Keith looked at the coach and then at Larry. “Sounds great.”
Larry asked, “When are we going to work on it?”
“Tomorrow,” the coach replied. “I don’t know if we’ll use it right away, but I’d like to be able to if we want it. Take a couple of minutes, and then we’ll get back to work.”
Keith and Larry nodded. Heck came up to Keith as soon as Keith was far enough away so that Larry wouldn’t hear their conversation.
“What was
that
about?” he asked.
Keith hesitated, and then said, “Well, the coach didn’t ask us to keep it a secret so I don’t see why I can’t tell you. He has a new play he wants to put in tomorrow, with Larry and me together.”
Heck’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
Keith nodded. “You’d be a flanker. We’d have three receivers in the pattern and Billy would decide which of us to throw to. Coach called it a kind of spread formation.”
“Like the pros use!” Heck was excited about the idea. “Come on, let’s tell Billy!”
“Looks like the coach is doing that already,” Keith said, pointing to where the coach was talking to Billy and Jason, who were looking at the coach’s clipboard. “He’ll probably show it to you, too, before we finish up today.”
“A pro set!” Heck repeated. “How fantastic is
that!?
”
“Think we could make it work?” asked Keith. “It looks kind of complicated.”
“With Billy at quarterback?” Heck exclaimed. “Sure we can! The other team won’t know what hit them!”
Keith spent the rest of the day’s workout looking forward to the next day, and hoping he could do his part.
W
hen Mr. Stedman got home that evening, Keith was waiting for him eagerly. As he opened the door, Keith ran up.
His father looked at him anxiously for a moment. “Anything wrong?”
“Wrong? No! Everything’s great! Well, maybe not great, exactly, but good, at least I
think
it’s good. Well, I
hope
it’s good, but I’m not sure yet, because —”
“
Ho!
Slow down, there!” called Mr. Stedman, laughing at Keith’s excitement. “I’m having trouble following this. First of all: Does this mean that there are no problems as far as football is concerned?”
“Uhn-uhn, no problems. … Well, we have only two practices before we play the Mustangs and I’m nervous, but that’s okay, it’s not a problem, really.”
“All right, then.” Keith’s father relaxed a little. “Everything is settled as far as Larry goes, then?”
“Oh, sure!” Keith grinned. “Coach says I’m going to start and I shook hands with Larry and there are no hard feelings, even though he’s disappointed, but he stopped talking about me behind my back, and —”
“Tell you what,” said his father, smiling now that he understood that Keith’s news was good, “let me sit down and catch my breath, and you can tell me all about it. But
slowly
, all right?”
Keith and his father sat down together in the den, where Keith explained Coach Bodie’s new play. “It’s a winner! I think it’s going to catch the Mustangs totally by surprise. They won’t know how to cover us when we send out all those receivers, and Billy is going to pick their defense apart!”
Mr. Stedman laughed. Keith stopped, staring at his father suspiciously. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing’s funny,” Mr. Stedman assured his son. “I’m just relieved that tonight’s football news is
good
for a change, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Keith took a breath and sat back. “Yeah, I guess I was pretty down for a while. But that’s over now. I think. I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, that’s very good, son. What happened to change your attitude? Just wondering.”
“It was something Traci said when I went in to apologize to her the other night. She was talking about how she got over the nightmares she was having. She realized that things are almost never as bad in real life as they are in your dreams. And it was the same for me. I was making everything much worse than it really was, and when I saw that … well, I just, sort of … settled down.”
“Well, well,” Mr. Stedman said. “Thanks to Traci. Did you tell her?”
“I will tonight,” Keith replied. “I really owe her.”
“She’s going to be very happy to hear that she helped you,” said Keith’s father. “She really loves you. I guess you knew that already.”
“Sure,” Keith said, “but maybe I needed to be reminded.”
The next afternoon, while Mack ran through some blocking drills with the interior linemen, Coach Bodie took the backs and ends aside to teach them his spread formation offense.
“Now, I don’t know for sure that we’ll use this against the Mustangs tomorrow, but it’ll be good to have it available. And I’m pretty certain we’ll get around to using it sooner or later this season.”
