Junior Year Box Set

“PASS, PASS, PASS!” I yelled as the football was snapped.

I watched as Johan exploded past their guard because they decided to double-team Jim. I will give their fullback credit, he at least tried to block our runaway farm boy. Johan hit his shoulder pads with his open hands and stood him up. Once the fullback was standing, he didn’t have the leverage he needed to stop the freight train. Their fullback stumbled back and landed in the middle of the quarterback and tailback as they were in the process of faking a handoff. Johan’s big paw reached for their quarterback, but he spun away as Johan became tangled in the pile and landed on both the fullback and tailback.

Ed cheating to help the run had cost him. The receiver he was supposed to cover sprinted up the sideline and had a step on him. My job was to make sure nothing got behind us, so I had broken into a full sprint at the snap of the ball to prevent an easy score. Once I saw Johan hadn’t taken out their quarterback, I put my head down and ran as fast as I could to support Ed.

“Ball!”

That told me the ball was in the air, and the receiver turned his head and reached forward. It looked like their quarterback must have overthrown it when he got excited. I saw the football out of the corner of my eye and made the split-second decision not to level my nemesis, but instead, make a play on the ball. I reached up with one hand and snatched it out of the air. My momentum carried me into their receiver-turned-defensive back. There was a tremendous collision as we were both running at full speed when we came together. Thankfully, we hit each other at an angle. If we had hit head-on, both of us might not have gotten up.

As I stood up, I tossed the ball to the side judge and trotted to the center of the field to huddle up the offense. It felt good to get the first hit out of the way. I was about killed as both Jim and Johan decided to almost tackle me, they were so excited.

“That just happened! He caught the ball with one hand and crushed their receiver. Wow! Just wow!” Johan said as he hugged me.

“Don’t kill him,” Brock said, and Jim and Johan let me go.

“Huddle up,” I ordered, which seemed to settle them down.

We were in their territory on their 32 yard line. This was an excellent opportunity to score and take an early lead. I looked up and saw Trent Buchannan, our backup quarterback, running out. Crud! I’d forgotten that he would start today because I hadn’t practiced all week. I wanted to throw a fit because I felt I was ready to have an epic game, but put on my big-boy pants and went to the sideline.

It was absolute torture to watch our offense go three-and-out and have to settle for a field goal. Granted, we were up 3–0, but I felt we should have scored a touchdown. I was further dismayed when I wasn’t allowed to go back and play defense on the next series.

Neither team did much the rest of the first quarter as each team traded punts. At the start of the second quarter, I got the call I’d been waiting for.

“Dawson, you’re in for Buchannan,” Coach Diamond called out.

As I ran out onto the field, it took the crowd a moment to realize I was in the game. Then the damned cowbells began to ring as if we’d just scored. It was almost deafening when we lined up for our first play. I called an option run play to the right. I’d seen the other three of my other tormentors: one was their linebacker, and another played defensive end. The third was their punter. I had no idea how I would get to their punter but vowed to find a way.

On the snap, I faked the inside handoff to Ty and went to my first read, their defensive end. Except I didn’t need to make a read: my quarry was in front of me. I just zeroed in on him and accelerated right through him as if he wasn’t even there. In football, they use the term ‘pancaked.’ It normally is attributed to an offensive lineman when he blocks a defensive player so well that the defensive player ends up flat on his back. The term comes from cooking a pancake and the moment when you flip it and hear that splat and sizzle as the wet side hits the skillet.

That is what happened to Mr. Smart Mouth. I hit him just right so that he went from trying to tackle me to flat on his back in the blink of an eye. I had been on the receiving end of a block like that, and it had knocked the breath out of me. When we hit, the crack of the pads cut through the sound of the cowbells. I stepped over their prone player and scanned the field for their linebacker. He had a good angle on me, so I found Jake and tossed him the football as I was tackled. Jake picked up another few yards before he was brought down.

“You’re next,” I growled as I got up.

“Eat shit, Dawson!”