Gym Candy (6 page)

I thought about staying up to tell my dad I was going to start against Foothill, or maybe writing him a note, but in the end I didn't. I decided it was smarter to wait until I was dead sure. There was always the chance that Drager would somehow weasel his way back onto the team and back into the starting lineup.

Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with no change. Thursday Clark and Drager were back at school. I stood off to the side and listened as Nolan Brown asked them how they stood. "We're done for the year," Drager said, his dark eyes glowering. "Even if you guys somehow beat Foothill, we won't play in the regionals. It sucks."

That night I waited up for my dad. As soon as I heard him come in the door, I slipped downstairs. "Hey, what's up?" he said.

"Can you get tomorrow night off?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose. Why?"

"I'm starting," I said. "Against Foothill. The championship game."

Our game day practices weren't really practices at all. Friday after school we met in the gym, did some stretching, a little running, and some more stretching. It was all over in forty-five minutes.

When I got home, I forced myself to eat half of the ham and cheese sandwich my mom had made for my pregame meal. Once I'd finished, I went upstairs and lay down, trying to rest. I kept opening my eyes, looking at the clock, hoping it was time to go. Every minute seemed like ten. It was an away game, over in Bellevue, and Downs was requiring that we go as a team on a school bus. We were to be in the school parking lot by six; Drew's dad was picking me up at five-fifty.

At last I heard a horn sound in the driveway. I grabbed my duffel, hustled down the stairs, and got in Drew's car. Forty-five minutes later I was stepping down off the school bus and heading to the locker room at Foothill High.

Once we were in uniform, Coach Downs told us we had to stay within ourselves, to play under control. My mind was racing so fast, I had to suck in air to calm myself down. Felipe Perez, one of the linemen, looked over at me and shook his head. "Save some energy,
Johnson," he said. "You're going to be worn out before the game starts."

As game time neared, a sense of power filled me. It started in the back of my head and spread like a wildfire until I felt as if I were going to explode. Right then Lee Choi went to a locker and started pounding on it, pounding and screaming. Nobody had ever done anything like that before any of our other games. I looked at Choi, and then I started pounding on the locker in front of me, pounding on it like one of those insane Norwegian berserkers I'd read about in sixth grade. I spotted Drew. I could feel him holding back. Then a little smile came to his eyes and he went over to a locker and started pounding and screaming, and then Brad Middleton, the middle linebacker, joined us, and after that Heath Swenson started up, and soon everybody was pounding on the lockers and screaming, getting higher and higher. After a couple of minutes, Coach Downs put his fingers in his mouth and blasted out one of those ear-piercing whistles of his. "All right, gentlemen," he hollered. "Let's play football."

We raced through the tunnel and onto the field. As I did my jumping jacks and sit-ups, I stole peeks up into the stands. My dad had told me he was doing half his shift to keep Lion happy but that he'd be in the stands
by game time. I didn't see him for a while, but then I picked him out, and I got a rush that was like scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter of a tie game. A little later a horn sounded, and then the Foothill band played "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Game time.

You can scream all you want, but if you don't back it up on the field, it's just screaming.

Foothill High was unbeaten; they'd crushed teams that we'd barely sneaked by. On Thursday, Coach Downs had shown us films of the game from the year before. Drager's longest run had been eight yards, and by the end of the game you could see in his body language that they'd beaten him.

I wasn't going to let that happen. No matter how many times they pounded me into the ground, I wasn't quitting. "You never know when you might get a chance to break a long run," my dad had told me many times. "Always be ready."

We won the coin toss and received the kickoff. Michael Tucker, a senior cornerback, ran it out to the
twenty-seven, and then Drew and I trotted out onto the field, starters for the first time. He looked at me, his eyes lit up like Christmas. "Here we go, Mick," he whispered.

Our first play was a power toss right. Drew's pitch was too slow, forcing me to break stride, which is why two Foothill players were waiting for me at the corner. I lowered my shoulder and drove into the first guy, but he held on until the second tackler brought me down. I gained two yards, maybe three. On second down I went straight up the middle with pretty much the same result. That set up third down and five for a first down. Drew threw a quick slant right on the money to our tight end. Bo Jones caught it but was tackled a yard short of the first down, forcing a punt.

