The pass sailed over everyone’s heads and bounced harmlessly against the turf, rolling into the endzone before coming to a stop. Coach McCoy stared at the ball as if he wasn’t sure he’d seen what had actually happened. He scratched his forehead and turned back to Danny.
“Kid, you’re nervous. It’s practice. Spring practice at that. Ain’t nobody gonna hit you. I need you to settle in and hit these throws,” the coach said.
“Or give all these reps to Freddie who can actually hit water from a boat,” Caesar said under his breath.
The former JV quarterback, who hadn’t actually transferred as the rumors had foretold, looked up. And if Freddie heard Caesar’s quip then Coach McCoy had as well.
The Texan pivoted toward Caesar. “You don’t ever shut your mouth, do you? I don’t know if you know how this works, but you’re a receiver. And receivers need someone to throw them the ball. Danny is going to be the guy throwing you the ball so I suggest you stop flapping your gums so damn much.”
The rest of the receivers shifted nervously at the thought of the rising sophomore being the starter at quarterback. All except Jurgen who didn’t know a good quarterback from a bad one. Danny had missed most of his throws that practice, and the one before that.
But McCoy persisted with the guy that he’d seemingly already settled on.
“Let’s just keep everything simple then. Everything doesn’t need to be a 50-yard bomb, right?” McCoy said, smacking Danny on his back. “Jurgen, give him a slant and catch it with your hands instead of your chest this time.”
Jurgen glanced at Caesar as he walked to the yard line that Danny was standing on. Caesar held up three fingers – the number of steps he was to take before cutting.
Coach McCoy noticed the exchange between the two receivers, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he brought his whistle to his mouth and blew it. Jurgen ran the route, correctly, and easily caught the short pass from Danny.
McCoy clapped and nodded his head. “Good, good. But next time, make sure you keep all your cleats in the ground. Let’s do that again.”
They went through more routes of increasing distance. Danny was fine hitting the short routes. He was decent hitting the medium routes. He was hit or miss on the deep routes. But he overthrew every, single pass to Caesar.
On the last rep, Caesar stopped running when he saw the ball would fly over his head. He whistled as he bounced ten yards away from him. He walked back to the group.
McCoy looked at him and waved his head. “Go ahead. You know you have something to say so get it out so we can all get on with our lives.”
“You won’t hear a peep from me, coach,” Caesar said, holding his hands up. “I just need to grow another three feet overnight so I can start reeling those in.”
“You want to coach the team, Jenkins? You seem to think you have all the answers.”
“All yours, coach.”
McCoy nodded. “You’re right on that one thing. But I feel like your mouth is doing more running than your feet so why don’t you go run a few stadiums?”
Caesar threw his hands up. “Really? For that?”
Coach McCoy said nothing to Caesar, but turned his back to him and started instructing Danny on what needed to be done for him to hit throws deeper down the field.
Caesar snapped off his chin strap and walked toward the bleachers to begin running for the umpteenth time as punishment from Terrebonne’s new coach.
…
“I don’t get all this stuff you have on here,” Jurgen said as he held up the playbook for Caesar to see what he was talking about.
Caesar pointed to the gibberish he’d written on the page. “That’s a ‘must’ outside release. You’re just dragging the guy away from the play. If you are inside of the corner, he’ll be able to cover you and the out. And that’s a pick six all day with Danny’s ass at quarterback.”
The two of the them looked over to Danny, only a few lockers down. The freshman seemed to be pretending that he hadn’t heard them as he shoved his things into his bag. The force with which he was placing the items in the bag, though, gave him away.
“And this?” Jurgen asked, pointing to another diagram.
He squinted and took the playbook from Jurgen. He laughed when he realized what he had written. “That’s some girl’s social shit. I don’t think I’m going to do anything with that though. You can hit her up if you want.”
“I don’t know her, though.”
“It won’t matter. Just shoot her a message. I think her name’s Lauren or something. If she was trying to get at me, then she’s for everybody.”
“For everybody?”
Danny shoved past them on the way of the locker room, but Caesar called after him. Danny turned around.
