“I know you’ve worked your butts off to have the kind of success you’ve had this year, and I want to thank you for all that hard work. Something we prided ourselves on was that no one outworked us, and by the fourth quarter, we owned our opponent.
“Something I’ve learned is the importance of playing with passion and controlled violence in each and every play.
Do your job!” David said and paused to make sure they were listening.
“I expect Eastside will try to finesse you with their short passing game. Keep it in front of you, and when you see the ball in the air, you’d better be closing and make them pay when they catch it. Make them have their heads on a swivel, worried about getting hit, and they will start dropping balls.
“On offense, I want you linemen to dominate your man.
Knock him on his butt. This is a simple game when you’re more physical than they are,” David said.
He looked at Jim and Bill.
“Do you have anything you want to add?”
“I hate Eastside. Knock their dicks in the dirt,” Jim said.
Bill chuckled.
“I think that says it all. Go out and do your job,” Bill added.
“What do you think, boys? Are we going to knock their dicks into the dirt?” Coach Hope asked.
The team roared their approval and got up to go out.
David was happy to see that they lined up five abreast and slowly walked to the field, chanting, “Our House!”
The fans heard them coming and took up the chant.
Having the whole stadium join made David want to suit up and play tonight. When they reached the goal line, they sprinted to the middle of the field as everyone cheered.
David had forgotten about the damned cowbells.
When it was just the three former Bulldogs, Jim said,
“We left a legacy.”
“We did. Now let’s go enjoy it,” Bill said.
David felt his chest tighten with pride. They had left their mark, after all.
◊◊◊
David, Jim, and Bill joined their group in the stands.
David noted that the Big Ten was well represented today; he saw coaches from Iowa, Purdue, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland. There were even a couple of SEC schools in Missouri and Kentucky. Plus, he saw Bo Harrington from Western Michigan in the stands, chatting with Coach Thomas from USC; they’d met at the Houston Elite Camp when David was there. While both Roc and Phil had verbaled to State, where they would join their friend Yuri, that didn’t mean the other schools were giving up.
Telling by their absence was State. They must assume they had Roc and Phil locked down. But then again, their coach was a former NFL coach who didn’t seem to want to get his hands dirty with recruiting. It was why with him coaching, State would be at the bottom of the Big Ten again this year. He really had to try to find his brother a better landing place.
At the coin toss, David observed that Santayana was right, those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. He watched as an Eastside player said something to his brother, and his teammates had to hold Phil back.
When would Eastside ever learn not to piss his family off?
“We’re winning big tonight,” David predicted.
Eastside won the toss and deferred to the second half.
When they went out on offense, David, and everyone in the stands, expected the Bulldogs to go deep to Roc. It would put Eastside on notice that they planned to run up the score tonight.
Eastside knew this too, and sent all three of their linebackers on a blitz.
“Dump the Ball!” David yelled at his brother from the stands.
Phil made a rookie mistake. He thought he could play Captain Chaos and began to scramble. Just as he was about to be sacked, he threw a shovel pass—an underhand toss—
to his running back, who was almost at the line of
scrimmage. David broke out into laughter because it was the perfect play.
The Eastside interior defenders all but broke their ankles, turning around to chase the Bulldog running back.
Two of the Lincoln linemen had let their men go to block downfield. David could tell that Coach Hope had done his job when their running back followed his blocks and, when he found a crease, darted downfield. It was a footrace, which the good guy won to score.
By halftime, the score was 28–3, and David’s brother had accounted for three of the four touchdowns with his arm.
He’d picked a good night to have a good game because David could see the recruiters all grabbing their phones to report in.
◊◊◊
When it was time for him to go out and accept his awards, David heard the opening refrain of his theme song in high school, AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. His junior year, during baseball season, they’d had to ban the playing of the song because it pissed off the opposing pitchers, who retaliated by drilling him.
‘Fuck Eastside,’ David thought.
He began to dance out onto the field as he motioned for his old teammates and cheerleaders to join him. They all began to bob their heads and wiggle what God gave them, to the delight of the Lincoln High faithful.
Waiting in the middle of the field was Governor Higgins, looking confused.
“Loosen up and join us,” David called out.
The governor shook his head and then began to bob his head to the beat. David reached out and took the microphone from him.
“What do you think?! Has Eastside been thunderstruck in the first half?!”
The crowd voiced their agreement. He handed the microphone back to the governor.
Governor Higgins waited until the crowd had somewhat settled down before running through all the accolades they were piling onto David tonight. There were the requisite plaques, jerseys, and the like, with the associated photos taken with each. Then the president of the High School Athletic Association joined the governor on stage. He announced that David was being inducted into their Hall of Fame for both baseball and football.
It was time for David to share his feeling about what everyone had done for him.
“First of all, thank you. Growing up here and going to school at Lincoln High means so much to me. And, of course, these awards are for everyone because no one can do all this on their own.”
David had said that a hundred times, so he knew his former teammates and fans already knew how he felt about them.
“Coming back has brought back so many fond memories.
I scored my first touchdown on this field when everyone thought I was a running back. We then went on to win three straight state championships and one in baseball. We set the bar high for the teams to come,” he said and paused.
“You want to know a secret?”
Of course, they did. David saw the teams waiting for him to finish, so he had to wrap this up.
“We are going to win another one this year!”
The crowd roared.
“Beat Eastside! Go Bulldogs!”
David had thought that the ZonaZoo was loud. They had nothing on Lincoln High when the place got rocking.
David gave up his microphone and led his ex-teammates off the field so they could watch the second half.
◊◊◊
David was happy when Coach Hope didn’t take his foot off the gas until late in the fourth quarter, when he made wholesale substitutions. The final score was 56–10.
Lincoln had defeated their two main rivals, Eastside and Washington, so they were in the driver’s seat to win the conference title and the coveted bid to the state playoffs.