Blitzed(31)

"We'll fix it, Whitney," I reply, stroking her hair. "We have plenty of time to fix things. I know it."

She looks like she's about to say something else, but I hear someone holler from the locker room. "Hey, Troy! Coach wants us in for something!"

"Just a minute!" I yell back and look down to Whitney. "Thanks. I promise you, we'll get through this. I love you."

Whitney stands on her tiptoes and grabs my head, kissing me sweetly. Her lips are soft, but there's still something strange about her kiss. It feels like she's saying goodbye, not I love you. "Go," she says after the kiss. "Go and grab your future, and never let go. Don't forget . . . I love you."

I go back to the locker room, feeling partially better, while Coach gives us a pep talk. It's a bit longer than normal. I think Coach is worried about as much as the guys are. After he rambles on a little, I stand up from my locker and take over. "Excuse me, Coach? I'd like to say something."

Coach nods, and I look around at the guys who are my team, my brothers.

"You all know what I've been going through, maybe even more than Coach here. I don't know. What I do know is that when I was hurt, when I was down and vulnerable, you all stood up and carried me on your shoulders. You gave me the strength to keep going, to not fall apart. Well, I'm promising you tonight, I swear on my blood and on my life that I’m going to return that to you. There is a debt, a bond between us that can never really be broken, isn't there? We made it in the July and August sun, running two-a-days until we were nearly puking. We made it against Blueridge, and East Valley, and everyone we've faced. Even against Hartsville, and you don't know how much it hurt me to be sitting watching that, wanting to be out there. Well, now we've got Northern. Fine.

They've been playing together since they were in preschool. Fine.

They ain't lost to us in a decade! Fine.

Tonight, I'm laying it all on the line. Tonight, we lay it all on the line. And tonight, we teach Northern what it means to come to the Fox Den against hungry Foxes. You ready?"

The guys don't cheer. There's none of that false bravado bullshit that fades away before the opening kickoff's done. I just look around and see a set to their eyes, a tightness to their hands, and I nod. "Good. Helmets up. Cory, take 'em out."

It's our final home game of the regular season, so I'm sent out to do the coin flip, and I choose to go by myself, already helmeted. As I walk by the trainer's table, I stop and grab the white athletic tape. "Hey, Tim, you got a Sharpie on you?"

"Yeah," our medic says. "Why?"

"Just need to borrow it for a second," I say. He hands it over, and on the two-inch wide tape I write a big 'WN' on it. I wrap it around my left bicep, closest to my heart, and head out to do the coin flip.

I see it in the Northern captains' eyes as we stare at each other across the gap between us. Northern tried to intimidate us by sending out the entire group of seniors on the offense, including their big fullback. But one look at me, and their swagger dims. "Call the flip, Sounders."

"Heads."

"The coin is tails. Silver Lake, you have the call. What do you want?"

"Defer to the second half. Let them choose their way of defeat."

My words rattle them, I can tell, and after we're done, I turn to go back, giving the Sounders my back first, and go to the sidelines. The band starts up the fight song, and it's show time.

I've never played harder in my life, and we need every bit of my effort. It's not just me, though, as Gabe blasts the line for hard chunks of yardage, and Russ is a Grim Reaper over the deep middle, taking heads off every receiver Northern sends after him. We fight, dig, and claw for every thing we can, and the Silver Lake Foxes respond.

The first quarter ends with both teams knotted at zero, but I can feel it, and looking around at the guys, they feel it too. The Sounders didn't expect to fight this hard. They're ready to buckle. "Thirty-four fire SAM slant," I call in the defensive huddle. There's only a minute left in the second half, and the Sounders are just trying to hang on until halftime. "Let's take it to them."

"Cover two," Russ calls, and we break the huddle. We line up, and I can see it in the Northern QB’s eyes. He's afraid. He's 'hearing footsteps'.

"Black forty-three! Black forty-three! Set! Hut!"

The ball snaps on one, and I charge. A 'fire SAM slant' is a blitz, where I go on one side of the center, while our nose tackle slants to the other side. If it's done right, the center doesn't know who to block, and the guards are also caught off guard too. My going right up the middle means that if I'm quick and powerful enough, I can be past the line and into the backfield before anyone can do a damn thing about it. If the running backs are going out on passes, it's lights out for the quarterback.

This time, I go to my left, the Sounders' right, and while the guard is at least half ready for me, he's not ready for the power I bring. We collide shoulder to shoulder, and he's goes flying backward, blown off his feet. The Northern quarterback sees me coming, though and runs like a scared rabbit, scrambling in the half-second head start the guard gave him.

Right into the arms of our defensive end. Bill strips the ball, and suddenly, it's on the ground. I scoop it up and run for the end zone, with only the big Northern fullback between me and the goal line. He'd been sent out on a swing pass, and he's got depth and pursuit angle on me. Squaring down, I lower my shoulder and nail him, both of us careening, but I refuse to go down, twisting and putting one hand on the ground for balance, my knees never touching the ground. When I reach the end zone, the dam is broken, and we're up, six to nothing.