He put on a good front and let them take their pictures. If Tami hadn’t known him and his quirks, she would never have picked up on his irritation. She knew he wasn’t annoyed because of any drain on his time; it was that everyone with him had to wait until the staff was done treating him like the movie star he was.
The spa manager finally put a stop to it when other customers began to arrive.
“Thank you for being gracious enough to allow us to get our pictures taken with you,” she said.
“It was my pleasure,” David responded.
“Miss Andon has paid for you all to experience Scandinavian baths. This is a Finnish custom that dates back centuries. It’s a three-step process. First is warming, which you have some options to pick from. You can use our eucalyptus steam baths, wood-burning sauna, Finnish sauna, or hot baths.
“The next stage is cooling your body. Our Nordic waterfall, Nordic showers, and cold plunge baths are available for your use.
“The final step is relaxation. We invite you to take advantage of our solarium, fireplace lounge, or grab a blanket and enjoy our outdoor fireplaces. Some of our guests prefer to use our multipurpose yoga studio.
“Each sequence, hot-cold-relaxation, will take you about 25 to 30 minutes and should be repeated 3 to 4 times for maximum results,” the manager explained.
“We also booked massages,” Lexi said.
She looked at her tablet.
“Yes, two Swedish couples massages. The four who are doing that should follow me. The rest of you can grab towels and robes at the desk. Kim will give you a map that shows you where everything is. If you need anything, please let us know,” she said as she led David, Lexi, Tami, and Cassidy to where they would get their massages.
Lexi had planned it so that David and Tami could spend time together. They found themselves enjoying a massage from Ray and Tina.
“I needed this,” David said.
“Tell me what’s been going on with you,” Tami prodded.
David took up almost their full hour getting Tami caught up on making his movies. It sounded like he’d had quite the adventure. Then he began to tell her about what she really wanted to know: why he’d ended up at USC instead of Oklahoma.
“Last year, I had a run-in with a man at the NCAA who wanted me to help him with an investigation. It involved a shoe company and a school they wanted me to go to,” David started.
“Is this part of what broke over the fall with the FBI and basketball players?” Tami asked.
“I think it was related in some way. I was surprised when they didn’t go after any football schools, but I guess that I shouldn’t have been.”
“Why’s that?”
“Money,” David said and gave her a look Tami was familiar with. “It’s speculation on my part, but I doubt that the NCAA will ever do anything about the payments made to steer ballplayers to certain schools. Now, if it was an upstart or a no-name college involved, look out. But I predict that the big boys will skate. That was why I told the NCAA’s investigator to stuff it. All it would have done is put me in a bind, and in the end, nothing would have happened.”
“You’re starting to sound jaded.”
“Well, my cooperation, or rather, refusal to cooperate caught up with me. The NCAA investigator got fired from the NCAA. Somehow, he got a gig at Oklahoma in their compliance department. He took advantage of the complete cluelessness of their interim athletic director and had him void the waivers I needed to play ball,” David explained.
“What were they again?”
“The gist of it is that the NCAA has rules about student-athletes using their image to promote or sell something. It’s supposedly to keep boosters from taking advantage of financially strapped star recruits by ‘funding’ them using fake advertising schemes. And it’s also to keep amateur athletes from using their sports fame to earn money because that would make them ‘professionals.’ Part of that is about to change because they seem to be moving toward adopting the Olympic model of sponsorship.
“But that wasn’t the main issue for me. I’d just got done filming three movies. Written into each of my contracts is the obligation to help promote the film when it’s released. And the problem they had with me was my modeling and acting careers took off entirely independent of my football and baseball activities. Anyone other than a complete moron could see that. They couldn’t claim that I only got the work because I’m an amateur athlete.
“I also want to protect my image. When you step on campus to play ball, the university has you sign a release that allows them to use your image as they see fit. That allows them to show games on TV and a lot of other stuff. What we asked for was the ability to have veto power if they decided to do an ad campaign that would put me in a bad light. I pay people a lot of money to protect my image. And I don’t need to pay them more to fix anything the NCAA or a university might do,” David said.
“So, you had to leave Oklahoma because of the waivers?”
“Their coach tried to convince me to wait it out until they got their new AD. I mean, technically, I’d received the waivers, and I probably could have fought it. But if I lost, I was screwed.”
“Why didn’t you want Wolf and Tim to follow you to USC?” Tami asked.
“Oklahoma has a better football team. When I left, I wasn’t sure where I would go. Neither Ohio State nor Alabama would have taken both of them, so I recommended they stay put. They seem to be doing well.”
“I still talk to Tim, and he loves it there,” Tami assured David.
“That was why we picked OU in the first place. Norman is a great football town with everything they will ever need to be successful.”
“How’s it going at USC?”
“I might have made a mistake,” David admitted.
He then explained what they’d offered him and that, so far, they hadn’t come through with his scholarship. He’d finally gotten one, but there shouldn’t have been so much drama around it.
Tami listened to his tale of woe until David ran out of steam. By then, their massages were done, so they went to the solarium, where they were given complimentary cups of herbal tea. The plan was that after they drank that, they would hit the hot-cold-relaxation sequence, which was included when you purchased a massage.
Now it was Tami’s turn to weigh in.
Over the years, David had come to Tami to ask her advice about almost everything. They’d been close, and she probably knew him better than anyone. During high school, some events had occurred that had caused David to stop looking to her so much. It was Tami’s opinion that his backing away had been for the best because David had grown into someone who no longer needed her as a crutch.
That didn’t mean that he didn’t seek her out at certain times. This was one of them.
“So, what do you think?” David asked.
“I think your family gave you good advice. I do have one thing to add.”
David groaned.
“Quit being a baby,” Tami chastised him.
“Your ‘one thing’s always make my head hurt.”
“Who said it would be easy?” Tami asked.
When she saw the look on his face, Tami felt like her heart had been put in a blender. Before he could respond, she held up her hand to stop him.
“I love having the history that we have, but history is in the past. It’s the same deal with your football. Just because you were the top dog in high school doesn’t mean you can walk in and take over.
“For me at Stanford, I thought I was going to be the best and someday be a great doctor. My reality check came when I got a ‘C’ on my first chem midterm,” Tami confessed.
“I’m so disappointed in you,” David said with a straight face.
Tami was able to chuckle about it now. At the time, not so much.
“Bite me, stupid boy. I got an A- in that class,” she said and then got back on topic. “If you think your hardest times in football, in school, in life are behind you, dream on. Do not ever think that what we’ve done is enough or that we can rest on our laurels.”