Muck City (34 page)

R
ound two of the playoffs took Glades Central on the road. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, the Raiders traveled south to Fort Lauderdale to face American Heritage–Plantation, the private academy whose sister school in Delray Beach had nearly beaten them at home in October.

Despite their shaky 7–4 record, the Patriots had one of the most talked-about players in Broward County, a fourteen-year-old Haitian running back named Sony Michel. For weeks the Raiders had been hearing about the great Michel, the six-foot, two-hundred-pound freshman prodigy who ran a 4.3 forty and smashed through lines of scrimmage like Bo Jackson.

“If a safety gets on Sony in the secondary,” his coach Byron Walker once said, “there’s going to be a wreck.”

Michel had recently racked up 350 yards in a game against Chaminade. He was one of several backs in Florida, along with Glades Day’s Kelvin
Taylor, who were giving legitimate chase to Emmitt Smith’s all-time rushing record. Michel had a slight advantage over Smith: American Heritage was K–12, so he’d played varsity the previous year, as an
eighth-grader
—running for 1,825 yards and twenty touchdowns (Smith, by comparison, had run three hundred fewer yards as a freshman at Escambia High with just as many TDs). But the Raiders had faced Michel that same year in the playoffs and eliminated the Patriots 46–20 to advance to the semifinals.

Even so, coaches from opposing squads, when jawing with Glades Central staff after games, couldn’t help but offer words of warning: “Watch out,” said one assistant from Boynton Beach, “ ’cause that boy a man. That boy will run the stretch all night, and if you aint got him locked up by the time he passes that line of scrimmage,
he gone
.”

To which the coaches replied: seen it, done it. But regardless, all week they prepared for the stretch. They also prepared for Michel’s brother Marken, a flyboy receiver and defensive back. They’d even practiced on Thanksgiving Day, meeting in the early-morning chill for three hours of walk-throughs before going home for turkey and sweet potato pie. Looking to squeeze in some extra conditioning, Don’Kevious and Jaja had even found a burning canefield and killed some rabbits.

Despite the team’s apparent readiness, an unavoidable statistic still haunted Hester: the Raiders carried the stink of a losing record in playoff games on the road after Thanksgiving. Those numbers included Hester’s first season, when they’d lost the regional finals at Miami Pace. Superstitious as Hester was, it gnawed at him: through his entire Thanksgiving dinner, on the bus ride south through the canefields and sawgrass prairie, up Broward Boulevard and into the locker room at American Heritage.

“This is a test we haven’t passed in a while,” he told his team. “On the road during this time of the year, we got to understand what we’re facing. That’s a big monkey on our backs and we got to get it off.
This
is the statement game. Everybody will know after tonight what kind of football team we are.”

And just to illustrate the power of bad juju, he reminded everyone that
the previous week, Jaime had chosen to break the rules and stand out. He’d worn black socks instead of the uniform white, then suffered a grievous fumble that led to a Gibbons touchdown.

“We still got some guys who don’t wanna follow the norm,” Hester said. “Look at the type of game this cat had last week wearing the black socks.
Look at his game
.”

The playoffs seemed to bring out the old crow in everyone. Now, before each game, about twenty Raiders lined up to get patted down by Coach Sherm. The six-foot-seven coach would stand the boys in front of him, then pound his clenched fists violently atop their shoulder pads like two cannonballs rolling off a house. A glow of barbaric ecstasy would wash over their faces. The beating “settled” the pads, they said, like tenderizing a tough piece of meat. But it was also rooted in superstition.

“Every time Sherm pats me down,” Davonte said, “I score a touchdown.”

At American Heritage, there was also coincidence at play, and it certainly wasn’t lost on the old-timers. Byron Walker, the Patriot head coach, was a muckstepper from way back. He’d coached the Glades Day Gators for sixteen years and led them to three state titles. Before that, Walker had been the Glades Central quarterback who’d led the Raiders to their second championship in 1972.

Even more of a coincidence was that during the Raiders’ first title run in 1971—under Pearl Williams, Wayne Stanley, and Mark Newman—Walker had been a paunchy linebacker. When he came aboard his senior year as starting QB of the mighty GC Raiders, the town had mocked and doubted him, saying he was too fat, too short. But Coach Al Werneke hadn’t budged. “You’re our quarterback,” he’d told Walker. “Now that’s the end of it.”

As Glades Central began its pregame warm-ups, Walker looked out across the field at the Raider captain in the number 1 jersey and smiled. “Yep,” he said, “Mario reminds me a lot of myself.”

The Patriots’ field sat adjacent to the pristine American Heritage
campus, its buildings uniform red brick and surrounded by tall trees. Tuition was upward of $22,954 for high school seniors—the per capita income in Belle Glade was just $14,018—with students drawn largely from the wealthy gated communities nearby.

After nightfall, the weather was crisp, not a breeze to be found. The planes beginning their descent into nearby Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood airport appeared as blinking stars above. “It’s a great night for football,” said Hester.

Coach Fat provided inspiration. “You give anything on this planet life, they gonna fight for life,” he said. “And when you give them life, you also give them strength. Now let’s go step on their mutherfuckin throats.”

“Pursue piranha-style,” Coach Tony told his defense. “If we pursue, everybody’s gonna eat. Make them feel that pain all night.”