He unfolded a big sheet of paper covered with diagrams.
“Looks complicated,” Billy said, staring at the paper.
“Not really,” the coach assured him. “There’s one basic formation and a few different variations where the receivers take different routes. For tomorrow, though, to make matters simpler, I think we’ll just concentrate on one version.”
It
was
pretty simple, Keith decided. He lined up wide right, with Larry on the same side a few yards closer to the interior line. Heck was a flanker, also on the right but a few yards behind the line. The fullback stayed in the backfield to block. On the snap, Keith would run a fly pattern, streaking straight downfield. Larry would cut across the middle, fifteen yards deep. Heck would cut sharply for the sideline, only a few yards downfield. Interior linemen, including Cody, would screen block on the line and try to create a downfield convoy of blockers for Heck, so that he might pick up additional running yards if the ball were thrown to him.
The coach had different combinations of receivers try it out without linemen at first, using both Billy and Jason at quarterback. Jason was a little confused in the beginning and had trouble picking out the various receivers, but soon adjusted. Billy had no difficulty at all, and threw to Keith, Larry, and Heck in turn. After twenty minutes, the coach was satisfied.
“Now let’s run it with linemen,” he said. He signaled for Mack to bring the rest of the team over.
Cody and the rest of the linemen seemed to grasp their assignments quickly, and the coach began to run plays from the spread formation. On the first one, Keith faked as if he were going to cut toward the sideline and then dashed downfield. Billy fired the ball deep and Keith looked back, saw it coming — and dropped the pass. Disgusted with himself, he kicked at the ball before picking it up and running it back to the line. He flipped it to Billy, turned to Coach Bodie, and said, “The pass was perfect and I blew it. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the coach. “That’s what practice is for.”
Larry, Keith noticed, said nothing to anyone. Heck patted Keith on the shoulder and said, “You’ll get it next time.”
And that was that. Keith was mildly surprised that not only did nobody make anything of his drop, but that he himself felt only a slight irritation at his goof.
The practice went on, with Billy throwing to Larry, Keith, and Heck, after which Coach Bodie brought Jason in. Jason threw a long pass to Keith, who caught it over his shoulder without breaking stride.
“All
right!
” yelled Heck.
“Way to go!” called Larry.
The coach just smiled and said nothing, and Keith felt great.
After running a few more plays from the formation, Coach Bodie looked at his watch and blew his whistle.
“Good work today. Get your rest and go over your assignments, and let’s go out and play some tough football tomorrow.”
Keith found himself exchanging a look with Larry. “That’s a killer play,” Larry said after a moment.
Keith grinned. “The Mustangs are in trouble.”
T
he first game of the season was minutes away. The weather was perfect for football, cool and clear with almost no wind. Keith remembered the first game the previous year, and he had the same sensations now. There was a tingly feeling in his belly and he was nervous, but not frightened. He thought that the nervousness would disappear as soon as play began.
The stands were fairly full, with rooters for both teams on hand. Keith’s family was sitting with Heck’s folks, and Mr. Szymanski had Heck’s baby brother in his lap. The Mustangs, in their sky-blue-and-gray uniforms, were warming up at one end of the field, while the starting Buck team, wearing black and silver, ran off some snaps at the other end. The opposing coaches and the two game officials were conferring at midfield.
Heck said, “This is my brother’s first game. Let’s win it for him, okay?”
Keith laughed. “If you say so. I was planning to win it for my sister. How about splitting it — half for Traci and half for little Stan?”
He noticed Traci waving to him and waved back.
The Bucks won the coin toss and elected to receive. They crowded around their coach, who advised them, “When we go on defense, remember that the Mustangs had a terrific running game last year and their top runner is back. He’s big and strong and he doesn’t get tired, so be ready for him. Make them go to the passing game if you can.
“As for our offensive attack, you’re ready for them. I think we can use our passing to spread them out, and then we can do some serious running.” He looked around at the players and asked, “Are we ready for this one?”
“YEAH!”
the Bucks yelled. They took the field, with Heck as the deep man to receive the kickoff. He fielded the kick on the fifteen and, with a particularly solid block from Cody, ran it back to the Bucks’ forty.
