Blitzed(25)

"Some things are more important than football, son."

I spend the next two hours at Dr. Burrows's clinic, where it takes five stitches to close up the gash above my left eye, and the doctor tells me that I'm lucky I have a skull that's thicker than your average rhino's. After that, Coach takes me home, where the horror show continues as his wife helps me into some fresh clothes.

"All I've got in your size, Troy, is a team shirt, if you don't mind," Mrs. Jackson says. She's a few years older than Coach, and she has an accent that says she's not from Silver Lake Falls, but I've never been able to peg exactly what it is, even after knowing her for four years. It's kind of Southern, kind of New England. "Sorry, but our boy's nowhere near your age, you know."

The Jacksons have a little boy of their own, Gregory, who's in first grade and cute as hell. He and I have played together before, and usually, he's all up in my face, bugging me to mess around with him whenever I come to Coach's house. This time, though, he's not around, and I gather that they sent him to stay the weekend at his grandparents’ house. "It's fine, Mrs. Jackson. Thanks. I'm sorry to be any trouble."

"Oh, Troy, you've never been trouble," Mrs. Jackson says, wiping away the little bit of crusted blood that escaped Dr. Burrows' cleaning. "Difficult, of course. But I've been doing this for nearly twenty years now, and I've come to know that high school boys are often difficult. But you've never been trouble, Troy."

She leaves me alone to change, and I pull on the shirt and a pair of team shorts, hissing as I have to bend my knees to get my feet through the holes. I'm going to be stiff, and there's practice tomorrow. Shit.

I get out to the living room, where Coach and his wife watch with careful eyes as I walk across to the kitchen table and sit down. "Thank you. I guess I screwed up, didn't I?"

Coach shakes his head, and Mrs. Jackson leaves to go into the kitchen, opening the fridge. "Troy, you're not going to blame yourself, got it?" He says, his eyes burning with intensity. "What Randy did . . . there's bad parenting, and then there's damn evil. What he did to you this morning . . . that was evil. You have nothing to be ashamed of or to blame yourself for."

His words fall on my ears like lightning bolts, and I'm trying not to cry as Mrs. Jackson brings me a glass of milk. "But it's not all bad, Troy. Actually, Steve was looking for you at your house. You'd just left a little early. He’s got some wonderful news for you."

"What's that?" I ask, sipping the milk. It's cold and delicious, and it helps. I chug the rest, and I realize it's been days since I had milk, since school lunch on Friday had unsweetened tea instead. "Hartsville's running back broke his leg?"

"No, but you don't need to worry about that for now," Coach said. "I got a call from Los Angeles today. I don't know if you knew it, but there were some scouts from the Pacific Conference at Homecoming last week."

"I met one, but I didn't think much of it. I was, well, distracted by other things."

He nods, and Mrs. Jackson takes my glass, going back to the fridge before coming back with it and the rest of the half-gallon container. "Here. We can buy all you want later."

"Thank you. So what was the call, Coach?"

"Well, they can't offer it officially until Friday afternoon, you know, but the head coach of Clement University wants to offer you a full-ride scholarship to play for them next year."

I’m floored, and I have to set the milk glass down on the table before I drop it. "What? What about State?"

He sobers and shakes his head. "Nothing yet from State, but if you want my opinion, I think Clement's a better fit for you anyway. I was meaning to have this conversation with you after the season, but this is as good a time as any, and with the scholarship offers coming in soon, we need to talk. Troy, you're a hell of a high school quarterback, but you're a runner. You can pass, but our lack of passing isn't all on the receivers. You don't have that natural ability to drop back and accept that the defensive linemen are coming to try and hit you like a great QB should. A QB like Manning, Brady, guys like that, they don't engage the linemen. They avoid them with tiny little steps and get the ball off even if it means they take a lick right afterward. It's part of their nature, and coupled with their arm strength, it makes them great QBs. You're a naturally combative guy, and despite four years of coaching from me, you're still naturally combative."

"I like the contact," I admit, "but that's a good thing, right?"

"For a linebacker, yes. For a quarterback, not so much," Coach says. “Did you know that about a third of all the guys in the NFL, almost all of the skill players, they played quarterback in high school? You know why? Because coaches like me know the best chance they have to win is to put the ball in the hands of their best athlete as often as possible. I'm both cursed and lucky in that our school is small enough I can play you both ways without getting a ton of flack from the boosters. You're a good enough natural athlete that even when you're tired or a little beat up, you're better than ninety-nine percent of the kids we face. But at the college level, everyone is like that, and the pros are the best of the best of the college players."

"So what are you saying? That I shouldn't play quarterback?"