Junior Year Box Set

My little head was thinking so hard that I felt a little light-headed. I wasn’t even remotely close to being ready for any one of these ladies. I mumbled something and let Mona lead me over to the pool, where she promptly pushed me in. I surfaced and was going to yell at Mona because I had my new phone and watch on, but Pam was there to give me a kiss. Served Mona right!

I got out and was instantly glad I had gotten the sports protective case for my phone and had picked the same version for the watch. They had both survived me getting wet. I went and changed into my swimsuit, found Mona, picked her up, and we both went into the pool. It was game on!

◊◊◊ Thursday August 27

I was in the hall going to the locker room when the gym door flew open, and Brock Callahan crashed into the wall, followed by his brother Bryan. Bryan had tears streaming down his face and let his fists fly.

“You Son of a Bitch! We moved here because of this shit! I can’t believe that after everything I went through, you’d pull something like this!” Bryan screamed.

I ran to break it up and almost got clocked by Bryan, who was out of control. Brock was curled up in a ball as Bryan pummeled him. Some of the worst fights are between siblings. I grabbed Bryan and pulled him off his brother.

Then I heard Coach Stevens explode in the gym.

“What the HELL?! You, get your clothes on! You, line up against the wall!”

Bryan tried to get at Brock, who was crying now. It’s never a good sign when a seventeen-year-old lineman is lying on the floor, crying. The locker room door opened and one of the freshmen stuck his head out to see what had just happened.

“Get back in there, and I better not see that door open again,” I barked at him. “Get ready for practice.”

“David, let me go,” Bryan said.

The fight seemed to have gone out of him, so I did, and he went to his brother and pulled him into a hug. They both had tears running down their faces. They clearly weren’t going to get into any more trouble fighting, so I wandered into the locker room. I figured whatever had happened in the gym, I didn’t want to be involved. I didn’t see any of the linemen in the locker room, and all the coaches were missing in action. I decided to act like the team captain and get practice started.

“Let’s hustle up! Everyone on the football field to do warm-ups in two minutes,” I called out.

I had found some stragglers who I encouraged to get a move on when Alan found me.

“Coach Hope said to get them started,” Alan said with a little quaver in his voice.

It was one thing to be a coach during summer drills and be an assistant with the support of all the other coaches; it was a whole different animal when you were ‘the guy.’ I smiled at him. I had led warm-ups since last year.

“Here’s what you do,” I told him as we walked out. “Blow your whistle and tell them to line up. Then tell me to lead them. If we don’t see any other coaches when we’re done, we can break them down by position and let one of the starters run them through the drills. Sound good, Coach?”

Alan did what I suggested, and I was proud of the team for not giving him any grief. Coach Hope came out and saw we were at least trying to be productive. He talked to Alan for a few minutes and then went back inside. I drifted over to Alan to see if he had some scoop as to what had happened.

“The linemen were involved in some kind of hazing incident. Coach Hope and the rest of the staff are dealing with that right now. It sounds bad,” Alan said.

I was instantly mad. We had worked too hard for some crap like this to be happening. Last year we lost most of the juniors and seniors due to steroids. If these guys had messed up our football season, I would kill them all. Alan saw my approaching explosion and did the right thing.

“Dawson, hit the track and run until you calm down.”

Alan knew me too well. I needed to think this through, and running was the best way for me to do that. Plus, every time he chewed me out, it built his street cred as a real member of the coaching staff.

◊◊◊

Afternoon practice had been canceled, so Alan went home with me for lunch. The coaching staff had kept him in the dark about a lot of what had transpired. Something the twins said had me curious.

“Do you know why the twins moved here?” I asked.

“No, why?”

“Bryan said they moved here because of something that had gone wrong at their old school. That made me wonder if the coaches ever talked about them being involved in hazing,” I said.

“If it was a big deal, why don’t we Google it?” Alan said as he grabbed my tablet.

I was a little irritated that he knew my password. Tami must have told him.

“Where are they from?” Alan asked.

“Somewhere in New Jersey,” I said.

Alan did a Google search for ‘New Jersey Hazing Scandal’ and had two hits. One was about an assistant coach who had provided steroids to his team and was fired. The second made my blood run cold. The headline read ‘Seven Football Players Arrested in Hazing, Sexual Assault Case.’