Billy called for a first-down pass, sending Keith wide to the left. He faked a handoff to Heck and threw a bullet pass that reached Keith just as he made his cut. The play gained twelve yards. Another pass, this one to Heck in the flat, was set up by some good blocking. Keith drove a Mustang linebacker back several yards and Heck gained nine. The ball was on the Mustang thirty-nine, and the Buck fans were on their feet, yelling encouragement.
Another pass to Keith, running a sideline pattern, brought the ball down to the eighteen. The Mustang coach, sensing that his team was confused, called a time-out.
When play resumed, Billy sent Keith into the end zone but handed off to Heck. Heck darted through a nice hole formed by the blockers and made it to the four-yard line before being stopped. Billy then kept the ball on a bootleg, sprinting around right end for a touchdown.
But the coach had been right about the Mustang running game. Following the kickoff their star player, a tall halfback, began ripping off big chunks of yardage, and the Mustangs moved the ball into Buck territory. Keith came out, replaced by Larry.
As he passed Larry, Keith said, “That runner of theirs is tough — don’t try to tackle him high. Hit him low or he’ll just drag you or shake you off.” Larry nodded and raced on.
Keith stood next to Heck on the sideline. “That back is humongous,” he said, and Heck nodded.
“Maybe he’ll get tired,” he said.
“Maybe … and maybe
we’ll
get tired trying to stop him,” Keith replied, as the Mustang runner gained another eight yards up the middle, with three Bucks draped all over him.
Finally, the Mustang quarterback tried a pass. Cody almost tackled him in the backfield, so the pass was rushed and incomplete. The Mustang halfback then raced to his right, as if making an end run, but handed off to an end on a reverse, catching the Buck defense by surprise. Untouched, the Mustang receiver sped into the end zone. The extra point was good, and the score was tied at 7 apiece as the first quarter ended.
On their next offensive series, the Bucks made some good yardage, with Jason at quarterback. He found Larry for a nice gain, and then hit Heck for another ten yards. But the drive stalled on the Mustang eight, so the Bucks had to settle for a field goal, putting them ahead, 10–7.
The Mustangs were able to grind out more yardage when they got the ball. On one play, Keith met the Mustang halfback head-on as he moved in from his position in the secondary to plug a hole — he thought. The runner lowered his head and Keith bounced backward, grabbing desperately onto a leg as the back charged forward. With the help of three other Bucks, including Heck, the guy was finally brought down. The quarterback tried another pass, but Billy blitzed from his safety position, catching the opposing QB for a ten-yard loss.
The Mustangs, however, tried and converted a twelve-yard field goal and tied the score at 10.
Late in the half, Billy made a mistake and forced a pass to Heck in the flat. A Mustang defender picked it off. There was nobody between him and the end zone. He ran back the interception for a touchdown, giving the Mustangs a 17–10 lead. Billy was furious at himself for his error, but Keith and the other Bucks urged him not to be too hard on himself.
“We’ll get it back,” Keith promised.
There was less than a minute left in the first half when the Bucks went back on offense. Heck made a nice gain over tackle, with a strong downfield block from Larry, who was in as a receiver. On third down, with the ball at midfield and the clock showing only a few seconds left, Billy threw long for Larry, who raced past his defender. Larry reached for the ball, juggled it for one second, and lost the handle as the clock ran out. Shocked and unhappy, Larry slowly walked off the field, staring at the ground.
Keith ran up to the unhappy Buck. “Don’t let it get to you,” he said. “We have another half to win this game.”
But Larry was miserable. “I should’ve had it. I
did
have it. … And I lost it. I just got … I don’t know, panicky, like everything was on my shoulders, and I froze. I choked.”
“It’s no big deal. Don’t blame yourself,” Heck urged.
“Larry, I’ve
been
there,” Keith pointed out. “It was just a physical mistake. Remember what Coach Bodie says about those. Come on, don’t beat yourself up. We
need
you for the second half.”
Larry took a deep breath and managed a shaky smile. “Thanks. Now I know what it — Okay, I’m all right.”