The Hard Count(5)

I’m going to capture it all.

My camera began rolling seconds before my dad started the speech. In the sixty-year history of our school, nobody has ever documented the legacy of the Tiger Football Tradition. We don’t call it a team, because teams are too fluid, rife with change. We’re a tradition, one that once you’re initiated into you have with you forever.

“This tradition is about your brothers,” my dad says, his voice echoing off the concrete walls and floor. I stand, recognizing this part of the speech. I want to make sure my cameras are in the right position—one framing my father’s face, the other in my hands to see the reaction of the boys who believe in him.

“Brothers,” he continues, “are lifelong. And though you take that field tonight, you have also taken that field before, just as you will tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. That field is your home—your battlefield—and those other men are intruders. They don’t respect it. They’re trespassing—unwanted guests.”

I check my arm and smile to myself when I see the small bumps resulting from chills. With my handheld steadied on my raised knee, my foot braced against the wall, I scan the room and capture those faces that look like they feel exactly as I do. My brother Noah is up front, rocking his weight from one foot to the other as he stands at attention. His hands grip at his shoulder pads around his neck, and his lips mutter along with the words he too knows by heart. His eyes crease, accented by the deep black lines smeared underneath.

Slowly, I pan down the row of familiar faces, and they’re all rapt in the same way, their expression that of belief, of possibility. My brother’s best friend, Travis, has his eyes closed for prayers to God, but in between he whispers the speech along with everyone else.

“They think they’re better than you,” my father says, mouths follow, pausing to let those words sink in.

The room pops with shaking heads and shuffling feet. Some of the guys respond with “no sir” and “hell no.”

“We know they’re not,” my father shouts.

The room erupts in a deep round of voices that all chant, “Hoorah!”

“They think they’ve worked harder than you,” my father says, his voice even louder.

Heads shake, and some of the guys chuckle, rubbing sore arms and bloodied and bandaged body parts that do not hurt in this moment, but rather remind them of what they went through to get here.

“I can assure you they didn’t,” my father says. Again, the room chants, “Hoorah!”

I hold my breath because this next part, more than anything that led up to it, is what I’ve been waiting for. I check the camera, my father still centered in my frame and his face as serious as I’ve ever seen it. Our team has won the first two games of the year, but he knows that two is not ten. A loss, at this point, will be unforgiveable.

“What’s that word on your backs?” His question echoes, and the answer is swift.

“Honor, sir!” they all shout in unison. They always do. It’s more than memorization, and it’s always made me sit in awe of how it all plays out.

“Honor! That’s right. There are no individuals in here. We all have one name. It isn’t the mascot. It isn’t your nickname or some fad that will be forgotten the second the yearbook is printed. It’s a word that means heart, that means drive and ambition, that means giving your all and leaving the best of every goddamned thing you’ve got out there on that field. Turn to your right!”

They all do, seated in a circle on the benches, looking at the helmets and heads of their teammates. My dad should have been a preacher, or perhaps a general. He was born to stand before boys and make them believe that for two and a half hours, they are men.

“Turn to your left!”

All heads shift, the sound swift, but mouths quiet.

“Honor. Brotherhood. Tradition.” He pauses, his team still sitting with heads angled and eyes wide on the dark blue sheen of the helmets and sweat-drenched heads next to them.

“Again…” he says, and this time they say it with him.

“Honor. Brotherhood. Tradition.”

“Whose house is this?” my father asks, quiet and waiting for a roar.

“Our house!”

“Whose house is this?” He’s louder now.

“Our house!”

“Whose house…” My dad’s face is red and his voice is hoarse by the time he shouts the question painted above the door that the Cornwall Tradition runs through to the field. The final chant back is loud enough that it can be heard through the cinderblock walls. I know, because last week, I filmed the speech from outside.

With chests full, egos inflated, voices primed and muscles ready for abuse, this packed room of fifty—the number that always takes the field, even though less than half of them will play—stands, each putting a hand on the back of everyone in front of them. Everyone does this except for my brother, because he’s in front.

I sprint with my camera to the front, kneeling low and turning my focus onto my brother’s loud, clapping hands—the chalk dusting from them and the tape around his wrists tight against his skin, circulation choked just enough so pain is little and blood flow is maximized to his throwing arm. He’s chanting—“honor…win.”

They all chant with him, and without a sign, they know when it’s time. The run through the tunnel is swift and loud, like inept thieves bursting through glass windows, and the thunderous sound of this year’s Tiger squad is undeniable. Heads turn at the edge of the bleachers, watching the line rush over the track and into the end zone, through satin banners held by beautiful girls who dream of one of these boys taking them away when our time here is all done.