Chapter VI: First Loss Of The Season
Week after week, the wins rolled in like waves. The Washington Huskies were on fire, straight up possessed. It was like the football gods parted the heavens and whispered, "This the team right here." Each snap, each hit, each touchdown was another brick in the wall of dominance. They weren’t just beating teams—they were humiliating them.
By the time they touched down in Piscataway, New Jersey, they had one thing on their mind: destruction. And Rutgers? They caught the smoke.
75 to 17.
It wasn’t even football. It was legalized murder on a football field. Washington ran amok, clowned those boys in their own backyard like they were scrimmaging a JV team. Scoring was senseless. It was disrespectful. But Dale was in his bag.
It was East Harlem all over again. Manning High swagger. That same confidence. That same hunger. Dale was a walking touchdown—flipping the script, torching defenses, doing everything short of walking on water. He couldn’t miss. The ball was floating like it had a GPS programmed to the end zone.
The buzz around Washington was gettin’ louder by the day. Dale couldn’t even step out on campus without somebody tryin’ to dap him up, ask for a pic, or yell some wild shit across the quad. He was that dude now. The face of the Huskies. Walkin’ through the student union was like moving through a parade. Everybody had something to say. Some real, some fake, but Dale peeped all of it. A bit of college fame made people loud, but his instincts kept his ears sharper than ever.
He stayed humble. Kinda. But lowkey? He was eatin’ it up. He earned it. From concrete jungles of Harlem to national coverage on ESPN? Yeah, let ‘em talk. Let ‘em tweet. Let ‘em run his name through the algorithms. He was built for this. News outlets were salivating. Social media stayed buzzing like a hive. "Dale Denton might be the future of college football." But Dale didn’t care about that future talk. To him, the future was now.
Sam Leavitt? Darian Mensah? DJ Lagway and Dylan Raiola? Top guys out after the season. They were crazy talented, but none of them were dancing with that Heisman energy like him. Since his very first snap, his name been hot. But now? Now it was on fire.Dale Denton wasn’t just in the Heisman conversation—he was shaping it. Week after week, while names faded in and out, three names stayed consistent: Zebulin Kinsey, Austin Novosad and Dale Denton. Dale's name stayed planted from the jump. Unmovable. Unignorable.
Third freshman ever to win the Heisman? Why not? Possibilities are endless until otherwise. He didn’t have it on his bingo card, but if the opportunity came knocking, Dale wasn’t gonna let it walk away. But fame was a double-edged blade. You shine too bright, and everybody or something start lookin’ for ways to dim your light. Reporters diggin’. Alumni whisperin’. Even teammates watchin’ a little harder than before.
Coach Danielson called a team meeting right after practice one Thursday. Whole squad was sore, sweaty, just tryna hit the showers and get to chow. But the tension in the locker room said this wasn’t no pep talk.
“Fellas,” Coach said, voice flat like he was balancing good news with bad, “we’re undefeated. Nation’s watchin’. But let me be clear... a perfect record don’t mean nothing if we crumble when it counts. We’re being targeted. Every team from here on out is gonna treat us like the playoffs.”
The squad nodded, some with clenched jaws, some with tired eyes. Everybody knew the pressure.
Then Coach’s eyes slid to Dale like a sniper lining up a shot, “And we can’t afford our leaders slackin’. Denton, I need you to tighten up in the classroom.”
The locker room got still with eyes locking in on Dale as if his greatest secret came out. Midterms came and slapped Dale across the face. While he was busy running up the score on the field, the books were running up on him. Two D’s and an F. Ugly. It was like karma got back at Dale for that Rutgers game and scolded him. This wasn’t just bad. This was eligibility-on-the-line bad. There wasn’t a flea-flicker in the playbook to get outta this one.
Dale felt human. Humbled. And for the first time all season, the pressure hit different. Dale nodded, jaw tight. “Understood, Coach.”
Practice, film, games—it had all started to take its toll. He tried to balance it. He really did. But effort ain’t the same as execution. And now? Now he had to fix it. College life and adulthood had ran adolescence up out of the hood. This was F.A.F.O. territory.
So he swallowed his pride and tapped in with Clarissa.
Clarissa wasn't just all tea and smiles, she had been the real MVP lately, tutoring him without askin’ for a damn thing. As a senior, she didn't mind the help as she already had one foot out the door. Between them, it was just good vibes, banter, and the kind of patience that could teach a brick wall how to read Shakespeare. She didn’t act like she was saving him. She just showed up. Constant. Steady. Dale respected her for that.
One night, they was holed up in the back of the library, eyes red from long hours, empty coffee cups stacking like Jenga pieces.
“You need to pace yourself,” Clarissa said, flipping through notes like she was born to tutor. “You're doing too much at once.”
“Gotta do what I gotta do,” Dale said, voice hoarse. “Ain’t no Plan B.”
Clarissa sits back in her seat, folding her arms, eyes locking with his. “You know I admire your grind, right? But if you burn out quickly, all this—football, grades, everything—crumbles. Having your scholarship revoked is not something you as a freshman want to happen, Dale.”
He looked at her for a second. Not just glanced—looked. There was something deeper in her voice. Like she’d watched someone spiral before.
“You good?” he asked.
She gave him a soft smile. “I will be. Just… don’t chew through all your time here in one bite. They’ll love you while you’re winning, but don’t forget—they loved a lotta dudes before you too. My boyfriend fell into that statistic before he transferring to Washington State. The lights got too bright for him.”
That stuck with Dale. More than social buzz. More than the Heisman whispers. Clarissa didn’t see a new hot star quarterback. She saw the man underneath the jersey. And he hadn’t felt that since... well, before Keisha flipped on him.
Back at the crib, Dale sat on his twin XL, muscles aching, eyelids heavy, laptop across his lap. Film study on Nebraska running on one PIP screen, while tasking with biology notes. The mind spinning balls of yarn.
His phone buzzed—Twitter mention. Another analyst slid his name into a mock draft. Not even through his first year and they talkin’ NFL bags and combine interviews. But that was noise. Dale knew the truth—none of it mattered if he let up. One slip, one injury, hell, even one more failed exam, and it could all vanish. He wasn’t playin’ for fame. He was playin’ for Amani. For his loved one back home in Harlem. For the kid he used to be before the spotlight. For everybody who doubted him.
A knock came at his dorm door.
“Yo,” it was Marquis Doyle, linebacker with more ego than a rapper. “Film session. Coach want us tight on Nebraska prep.”
“Bet,” Dale said, shutting the laptop. “Give me five.”
As the door closed behind Doyle, Dale looked at the mirror. Baggy eyes. He looked tired, but locked in. A couple of bruises on his right arm from taking too many hits. Five sacks at the Rutgers game. Still, the grind didn’t stop. The season kept pushing. The books kept stacking. And Dale knew it was time to double up like Harlem World.
He wasn’t just chasing the Heisman. He was chasing legacy. And legacies don’t get built easy. Diamonds come from pressure, Dale knew that. Even in the rough, he knew he had to just keep chipping away.
