I say, giving credit where credit is due. “Their offense looked sharp, and their QB has a strong arm. I remember two plays off the top of my head where we should’ve had a sack, but we were slow off the line of scrimmage. We’ll run some drills this week, but I think it comes down to the guys being tired. They’ve been playing hard for three months, and what we’re doing is clearly working. I’m not worried.” I move my attention to the back row where it’s standing room only. I smile at the intern from The Athletic, a kid I met last week who’s going to school for journalism. “Kendall,” I say. “I know you have something to ask.”
“Thanks, Coach.” He turns through his pages of notes. “Sorry, I had it here.”
“No rush. Are you staying in town for Thanksgiving?” I ask.
“Yeah. My parents are local. Hang on, it’s in my other notebook. I’m so sorry.” He digs in his bag, frantic, and I laugh.
“Kendall. Seriously. Take your time. I could tell a joke, but I’m not funny. At least, that’s what my goddaughter tells me. But she’s eighteen. Teenagers aren’t allowed to think anyone is funny, right? It’s part of their creed.”
A laugh rolls through the crowd and I lean back in my chair, pushing my sleeves up my arms. It’s boiling in here, the heat set on high and the maximum occupancy a suggestion, not enforced. A bead of sweat trails down my cheek and I bat it away with the back of my hand before taking another sip of water.
“Found it,” Kendall exclaims, and I smile.
“Good man. The floor is yours.”
“The Titans are 10-0 halfway through November. Five years ago, this same team was on an eight-game losing streak. What do you attribute to the success?” Kendall asks.
“Man, you could’ve just asked me how we got our shit together.” I rock forward and rest my elbows on the table. “I attribute our success to hard work. That’s it. I have fifty-three guys in the locker room who bust their ass every single day, and sixteen men on the practice squad waiting to take their spot. They go all in at practice, on game day, in their personal lives with their diet and sleep schedules. I think it’s the knowledge of being close to something. Of knowing if you work just a little harder, put in a little more effort, it can be yours. It’s going to hurt either way, but it hurts a whole lot less when you have a victory to ease the ache. These guys want to win. I know they’re capable. They know they’re capable, and it’s not an overnight thing. It’s tweaking and fixing and learning and adjusting. Sometimes everything lines up, and magic happens. Right now, everything we touch is magic.”
The room grows quiet. Half the journalists jot down my response in their notebooks, pens on paper and handwritten in short form and abbreviations to go back and review later. The others bend over their laptops and their fingers fly over the keyboards faster than I can think.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out under the table. I unlock the screen, and the background of our team photo from the start of the season is replaced with Lacey’s name.
LACE FACE
Can you stop charming the fine people of the media and come out here so we can get some milkshakes?
Please?
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I huff out a chuckle at the photo of Lacey laying on the concrete floor out in the tunnel, her right arm flung over her head in an obvious state of duress. Her hair looks like a halo around her head, and she’s flicking off the camera with her left hand.
ME
God, please don’t die. I’d have no one to ridicule for ordering a chocolate and orange shake. Life would be sad.
LACE FACE
Too late. I’m withering away. See you on the other side.
A full-on laugh tumbles out of me, and the room turns silent. I look up, and everyone is staring at me. My cheeks flame under their attention, and I tuck my phone away.
“It’s time for me to run,” I say, pushing back in my chair and standing up. “Thanks for coming out to the game today. Get home safe, and we’ll see you all next week.”
There are a few last-minute questions shouted at me, but I tune them out. When I walk out the door, coach mode goes off. It’s a separation—a needed separation—of my professional and personal lives.
No one tells you what the transition is like from player to assistant coach to head coach in a matter of six years. It’s a different world on this side of the field, with microphones and cameras and strategic planning. My first season on the sideline with a headset instead of a helmet, I ran myself into the ground.
I was constantly awake until four in the morning, delirious and drunk on whiskey as I sorted through plays and lineups. I slept around, trying to find an outlet for my stress and the pressure of this new gig, and I thought being in the bed of a model was the answer. I stopped visiting my family, stopped seeing Aiden and Maven, and I only emerged from the dark cloud I lived in on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays.
Fifteen pounds, three months without sleep, and a phone call from my mother yelling at me that she was scared about my health—both physical and mental—later, I decided to go to therapy to get some help on how to balance the new role I had taken on.
I’ve learned ways to prioritize the different parts of my life. I set a hard stop to football talk and shut off my work phone. I don’t read articles about the team unless I’m in my office and on the clock. I give the guys two full days off a week, an unheard of freedom in our grueling sport.
People forget their mental and physical health matters, too.
I take my job seriously. I respect that I’ve been given a gift to do this as a career, but that’s all this is. A career. One that could end any day. Watching guys throw a football back and forth isn’t above the people I care about, and if my friends want to see me, then I’m finished for the day. Everything related to work can wait until tomorrow.
I smile at the athletic trainers as I walk down the hall lined with posters and players’ pictures. I stop to shake hands with the photographer from the Associated Press and ask him to email me any photos he might have snapped of Maven and her friends in the suite, so I can share them with Maggie and Aiden. I’m in such a good fucking mood, like I’m on top of the world. Winning helps that elation, but the other stuff does, too.
Like my goddaughter sprinting to me and throwing her arms around my neck, whispering thank you in my ear. Signing jerseys for all the girls at her birthday party and posing for a photo where they put bunny ears behind my head. Kissing Maggie’s cheek and shaking Aiden’s hand. Laughing as Lacey pretends to fall over when I walk by, acting like she’s worshiping me.
“Our savior,” she says. “We’re not worthy.”
“Get up, you weirdo,” I say. I offer her my hand and she takes it, standing back on two feet. “Did you have a good time in the box?”
