“The ride to Lexington is five hours. During the trip, I want you to send your contact information to David. Once he has it, he’ll send a text to add everyone’s contact info to your phone. We’ll also send you a schedule that will remind you when and where you need to be. Once we get off the bus, I want you always to go with a buddy. That means if you want to go running or lifting, find a friend. Finally, it’s your job to be on time. Don’t make me come looking for you,” Coach Crouch told us.
We all loaded onto the bus and got settled. I used the event app that Lily had found for me. It was meant for registration. You entered everyone’s contact information, got some personal anecdotes and took their picture. Once registration was complete, it sent everyone a link that loaded the app on their device and added the whole group to their contacts. It also updated their calendar, complete with alarms and walking directions based on where your phone was.
For the coaches, there was an administrative feature: the ‘Find’ function. If someone was missing, we could at least find their phone. The hope was that they would have it with them.
It took me over two hours to get everyone loaded into the app. When I sent it out, they quickly figured out that we had funny things to say about each player. Lily and Ty had worked to get some dirt on everyone. Mine was all about how Adrienne had dumped me for Prom. Lily even got Adrienne to record a video saying she had no idea who this stalker was. I think that was payback for ‘Babygate,’ from when I told the reporters at Prom that she was carrying my love child.
Cassidy had sent me a picture of Coach Hope before he joined the Marines. He was a hundred-fifty pounds, soaking wet! For Brad, we had pictures of Lisa Felton in some of her better school clothes. How she didn’t violate at least one school dress-code policy was beyond me. Let’s just say Brad got a lot of high fives.
WE ARRIVED IN LEXINGTON at four that afternoon. They were allowing us to move into the dorms a day early because we’d driven so far and had such a big group. We all got key cards to get us into the dorm and the cafeteria. The cards also gave us access to the football facilities. I was excited that John Phillips was assigned to be our guide. He was staying on our dorm floor to help us with anything we needed. He made sure everyone was settled into their room. I was put with Isaac Fellows, Washington’s quarterback. Mike was rooming with Brad.
Once we were done, John had us meet in the lounge in shorts and t-shirts. Before John could start, I got up.
“You guys need to know who this is. This is John Phillips. His high school won state two of the four years he was there. He was the starting quarterback the last two years when they won. He holds the state record for the most touchdowns in a season with seventy-two. John was named All-State both his junior and senior years. He was named MVP of the championship game his senior year and is also the prize recruit for Kentucky’s nationally ranked recruiting class.”
“I’m sure you’re going to work on breaking all of my records before you come here.”
“Oh, yeah! You are so riding the bench when I show up,” I teased him.
“I’ve no idea how you guys put up with him. Anyways, I’m going to show you around and take you to the football facilities. I hear you want to work out. I think I’ll join you since I haven’t gotten a chance today.”
John took us on a tour around campus and then led us to the Nutter Center and showed us where everything was. When we were done, Coach Hope ran us through our sixty minutes of hell. I was working out next to Tim and Mike. When we were done, we looked around and about half of the Washington team was dry-heaving. I was amused to see John curled up in a ball.
I went and helped Ty up.
“Domination, baby! We own the fourth quarter,” I teased him.
“How often do you do that?” Ty asked.
“Five times a week since February,” Mike told him.
I was happy to see Jim helping Brad up. I went over to John and whispered, “I thought you were in shape?”
He glared at me as I helped him up.
“We had it easy today. Normally, Coach Hope has his daughter lead us. She would’ve killed you,” I told him.
John took us back to the dorms and we showered and ate. Some of the guys went to movie night. Others walked the campus. I stayed in and caught up with Tami on video chat. She had started her job with Teddy Wesleyan.
Wednesday June 11
I GOT UP EARLY TO RUN and found John waiting for me. We didn’t say a word as we did our morning routine of stretching. We were used to doing it alone and it was our personal time. I let him lead the way since he was now living on campus, taking summer classes. The run reminded me of why I was interested in going to college here.
“You want to see something neat?” John asked me.
“Sure.”
“It’s a long run, think you can keep up?”
I just smiled at him.
John took us by the football stadium and then down Alumni Drive. We came to a park called The University of Kentucky Arboretum.
“This is a hundred-acre park that has a path all around it,” John told me.
“What the heck is an arboretum?” I asked.
“They tell me it’s a collection of trees.”
Not profound, but it seemed accurate. The park reminded me of a garden. Dad would love this place. We had a good run, about 2.5 miles just in the park, and came back in time for everyone to go to breakfast. At breakfast, I told Dad about what I’d seen. He had free time this afternoon and planned to check it out.
Something I learned during the run was that I was in better shape than John. His pace wasn’t nearly as fast as my normal pace. I challenged him to pick up his speed to where it was just fast enough where he could still talk, but not so fast where he was just gasping. I enjoyed the company too much to complain. I would have to work out harder later to make up for it.
Today was a lifting day, so John took the Lincoln team. Washington was taken on a tour of the rest of the campus. Last night Isaac had confided to me that the Washington team couldn’t believe how hard we worked out. They’d made a vow to catch up. I had to chuckle when they didn’t show up to work out this morning. Word would get out how hard we worked, and teams would be beaten before we ever played them.
When we were done, we still had an hour before we needed to report for camp. Mike, Wolf, Bill and I went to the practice field and began running our drills. Brad was watching us. I waved him over and let him rotate in. We switched to the defended drills and Bill was wearing Wolf out, so I went over to cover him.
Bill had been asking me to challenge him more. He wanted me to be more physical so he could learn to fight me off. He was taunting me this morning to get my head into the game.
“Come on, wuss. There’re people watching, and I’m going to make you look foolish.”
“Bring it on,” I challenged him.
I set up right on him. He was going to have to fight to get past me. Brad was quarterbacking.
“Go!”
I took two hands, popped Bill in the shoulders, and put him on his ass. We never stopped until the ball was thrown, so Bill got up and ducked his shoulder and did a nice swim move to get a step on me. I turned my hips to run with him, keeping my body between him and the ball. Bill was quicker in making his moves than I was, but with my height and long arms, I could stay with him—at least, within Brad’s range.
Brad dropped the pass where he thought only Bill could grab it. I jumped and got a hand on it as Bill got two on it. I ripped it out of Bill’s hands and then did a little jig. Bill knocked me down for good measure. I hadn’t realized it, but while we were running our drills, the campers had come out onto the practice field to watch us.