“How does it taste?” Ridge asked.
I made him a small glassful. It tastes terrible, but the results make it worthwhile. He got a look like he’d just drunk a glass of curdled milk.
“Gawd! That’s not good.”
Hunter took it from him and tried it. He just shrugged and downed the rest of it. We heard a knock at the door, and Sam went and let Bo in.
“I was just showing them the supplements you have me taking,” I told him.
“They don’t work out hard enough for it to be a benefit,” Bo replied.
“Speaking of which, I didn’t get to lift yesterday. Is there somewhere I could work out at after camp?” I asked.
He asked me where I worked out. It was a national chain and he knew where one was.
“Do you mind if I come too?” Ridge asked.
“If you want to go and watch, that’s fine,” Bo told him. “But if you’re going to try and do his workout, you’ll be too sore to throw tomorrow. I can help you get to David’s level, but it’ll take time.”
“You guys suck. Now I’m going to have to get my fat ass to a gym,” Hunter complained.
We all knew he was bullshitting. We all worked out. Bo was just goading them into working out harder. It was funny to watch him push their buttons as he used me as his example.
Our group walked to a place for breakfast, which was across the street from the training center. I was happy to see you could order à la carte. I ordered six eggs, steak and a small salad. When it came, Sam looked concerned.
“You’re going to eat all of that?” she asked.
“The diet Bo put me on makes me hungry all the time. If I don’t eat this much, I lose weight,” I explained.
“When you do intense workouts and eat a high protein diet, you build lean muscle mass,” Bo told her. “His body’s burning up enough calories for almost two people. Plus, he’s a growing boy.”
THE GIRLS PLANNED TO go to the beach. They would meet the boys after camp. We went as a group to the Methodist Training Center. Sign-in had already started. They limited the camp to forty quarterbacks this year. In past years, they had upwards of a hundred but found it was too many. This camp was five times more expensive than the other two I attended this summer combined. You were broken into teams of four quarterbacks, and each team got intensive instruction.
They brought in some of the best college quarterbacks as counselors. This camp was something where you couldn’t just sign up, you had to be invited. Being rated number eight in the sophomore class had me waiting when I first sent in my application. Of the seven ahead of me, five had declined to come. I was re-ranked upwards in front of two more quarterbacks, and one other was selected. They’d allowed two incoming juniors and two sophomores.
Next year I would get priority placement because of this year’s invite. Bo told me it wasn’t guaranteed, but they had only declined five players over the years. So I was a little nervous. These guys were the best of the best.
We had three goals at this camp. The first was the training. Top quarterbacks wanted to come here because of the success stories of people making amazing advancements in their skills.
The next two went hand in hand. The second was you were being compared by the scouting services. They would all be here. You could try to say your rating didn’t matter, but you would be crazy, because colleges, their boosters, alumni and fan bases all kept score. If a coaching staff couldn’t land enough blue-chip recruits, you better be winning some games, otherwise you’d be done.
The third goal was to get seen by the top programs. You couldn’t have any direct contact with them at the camp, but they were all there to watch you. If you wanted to get on their recruiting list, you needed to show them you had game. You were only allowed a small number of official visits during your junior and senior years, and you wanted to make every one of them count. My goal was to visit the best possible programs. To do that, I needed to have the interest be both ways.
I asked Ridge why he was coming. He was already rated the top pocket passer and the number eighteen recruit overall. He told me he was doing it because he hadn’t signed a letter of intent yet. Either he or USC might reconsider. Alabama wasn’t giving up, and he wanted to leave his options open.
Personally, I think he just wanted to see how good he really was. I’d seen flashes that told me he would be playing on Sunday, if he didn’t get hurt. I’d seen him take our seven-on-seven team apart. He was a machine. If I was game-planning against him, I would just look at how to keep the score within reach, because you wouldn’t stop him. Maybe you could slow him down some.
We arrived at the sign-in desk and I forgot my name. They had the Houston Texans Cheerleaders signing us in. Just for full disclosure, I had spent a few minutes on their website. One of the girls I was smitten with was Kaitlyn. I was leading the guys to the table and came to a complete stop, three feet in front of it. The both almost ran me down. Ridge shoved me, and I stumbled up to her.
“Hi, Kaitlyn,” was all I could get out.
“Well, hello, handsome. Do you have a name?” she asked me.
I did. Oh My God, she was gorgeous. Oh crap, everyone was staring at me. WTF was my name? Ridge whacked me in the back of the head. That seemed to dislodge it. Now I felt stupid. She was trying not to laugh at me. Then I remembered I was a Dawson.
“You know who I am. You’ve been looking through the folders and figuring out who the cutest guys are. I bet you pulled mine out and put it on top.”
Bold statement, maybe, but I’d seen mine was on top. She got a big grin on her face. I heard Hunter, behind me, mumble, “Oh, crap.”
“So you think I’ve been looking for cute guys?” Kaitlyn asked me.
“Not just any cute guy, but me,” I told her.
She raised her hand to me.
“Hang on a second, handsome,” she told me. “Cass, Lindy, get over here!”
Oh, shit, she was getting backup. Ridge and Hunter took a step back. Nice wingmen.
“What’s up?” Lindy asked.
“Take a picture of me with this one. We need to send it to all the girls so they’re warned. He’s too cute and too smooth for his own good. I want to be able to say, ‘I knew him when.’”
Kaitlyn and Cass stood on either side of me and had our picture taken. Suddenly Ridge and Hunter wanted in on the act. All five of us got into the shot. I had her text me the pictures. I sent them to Lily so she could tweet them out and put them on my other social media. Kaitlyn then had me tell her my name. She looked sheepish when she found my envelope on top, so I just smiled at her.
They sent us to the locker room where we each had a nameplate above our locker. In it, we had a jersey with our name on it. I had number eleven on mine. We also had everything we would need. We were told to get into shorts and our jersey. This morning was about measurements.
I was surprised when they gave us all a physical. Part of it was to test for drugs or illegal substances like steroids. They had sprung it on us so we couldn’t try and mask the test. Two guys opted to go home instead of taking the test.
We were then put into our teams. I was happy to see Ridge and Hunter were part of my team. As happy as I was to have them in our group, I was equally unhappy to see our fourth: Mark. He was following me around like a bad penny. Ty had told me he’d moved to California. Now he was here. I decided to take the high road because it was only for a couple of days out of my life.
“Hello, Mark. I’d like you to meet Ridge and Hunter,” I said as an introduction.
“I guess they let just anybody into this,” Mark said.
Okay, forget the high road.
“Let’s get something clear: I’ll kick your butt if you’re going to be a jerk. We all came here to get better. I’m not putting up with your snarky attitude for the next few days. So, what’s it going to be?”