“It was incredible. The service was fantastic, and everyone was attentive. People called me Ms. Daniels, and I panicked because that’s my mom.” Lacey chuckles. “Do I look like I’m in my sixties having a midlife crisis?”
I look her up and down, and I appreciate the tight leather pants that hug the muscles on her long legs. The jersey hanging off her shoulders and the jewelry clasped around her neck—a silver heart sits in the hollow of her throat. The earrings dangling from her ears and her pink cheeks, half from the cold and half from screaming at the top of her lungs. I swear sometimes I can hear her yelling from the stands over the roar of the crowd.
“No.” I tap her nose. “You’re too hot to be having a midlife crisis.”
“High praise from Playboy’s Player of the Year.”
“Fucking hell, Lace. Did you do an internet dive of all my accolades?”
“Of course I did. You can’t be friends with the league’s youngest head coach in history and not know about their amateur modeling career. Who cares about your Rookie of the Year award when you were Mr. December in a calendar back when you were in college? The bow was a nice touch,” she says.
“I’m never talking to you again.” I walk away, ignoring her laughter and quick footsteps to chase after me. She jumps on my back and my hands hold under her thighs, carrying her toward the garage and my parked car. I look over my shoulder at Maggie and Aiden. “Did you drive or take the Metro?”
“Drive,” Maggie calls out, and she waves at us. “We’ll meet you there.”
I set Lacey on the ground when we get to my Range Rover, and I open the door to help her safely inside.
“I could’ve ridden with them,” she says. “I know you like to turn your brain off after games.”
I slide into the driver’s side and glance over at her. “How do you know that?” I ask, peeling out of the parking lot and passing the throes of people still exiting the stadium.
“I saw you do it once. You put on your headphones, close your eyes, and listen to classical music.” She pulls her knees to her chest, and her white high-top sneakers rest on the leather seat. “Is it superstitious?”
“No.” I flick on my blinker and change lanes, heading for the diner. I shift in my seat and grip the steering wheel. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out during your research.”
“I was giving you a hard time.” Lacey reaches out and rests her hand on my arm. Her palm is warm against my skin, and I can feel the blood returning to my limbs after hours outside. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t. There was an article published a couple of years ago by—” I take a deep breath. “I dated someone at the tail end of my playing career, and it was serious. Serious enough where she lived with me and came to all my games. I guess I wasn’t moving fast enough for her, and when I didn’t propose to her on our one-year anniversary, she dumped me and aired all my dirty laundry to a tabloid for a hefty chunk of change.”
Lacey gasps. Her hand tightens on my arm, and the press of her fingers is grounding. They keep me calm and relaxed as I tell a story I’ve tried to forget. I’m not sure what compels me to share this with her. I don’t know why the urge to give her every little detail sits on the tip of my tongue, just that I want to. I want her to know this side of me.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says. “Showing intimate parts of the person you dated to the masses is downright mean.”
“Yeah. She always wanted to be in the spotlight, and by releasing some of our text messages and private things about me, she really catapulted her way to stardom.” I laugh, and it’s rough and humorless. “Anyway. The article talks about the panic attacks I sometimes have. Decompressing after games helps get rid of that tension, and for some reason, I gravitate toward classical music as the antidote that calms me down. My grandmother used to play Pachelbel’s Canon all the time on this shitty little stereo she had in the kitchen of her condo, and I started to associate it with being safe.”
Lacey is quiet, but her touch on my arm is unwavering. When she finally talks, her words are soft. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Shawn. What a terrible thing to experience. I can’t imagine trusting someone with such sensitive and vulnerable information, only to have it thrown in your face. I know it might not mean much, but to me, the panic attacks make you a superhero.”
I frown and look over at her. “What do you mean?”
“You have the ability to fight off these thoughts of yours, which isn’t easy. You don’t let the negativity win. And if it does win sometimes, that’s okay. That doesn’t make you less. It makes you more. You’re an incredible human learning to juggle the balance between your mental health and being on the field, and I respect you for it. Thank you for sharing part of yourself with me.”
“Thank you for listening,” I say. I clear my throat and fold my left hand over hers. “Okay, enough of this heavy shit. We have milkshakes to devour.”
“I’ve been waiting for this all day,” Lacey says, and she squeals excitedly. “Want to split a plate of loaded fries?”
“Of course I do. But only if we get extra cheese sauce.”
“Deal.”
We pull into the parking lot of the diner a few minutes later. There’s no sign, no flashing neon lights to announce you’ve arrived. It’s hidden, three left turns off the main road and tucked between a laundromat that’s open twenty-four hours a day and a group fitness studio. Blink and you miss it, which is why I love it so much.
I’m not a football coach with an eighty-million-dollar contract here, but an average guy with his friends, eating greasy food and dunking French fries in my vanilla milkshake. There are no cameras, no interviews, no reporters. I can relax. Take a deep breath and just be, a luxury I so rarely get to enjoy.
Lacey unbuckles her seatbelt. She jumps out of the car and closes the door behind her. I watch as she puts a beanie with a little pom pom on her head and runs her palms up and down her arms, trying to stay warm. She laughs, and her breath cuts into the chilly night air as a puff of white dances from her lips.
Her eyes find mine through the dashboard smudged with handprints and covered in a thin layer of dust. I think there’s a drawing of a dick near the rearview mirror, a gift from one of my players who was trying to be funny.
When she smiles, it’s slow and indulgent. It starts soft, at the edges of her mouth and in the wrinkle of her nose, before tugging upward and splitting her face into a full-fledged grin. She motions for me to get out of the car and follow her inside.
I can’t explain it, but the invitation to join her makes me feel higher than our win did.