“Man, why don’t you do us all a favor and go play tennis before the summer so we have time to get a real quarterback back there?” Caesar asked. A few of the other players within earshot looked around, glancing between Caesar and Danny.
The young quarterback only shook his head and left the locker room.
-*****-
“I feel bad for that lil’ nigga, man. McCoy throwin’ him in with the sharks out there. He should be tryin’ to give the job to one of the upperclassmen,” Hasan said. He and Devin were walking to the parking lot, destined for another night at work. Danny walked a few dozen feet in front of them. They were fairly certain he lived near the school somewhere.“If coach thinks that he’s the one who is going to give the team the best chance to win in the fall, then who am I to say that he’s doing the wrong thing? Maybe he sees something in Danny that we’re all missing.”
“He never talks. How you gonna be a quarterback that never opens his mouth? We gonna be in the huddle lookin’ at him and he’s just gonna be up there mute like one of them mines.”
“Don’t you mean a mime?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You said mine. Like the things you step on that blow your legs off, not the people with white face paint that are annoying.”
“I said mine, nigga. I don’t know why you always gotta make shit so difficult.”
Devin held his hand up. “Alright, man. Mine it is. I hope the EOD comes out soon to deal with them. I really don’t think the guy is going to freeze up in the huddle though. It’s not like he’s never played a game of football before.”
“He ain’t never played varsity high school ball. If we gotta go down to South Lafourche again next year, you think he’s going to make it out of there alive? Shit most of us almost ain’t make it out of there alive last year.”
“I say give the kid a chance. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“A 0-10 season.”
Devin shrugged. “It’s high school football. There are worse things that can happen in the world than losing every game.”
“You need to go get checked. Who the fuck alright with losing every game?”
The two of them let the conversation drop at that point. They came upon Ron sitting on the wheel stop in front of his car. Their old quarterback looked when they got near enough to him.
“How’s it going, fellas? Still surviving the new regime?” Ron asked.
“Somethin’ like that,” Hasan said. And he kept walking toward Devin’s car.
“Hey, Devin. Let me run something by you real quick.” Ron stood up, brushing gravel from his pants and wiping it off his hands.
Devin stopped, setting his bag down. He held up a single finger to Hasan when he turned around and noticed that Devin wasn’t following him.
“Have you cut your list down yet?” Ron asked.
Devin shook his head. “I don’t even have a list. I couldn’t tell anyone who is or isn’t in my top three or five or whatever. I figured I’d decide on that after the season. When I have time to think about all of that, you know?”
“I hate to break it to you, man, but that’s way too late to start thinking about where you’re going to commit. You need to know where you are going and when you are going long before the early signing period. Schools want to know who they have coming in before the new year in case they need to make some late runs at guys.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“I’m going to be honest with you,” Ron said, looking over his shoulder at Hasan who was leaning against Devin’s car. “Coach Griffin up at TCU is trying to get a pipeline into New Orleans. Sees Houma as the way in because it’s close but not heavily recruited by the big boys. He knows Caesar’s going to Oklahoma State so you’re the next man on the list.”
“Doesn’t TCU have three freshman corners?”
“Ah, ah, ah! I thought you didn’t do on any research on these schools. Doesn’t mean anything if you’re the best man for the job.”
“They haven’t sent me anything, called, emailed. Nothing like that.”
“It’s coming. You just need to give it some thought. We’re going to win a National Championship or two so it’ll be a grand ol’ time. Call it a hunch,” Ron said, shrugging. “They’re probably going to be at that game in Shreveport, since Euless is in their zone. Make sure you put on a show and you might get the keys to a castle.”
Ron patted Devin on the shoulder and walked away, shouting at Caesar who’d just walked into the parking lot with Jurgen, Bentley and Anthony.
Devin headed for his car, reaching for his keys.
“Hurry up, nigga. We gonna be late and Ralph been on our ass about that shit like he don’t know we play football or some shit.”
“You’re turning into a company man,” Devin said as he unlocked the doors. “What’s he going to do? Fire us?”
“Fuck you. I like my lil’ check.”