On the sidelines, I told myself to be patient. Two running plays don't make a game—I knew that. I'd break a decent run on the next series. All I needed was for the offensive line to give me a sliver of daylight.

Foothill managed a couple of first downs but then got nailed for a holding penalty and punted the ball back. On first down, I ran a sweep left. When the blocking broke down, I reversed field, hoping to catch Foothill overpursuing, but their defensive end had stayed home. He wrapped me up around the knees and
dropped me for a ten-yard loss. After that Drew threw a couple of dink passes that gained six yards and we had to punt again. Coming off the field, I kept my head up. Games are won and lost in your mind as much as on the field.

Both defenses dominated throughout the first quarter and into the second, but just before halftime, Foothill marched down the field as if they were playing a middle school team. Everything that hadn't been working for them—slant passes, draws, screens—suddenly worked. It made no sense, but sometimes football is a crazy game. The Foothill quarterback took the ball into the end zone untouched on a bootleg from the eight-yard line—our defense had fallen for a fake to the tailback. Foothill's kicker missed the extra point, so at the break we were down six.

In the locker room, Downs said the right things: how one touchdown was nothing, how we just had to keep fighting and things would go our way. The important thing was to stick to the game plan.

That's what he said, but it's not what he did. All through the first half, he'd had me run the ball. I hadn't gained much yardage, but I could feel their defense wearing down. Soon I'd break a big one. But instead of sticking with the running game, Downs called for three
passes to open the second half: a screen that gained a yard; a long bomb to DeShawn Free that fell incomplete; and a slant that was nearly intercepted. We had to punt again.

The defense held Foothill to one first down, but our possession went like this: incomplete pass, incomplete pass, incomplete pass, punt.

Downs had given up on the running game, had given up on me, but Drew hadn't. "The draw play should be open," he said as we stood on the sidelines, waiting for another chance. "I'm going to call it next series, no matter what Downs sends in, so be ready." A freshman quarterback making his first start changing a coach's play—that took guts.

On our next possession, Drew threw two more passes, completing one, setting up third and five. We'd thrown on eight straight plays, and Downs sent in a ninth. "They're going to be blitzing," Drew said. "We'll run the draw."

"You changing the play?" Perez said.

Drew nodded. "I'm changing the play."

Perez looked around at the other linemen. "Let's block this sucker."

And they did. When I took the handoff, a huge hole opened right in front of me. In two strides I was past
the linemen and the blitzing linebackers and was into the secondary. The strong safety came up and tried to tackle me high, but I fought him off. I cut left and juked the cornerback, and suddenly I was looking at seventy yards of empty space. The same feeling came to me that always comes when I break a long one. It was as if I were four years old again, out in my backyard, the little mini football cradled in my arm, the green grass underfoot, and the end zone straight ahead. I tucked the ball tightly against my side and took off straight for the goal line, my legs churning up the yards.

At the Foothill twenty, someone dived for my ankles and caught my heel. I stumbled a little, almost went down, but then righted myself, and seconds later I was in the end zone. I didn't spike the ball—that's a fifteen-yard penalty in KingCo. Instead, I ran to our sideline, took my helmet off, and raised it to the section where my dad was sitting. He was on his feet, pumping his fist and cheering, as our kicker, K. J. Solomon, split the uprights with the extra point, putting us ahead 7–6.

Our lead held throughout the third quarter and into the fourth. Downs had me running the ball again to eat up time. I'd pop free for a first down now and again, but we couldn't sustain anything. When Foothill had the ball, they'd march twenty or thirty yards, but then
something—a penalty, a dropped pass, a missed block—would stop them. I remember looking up at the clock in the fourth quarter. Still 7–6, with six minutes and thirty-two seconds left. Was my touchdown run in the third quarter going to be enough to win it?

