Junior Year Box Set

Violet was an excellent tour guide and got into detail about the history and what there was to do. She looked at her watch and realized we were late getting back. We were supposed to be at the football stadium meeting with the coaches.

“Why don’t we run back?” I suggested.

The parents weren’t interested, and Violet agreed to walk back with them. Wes bolted and jumped out in front. He laughed when he saw me use a bench to launch myself into the lead. I took the four of us on a parkour run and used different objects in the quad to make it fun. We were all laughing, and everyone tried to do what I did. We came to a chain link fence, and I jumped on top of it and stood for a moment, then bounced down. Max was last, and he jumped up, but his feet slid off, and suddenly this 330-pound man-child dropped three feet, flat on his back.

I thought we’d killed him. I was afraid we’d have to carry him back.

“Fuuudge,” Max moaned. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

We toned it down after that and just jogged back to the football stadium. I didn’t want to have to explain how one of them got hurt goofing off with me.

◊◊◊

One of the students associated with the football program was waiting for us. He hustled us in, and Wes and I were taken to meet Coach Hightower, who was in charge of the passing game, which included quarterbacks. As we came in, we were introduced to all the coaches. I think they only had one guy under the age of fifty. We were taken to a conference room, and Coach Hightower had us sit down.

“I think you know each other. What you’ll learn here at Michigan is that we are the home of champions. To get there, we compete at the highest level, and part of that competition is getting the absolute best players we can. Our philosophy is that success breeds success. That is why we wanted the two best quarterbacks in their respective classes to be here this weekend. We feel that if both of you came to the University of Michigan, you would both benefit from the experience and become better football players because of it.”

“Or one of us would win the starting job, and the other would never get the opportunity that he deserved,” Wes said.

“Sometimes the cream does rise to the top, but I expect with the two of you it would be hard to keep you both off the field.”

“So, are you saying that you wouldn’t pick one of us to start? We’d split playing time?” I asked.

“That sucks,” Wes said. “I’m by far a better pure quarterback than David is.”

He said what? The competitive monster raised its head at the challenge that had just been thrown down.

“Yes, you’re pretty if everything’s perfect, but as soon as you have to make a quick decision, you go to shit,” I said.

“You’re not good enough to carry my jockstrap.”

I knew that Wes was competitive, but it must have been eating at him that I was better. He surely realized they had favored the seniors at Elite 11. If it had been a fair competition, I was the one who had won the seven-on-seven tournament and had beaten the guys who were real competition. It was time to straighten him out.

“Is that right? I say we go right now and see who’s better. Winner gets first pick of college.”

By now we were standing, and our noses were only inches apart. I’d added the ‘first pick’ part because Wes wanted to go to Alabama. If we weren’t in the heat of the moment, we would probably agree it was stupid for us both to go to the same school. Right now I wanted to be able to take his top choice away from him.

Coach Haber picked that moment to open the door. I guess he had gotten concerned when he heard the shouting.

“You’re on. They should have never let a junior into Elite 11. You hadn’t put the time in that the rest of us had. Then you go and play some lightweight and set the national passing record. How lame is that? As soon as you get to a real school, you’ll be unmasked for the fraud that you are,” Wes said.

“You’re all talk. Let’s settle this. Are you sure you don’t have a hangnail that you can blame when you go down again?” I asked.

That was when Wes shoved me. I got a big smile on my face because I’d gotten him to lose his cool. I was sent with Coach Haber, and Wes went with Coach Hightower.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had two recruits go at each other like that.”

“You never had the two best on a recruiting weekend, either,” I said. “Let’s show Wes who the best is so he can finally see that I’ve always been and always will be better than he is.”

“Can this wait until Sunday?” Coach Haber asked.

“I’ll end up kicking his butt before then. You’re better off letting us figure out who the top dog is now, or we’ll settle it on our own, and it won’t be pretty.”

◊◊◊

The showdown occurred thirty minutes later. It was just Coach Hightower, two student managers, and the two of us. Coach Hightower took us to the Al Glick Field House. They had a setup where there were targets for us to throw at. This favored Wes because he was better at just standing and throwing, but I wasn’t backing down.