•   •   •

IT WAS MARIO
and Davonte who dealt the first blow. On the opening drive, the two connected on a forty-yard pass; the receiver scooped it up at his ankles, then jogged into the end zone.

Glades Central 7, American Heritage 0.

But as soon as the Patriots had the ball, it was all Sony Michel.

Play after play, the running back made the Raider line look more like guppies than flesh-eating piranhas. He would average eight yards a carry and not encounter trouble until he reached the open air, where Boobie and Page were waiting. It was Page who hit Michel on that first drive, so hard the bleachers recoiled when the boy’s helmet slapped the cold mud. But still he got up and celebrated, raising both arms to the crowd like a mini King James. He got the Patriots far enough downfield for an easy field goal, putting American Heritage on the boards.

The Patriot defense, for its part, sealed every gap and eliminated Glades Central’s running game. The heavy pressure also forced mistakes and
penalties that hobbled the Raiders throughout the first half: little things such as holding, false starts, illegal blocks, and an ineligible-player-downfield penalty that erased a touchdown.

The Raider Nation was not pleased. And since the American Heritage field had no track, the bleachers were within spitting distance of Hester and the bench. They heard it all:

“Get yall head in the game, man!”

“O-line coach, that line is standin straight up! They standin up, Coach!”

“The middle wide open, Jet. Open yo’ eyes. The middle wide open!”

Halfway through the second quarter, Likely pulled down an interception that put Glades Central inside the Patriot thirty. Two plays later, Mario hit Oliver on a seven-yard route in the end zone to put the Raiders up 14–3.

American Heritage responded with another field goal after Michel single-handedly drove downfield, taking five- and ten-yard chunks out of the Raider defense before Boobie nailed him to the grass. Coach Randy winced when he heard the hit, then said, “That bitch won’t be gettin outta bed tomorrow.”

Before the half, the score still 14–6, the Raiders were forced to punt after a drive stalled in their own territory. Before Jaime could kick the ball, he looked up and found three defenders racing toward him. He froze, then flung the ball to the nearest maroon jersey—Don’Kevious—who caught it like a hot potato and took off running for the first down. The next play, Jaime took a short pass and ran it thirty yards for the touchdown. Raiders led 21–6.

“That’s the way to be great, baby!”
Mario shouted into the manic crowd as he paced the sideline after the play.
“That’s the way to be great!”

After the half, Michel snatched away the Raiders’ cushion with a quick forty-yard touchdown to make the score 21–13. At the fourth-quarter whistle, American Heritage was within one possession of tying the game.

The Raider Nation grew eerily quiet after the Patriots forced Glades Central to punt, then drove down the field once again. Just when it seemed as if they would score—the quarterback gave Michel a needed rest and called for the pass—Likely appeared once again out of nowhere and stole the ball from midair.

The crowd took to its feet as Mario returned to try to seal the game. On his first play, the defense blitzed and pushed him from the pocket toward the sideline. Just as he crossed out of bounds, a defender rocketed toward him headfirst and speared him in the helmet.

The quarterback’s body crumpled onto the grass as he lost consciousness. He lay on his back in the mud, his eyes moving in different directions. Coaches huddled close while the team doctor held up his fingers, shouting,
“How many do you see? How many do you see?”
From the stands, you could hear the collective gasp.

“Get up, Mario!”
someone screamed.

“Come on, baby!”

The panic grew worse as he hobbled to the bench. Davis then entered the game and threw a bullet up the middle without a maroon jersey in sight. The ball was nearly picked and Hester lost his mind.
“Do not throw the ball up the middle, Greg,”
he screamed.

The Raiders were forced to kick. But the Patriots could not manage a first down and sent out their special team. The center snapped the ball, and then—chaos, followed by jumping and screaming on the field. Boobie blocked the punt! The Raiders recovered the ball on the Heritage thirty and started tasting blood.

•   •   •

IT WAS A
call of duty too great for the dazed quarterback to resist. When the Raider offense took the field, Mario limped off the bench and into the huddle to the rippling applause of his fans. But he was not okay. His mind swam in a woozy sea. Everything in his vision was doubled. Looking
downfield was like gazing into a fun-house mirror. So blind and befuddled, he didn’t even bother to pass, just lowered his shoulder and smashed his way twenty yards to the ten—setting up the field goal that would seal the Patriots’ fate.

“That’s when it got away from us,” Coach Walker said. “We just couldn’t recover after that.”

The Raiders went on to win, 31–19.

I
t was nearly midnight before Jonteria and Theresa Williams got home from the game, and two o’clock before Jonteria could shower and wind down enough to sleep. She was back up at six the next morning for an eight-hour shift behind the cash register, but too excited to be tired. The ladies who came through her line were met with that smile and the big news behind it:

“I got accepted to Florida State!” Jonteria told them, all but dancing on her aching feet.

The message had arrived the day before Thanksgiving. The school had sent her a letter with its decision. But the acceptance had hinged on her enrollment in the Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement (CARE), designed to assist disadvantaged students.

“One of my ACT reading scores was under their minimum,” she said, annoyed. “It’s a program for low-income families to help you finish your
college career. They don’t want you dropping out. The program gives us study groups and mentors just to make sure you make it.”

The low reading score had come on a test she’d taken midway through her junior year. Since then, she’d taken the ACT two more times and performed better.