“I’ve got some concerns,” Uncle John said, shocking us all. “Phil was mirroring David all night.”
My dad was the only one who didn’t have a confused look on his face.
“I thought I saw that too,” Dad said.
“What are you talking about?” Greg asked.
“Mirroring is the behavior in which one person imitates the gestures, speech pattern, and attitude of another. It’s used to build rapport. It’s actually taught as a sales technique. People tend to like someone like them. That’s why you will see cliques form of people who look and act like each other. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but Phil is trying to be just like David,” Uncle John said.
“I think he was just worried about being accepted,” I said.
“No, this was more than that. Phil was actively trying to win you over,” Dad said.
“He did say he wanted us to be good friends,” I admitted.
“I’m not trying to imply anything sinister here, but he’s obviously infatuated with you. In fact, this will be good for you. As you have more success, people will be attracted to you. It’ll help you recognize when someone is genuine, and when someone’s currying favor. The easy part is recognizing when someone is doing it. The hard part is figuring out if they have ill intent or not. I think for now we accept the Princes at face value, but you need to be aware in case there’s more to this,” Uncle John said.
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Chapter 3 – The Games That Play Us Wednesday August 26
Practice settled into a familiar rhythm, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only problem I had was Coach Hope wouldn’t let me play defense or special teams this year. Also, the little jerk, Ty Wilson, turned out to be very good at returning kicks. He and Ed would do a good job, so I was willing to let that one slide. I really wanted to play defense, though. Coach Hope and Coach Diamond were busy working with the freshmen and JV, so I sauntered over to the defense.
Moose was busy working with the secondary. I figured I had my best shot with him, so I joined their drills. It took all of two minutes for Coach Zoon to see me.
“Dawson, get over here!” he ordered.
I wondered if he had been a drill sergeant in the Marines. I jogged over to him, and he got in my face.
“Did I give you permission to disrupt my defensive drills?” he asked.
“I wasn’t being a disruption,” I defended myself.
“Really? We only have a couple of weeks to get ready for our first game. There are only so many reps in practice. You joining a drill takes away the opportunity another player has to get better. If you personally don’t have anything better to do, I think you need to run so you’re in good enough shape to handle the upcoming season,” Coach Zoon said.
Coach Hope found me fifteen minutes later running forty-yard dashes, with Alan holding a stopwatch like a drill sergeant. Of course, everyone noticed but was smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
“Are you about ready to get back to work running the offense? How about we see how good Coach Zoon is and we run a scrimmage against him?” Coach Hope said, which made me smile.
“Yes, sir!” I said and jogged over to where the scrimmage would be played.
I quickly realized I’d been set up. I would face the number 1 defense, which meant my normal offensive line was on the other side of the football facing me as they played defense. I did notice Yuri had taken my spot at linebacker. That was a pretty big deal for a new player to step in and be on varsity from day one.
I looked at my line and noticed the two guys Roc had brought with him. The two mountains turned out to be Milo and Johan Bauer. Johan stepped in to play center. He was a junior, and when I called him a mountain, I meant it. He was six-two and weighed 280 pounds. His ‘little’ brother Milo was slotted in at right tackle and was a freshman. His measurements were six foot even and 265 pounds. I had seen them in drills, and they held their own and were as strong as oxen. I was glad to see that my regular right tackle, Neil Presley, had taken over Jim’s spot at left tackle. My guards were starters on the JV team. Wolf and Jim would give them fits.
“Can we go live, Coach?” Tim asked.
“I don’t want to hurt any of you,” I shot back to my co-captain.
“Against my better judgment, this is a ‘live’ scrimmage. Just no cheap shots,” Coach Hope told us.
Finally! I had permission to hit someone. Coach Diamond took one look at the grin on my face and gave Coach Hope a hard look. Coach Hope just shrugged, and we huddled up. Coach Diamond called our new triple option play. In our standard option, I had the fullback run up the middle. If there were no opening, I would move down the line and read the defensive end and either keep the ball or pitch to the tailback.
In the triple option, we added another back to the mix. Instead of lining up in a twin backfield, there were three running backs. The fullback lined up a step behind me, plus there were two halfbacks lined up just outside the tackles and a step off the line. One of them would go in motion towards me pre-snap. On the snap, I could either hand off to the fullback up the middle or the slotback coming across the formation who would then race to daylight. My other slotback would be in position to follow me for the pitch if I kept the ball and did my read on the defensive end.
Sound confusing? Imagine trying to defend it while I played ‘hide the football.’ It really made the defense stay at home. If you didn’t account for all four of us, and pursued too hard, we could break a long one. In theory, we had the potential to score every time we touched the ball, if I read the defense correctly.
On the first play, Coach Zoon stuffed the middle and had the defensive ends pinch hard to force the ball out of my hands. I smiled when Brock Callahan charged at me. He squared up to make the tackle, and I popped him in the chest and spun out of his grasp. As I came down the line, Tim burst toward me from his linebacker position with serious intent in his eyes. He planned to show me who was boss by putting me on my backside.
Tim had me dead to rights until I stopped on a dime, grabbed his outstretched arm, and used his momentum to pull him past me. Yuri took that moment to bury me—right after I pitched the ball. I popped up and laughed at my two friends. What Yuri missed was I had tossed the ball to Ty just as Yuri hit me, and Ty was now standing in the end zone. I thought Coach Zoon was going to have a seizure or his head would explode. Suddenly I was glad they wouldn’t let me play defense.
Over the next thirty minutes, I had the most fun I’d had in a long time. Playing the triple option is a lot like keep-away. Ty, Ed, Mike, Jake, and I had been practicing this particular little game all summer. Coach Zoon was a good coach and soon had his charges slowing me down. Then Coach Diamond let me start passing. If I could take backups and JV players and kick the crap out of our defense, we were either going to be unstoppable, or our defense sucked. I hoped for unstoppable. I laughed when Coach Zoon got so frustrated he threw a football at me. On that note, Coach Hope ended practice for the day.
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After practice, Alan told me Coach Hope needed to talk to me. The new coaches’ offices in the field house were a major improvement over what they’d had before. Everything was painted orange and blue with our bulldog logo. I walked in to find Coach Zoon waiting for me. I wondered if he planned on doing me harm.
“Shut the door,” he ordered.
It seemed to me that was the only tone of voice he had, one of command. When I did shut the door, Coach Zoon pointed to a chair and sat on the edge of Coach Hope’s desk.
“Tony told me how special you were when he offered me the job. I’d seen all the hype from the Elite 11 results and saw what the scouting services said. Quite frankly, I was positive you were all flash and no substance,” Coach Zoon said without taking a breath. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I put Tony up to the first-day running exercise. I expected you to either back down or fail. I even invited my sister’s kid to run against you.”