Junior Year Box Set

“You do realize that he’s a reporter, right?” I asked Brandon.

“We’re going to the Alabama–Georgia game this weekend. I’m in charge of driving these knuckleheads around, and I figured it might be better to rent a small bus and have a driver take us. When I told the saleslady what I was doing, she said they had a new party bus. They offered it to me for the same price as a regular bus because they wanted to test it out,” Brandon explained.

“Does it come with cocaine and hookers?” I asked.

“No, and there’ll only be age-appropriate beverages provided,” Brandon said, which made Jeff laugh when he saw my shocked face.

Brandon was 21 and could buy us beer. Of course, it was no secret that I didn’t drink during the season, most of the time. Jeff realized that we would leave right after the game, so he needed to get his interview out of the way. He was sneaky in that he didn’t invite his brethren to join him. He would get an exclusive.

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The ‘off and on’ part of the rain turned out to be only ‘on.’ That didn’t stop our fans from coming out in force. The cowbells started clanging as we came on the field to get the game started. This time I won the coin toss, and we deferred to the second half. Before the kickoff, the chant started for ‘Our House.’

The kickoff was to tell the story for the rest of the game. Lakeview received the football at the 5 yard line, and their returner dropped the ball. Instead of picking it up, he must have panicked, because he downed it right there. On the ensuing play, they handed the football off to the tailback on a dive play to give them some breathing room. Wolf tackled the running back who then fumbled the ball. Yuri spotted it and ended up recovering the football.

Coach Diamond called for me to run the option play and keep it. He knew it would get the jitters out of my system if I hit someone. Jake came in motion from right to left before the snap. On the snap, I faked the handoff to Ty and followed Jake around the left end. Jim sealed the defensive end, and Ed managed to get in the way of the linebacker. Jake blocked the safety, which allowed me to walk into the end zone.

I wondered how many points we would be up by the end of the half if we scored this fast. By halftime, I had a different outlook when the score was still 7–0. Right before halftime, the managers had found gloves for the skill players. We had fumbled the ball four times compared to five by Lakeview. I was glad this game wasn’t on the televised schedule because if it had been, everyone would decide we were easy to beat.

Besides the football being slick, the turf hadn’t held up. Even with our longest cleats, no one could get traction. It was almost as if we were on ice skates. The final problem was, with all the mud, it was hard to tell which team was which. The coaches gave us some extra time to change uniforms. I took a quick hot shower to get all the mud off me. Even though we were all wet, muddy, and cold, we were having a blast.

We waited until the last minute to come out of the locker room to start the second half. At halftime, we’d provided dry footballs to the referees. We started our first drive knowing it would only be a matter of time before everything would be a mess again. Coach Diamond called a pass play to start the second half. Wolf did a little buttonhook for a completion.

I ended up throwing the ball nine straight times to move us down to the 5 yard line. Lakeview set up to defend the pass. Coach Diamond had called a play-action pass, so I just checked the call to the run play. Ty took the football and followed the block of Johan into the end zone to score.

At the start of the fourth quarter, we were up 21–0 on a short pass that Roc managed to turn into a long score. Our fans had to be miserable, but they hadn’t left yet. It was at this point Coach Hope started to insert the backups and told me to go sit on the bench.

At a timeout, they put on Shake, Shake, Shake by KC and The Sunshine Band. One of the cheerleaders shouted it was time to dance. That got the crowd on their feet. Heck, I wasn’t missing this. I jumped up on the bench and faced our fans. I had to laugh when some of the guys began to join me. Soon the whole team got into it. They usually only played a song during a timeout, but the referee held up the game and started to dance too. Even the Lakeview players were dancing. The guys who videoed the game caught the whole thing.

The video made the ESPN Top Ten Plays.

ESPN:In a strange occurrence, a dance party broke out at a high school football game. Check out the moves by the referee. Ah yeah! Shake it! I wish I’d been there because those people were having fun. Shouldn’t high school football be just that?