After a short Foothill punt, I carried the ball twice, gaining seven yards and setting up a third and three near midfield. Downs called for a quick out pass to DeShawn Free on three.

DeShawn must have thought it was on four, because he was late getting off the line of scrimmage, forcing Drew to hold the ball longer than he should have. Just as he stepped up to throw, Foothill's middle linebacker blind-sided him, jarring the ball free. It bounded crazily along the ground for five yards or so until one of Foothill's big linemen, number 73, scooped it up. He was slow, but he had a ten-yard lead and only fifty yards to run. He rumbled down the field, gasping for air, looking over his shoulder every five yards. I was closing on him with every stride, but I never caught him.

Our lead was gone.

Worse, when I looked upfield, I saw Drew flat on the ground. Guys were standing over him and our trainer, an old guy named Mr. Stimes, was kneeling next to him. By the time I reached him, Drew was up, but he
was clutching his right elbow, fighting the pain.

Foothill hit the extra point, making the score 13–7. As they lined up to kick off, Coach Downs called me over. "Drew won't be able to get any zip on the ball, not with that elbow."

"Feed me the ball," I said. "I can win it for us."

I could see his mind working. Then he nodded. "Let's see what you've got."

He walked away, and suddenly my legs felt like they weighed one hundred pounds each. I was tired, sore, beat up. Then I thought of the stakes: the league title, the spot in the playoffs. I thought of all the teams I'd played on, all the clinics and camps I'd gone to, all the hours and hours of practice beginning when I was four. It was for this. All that work was for this.

Tucker brought the kickoff straight up the field to the thirty-eight yard line, giving us good field position. Foothill figured we'd be passing, so they were playing their linebackers deep and their safeties even deeper, making it a perfect time to run. On first down, I drove the ball off right tackle on the stretch play. Foothill's outside linebacker tripped, and their safety was late coming up, so I picked up twelve yards before I was gang-tackled.

Two minutes and forty-eight seconds.

We went without a huddle. Their linebackers and
safeties were still playing deep. This time we ran the draw. Once I got past the linemen, I had eight free yards before I was dragged down at their forty.

Two thirty left in the game, clock running.

Foothill came up tight in their standard defense. They were done worrying about the pass; they were looking for me. I gained four yards on a toss sweep. Two minutes and two seconds left. I took a handoff straight up the middle for eight yards, running right through an outside linebacker, setting up a first down on the twenty-seven. One forty.

Foothill put eight guys in the box, daring Drew to throw. I was supposed to carry the ball over left tackle, but there was no hole. I stumbled against one of my own linemen, bounced off him, then reversed direction and headed to the right. Somebody—maybe DeShawn—laid a great block on the one Foothill guy who had a clear shot at me. I looked up and saw an open field. If only I could have made my legs move faster. Just across the ten-yard line a Foothill player tracked me down. When I hit the turf, I landed smack on top of the ball, knocking the wind out of me. For a long second I just lay there. But the clock ... and with it the game ... was ticking away. I forced myself back to the huddle.

The line judge raced to the hash mark and laid the
ball down. The guys lined up, Drew took the snap, and he immediately spiked the ball to stop the clock.

Second and goal on the eight-yard line.

Sixty-nine seconds left.

Downs sent in three plays so we wouldn't waste time huddling up. All three were for me. A draw play and two sweeps—the first right and the second left.

I sucked in air. We broke the huddle and I took my position.

"Hut! Hut!"

Drew dropped back as if to pass, then slipped me the ball. It was the play I'd scored on earlier, but this time the Foothill linebackers didn't bite. I was lucky to fight my way back to the line of scrimmage before I went down.

Third and goal from the eight.

Fifty-six ... fifty-five ... fifty-four.

Hurriedly, we lined up. As Drew took the snap, I broke for the outside. I watched the ball into my hands, squared my shoulders, and turned upfield, my eyes on the end zone. I thought I'd make it, even as I saw their safety close on me. I lowered my shoulder and hit him at the five. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me down, but not before I'd fallen forward two more yards.

Fourth and goal from the three-yard line.