Every inhale filled me with another rush of adrenaline, the buzz of it intoxicating as we all took a knee on the field, Coach in the center of the group, his sunglasses firmly in place and jaw set. One by one, players jogged down from the other side of the field or out from the locker room and joined the group, one hundred and five of them, to be exact.
And only eighty-five would remain at the end.
In my mind, there was no scenario in which I wasn’t one of them. I’d prepared my entire life for this moment — and truthfully, I didn’t even see it as that big of a deal. Sure, it was a change. There was more talent in that team than I’d played with or against my entire career as a player. But since my parents thrust a football into my hands at the age of three and put me on a peewee team, I knew I’d be here.
And I also knew it was only a steppingstone to the National Football League.
Still, I was alive with the promise that the familiar fall scent brought me, the promise that soon, I’d be jogging out onto the field in pads and playing the game that fueled my soul.
Football wasn’t just a part of my life.
It was my life.
And fall camp at North Boston University was the beginning of my next chapter in the game.
“Welcome to camp,” Coach Sanders said simply, sniffing and tucking his tablet under his arm as he addressed the team. “I’ll slash your expectations now and tell you that I don’t have some grand speech planned to inspire you today. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re inspired. Today, and for the next month, you’re here to prove to me that you understand your job, and that you can get it done.”
A smile curved on my lips, excitement thundering in my chest.
“I want to be clear about one thing: I will show no mercy in these coming weeks. New policies may prevent me from having you for two-a-days like I’d prefer, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be utilizing every second of every day. Practice, weights, speed, tape, meetings,” he said, counting each item on a new fingertip. “You’ll be lucky to have enough time to eat and shit before you’re expected to be somewhere else.”
A few of my potential teammates laughed, but I knew Coach was dead ass serious. I was still friends with the guys who graduated ahead of me, the guys who played college ball now. They weren’t shy with their sentiment of how tough camp was, and they weren’t even at D-1 schools like NBU.
Their stories of how grueling camp could be should have scared me, but it was what I was most excited for.
For the next month, it didn’t matter that I had a learning disorder, that reading and comprehending was difficult for me on most days and impossible on others. I wasn’t expected to be in class or doing homework or doing anything other than eating, sleeping, and breathing football.
It was my time to shine.
On the other side of Coach, my eyes caught on Riley as she tightened her ponytail, her eyes focused, lips in a taut line. She held her shoulders back, chest puffed, determination etched in every feature.
I’d admit that when I pictured my future college career, I hoped and prayed that somehow, me and her brother Gavin would make it to the same university. Hell, I even joked that we’d end up on the same team in the NFL, too.
Never in a million years would I have imagined Riley in his place.
And not because she couldn’t be there, or because we didn’t try to convince her even as kids that she should play football. But because she’d always insisted she couldn’t play because she was a girl, that soccer was her equivalent — even though Gav and I both knew that was bullshit.
She loved football, plain and simple. Always had.
But even still, I knew she wasn’t here for herself.
She was here for her brother.
My chest ached as a flash of the accident assaulted me.
The smoke, the smell of metal and blood, the ringing of my ears, Gavin’s face twisted in pain…
All of it was just as fresh in my memory as what I had for breakfast. The guilt that had plagued me since then was dulled now, but it still pulsed under my skin, a constant reminder that it was my fault his dreams were obliterated.
He never saw it that way, of course, because Gavin Novo was maybe the best human being to ever exist. When he got his diagnosis — that he was paralyzed from the waist down — he turned away from devastation and focused on how he could make the most of his situation and inspire others to do the same.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have his moments of grief, especially when he first moved back home and had to acclimate to his new life. He got angry. He threw shit and cried and screamed at me, at himself, at God and the universe, too.
But he always leveled out, always came back to what he grasped onto more than anything: gratitude.
That was just who he was, who he’d always been, and I marveled at his mindset. Because I knew had it been me in that chair, I would have given up.
I wouldn’t be here.
And that was just one example of how he was a better man than I would ever be.
When Gavin told me what he’d asked of Riley, for her to play football in his honor, I thought it was a coping mechanism, a way for the two of them to grapple with the new reality we’d all found ourselves in.
But Riley didn’t make that promise with the intention of just appeasing her brother.
She made a promise she would die before breaking.
I watched her defeat every odd over the last two years, going from a central midfielder on our girls’ soccer team to the starting kicker for our football team in one summer. And I didn’t care what anyone said — she didn’t get that position because of what happened to Gavin, or because she was a girl in a world trying to make up for a fucked-up patriarchal system.
She earned it.
She was the best kicker I’d ever played with.
It was hard enough to keep my cool when the guys we went to high school with gave her shit, but already, I knew college would be an entirely different game. Most of these guys were more mature, and they showed her respect. But there were still many who doubted her, who didn’t want her here.
And worse — there were just as many who wanted to fuck her.
Those were the bastards who made my blood boil most, the ones who didn’t think I noticed in summer training when they’d bite their knuckles when she walked by them on her way from the showers, or when they’d make crude gestures behind her back and high-five each other like they actually had a chance with her.
That, at least, I knew I didn’t have to worry about. Because just like me, Riley was focused on one thing and one thing only.
Football.
Still, she had it cut out for her being in a collegiate, male-dominated sport. It wouldn’t be easy — and the fact that she had only gotten hotter over the last couple of years unfortunately didn’t help her.
Her long, thick, chestnut hair was the kind every man wanted to get his hands tangled in, and she had a natural, almost masculine beauty about her, a beauty that she — thankfully — never highlighted with makeup. But she didn’t have to. She glowed, like a summer sun, bright and magnetic and impossible to ignore.
I didn’t care if she hated me. In fact, I was glad she did.
It made it easier to keep my focus on protecting her and off the temptation to claim her for my own.
Coach spat through his teeth, nodding as he looked around at each of the players. “I know I don’t have to tell any of you this, but we’re a team on the precipice.”
A few of the other coaches nodded in agreement, their arms folded over their chests as they took in their old players and assessed the ones new to the team.
“We’ve been gaining momentum for years now, and last year, the nation took notice of how far we’ve come. We’re not the team they thought they knew — not anymore.” He paused. “That being said, we lost a lot of talent in our senior class last season.”
“Let’s go Jags!” someone yelled, and a few other players hollered out their support for their old running back, Lou Stevensen, who was selected in the first round of the draft.
Coach cracked the tiniest smile, but it vanished quickly. “Talent,” he continued. “That now needs to be filled.”
Silence fell over the group once more.
“I know some of you are hungry, ready for your chance to play after riding the bench for part or all of last season. But I will also tell you, this is our strongest recruiting class we’ve had yet. So, let me make one thing clear.” He held up a finger. “No one here has a job except for me. This is a competition, and nothing is promised.”
I watched as smile after smile slipped off players’ faces, nerves evident in their stature. Even Holden Moore, who was without a doubt a shoe in for QB1, looked humbled by the statement.
But one glance at Riley, at the way her eyebrow arched and the corner of her lips tilted, I knew she and I were in agreement.
We would not be on that bench come September.
“Alright,” Coach said, clapping his hands. “Let’s get to work.”
