Junior Year Box Set

“I’m just asking you to consider what’s best for the team. I sure don’t want to go into the Washington game shorthanded. Like I said, they’ve decided on their own to go, even though they recognize the possible consequences. I understand that you have rules, and I agree with them most of the time.

“I just think you sometimes need to step back and look at the big picture. In this case, I believe we’d be better off with them than having them suspended. I don’t need to remind everyone that our goal is to win state again. If Washington beats us, they may end up running the table, and we might not even get a chance to defend our title,” I said.

“Then you should remind them of that,” Alan said while shooting me evil looks.

I ignored him for the moment, but if this didn’t go my way, I would make sure Yuri heard about it. What he did with that information was up to him. I waggled my eyebrows at Alan and grinned. I had happy thoughts of him stuffed headfirst into a garbage can. It felt good to play the Godfather.

◊◊◊

By day four of camp, it no longer felt like a competition. Everyone realized that everyone else was damned good. They remembered the goal wasn’t to play ‘I can do that better,’ but instead to help each other actually get better. It did make everything more fun.

Coach Haber made my day.

“Dawson, go play defense.”

Michigan had a player named Jabrill Peppers, who played defense, offense, and special teams. His focus was on defense and special teams, but he had serious skills, so he was put in for a few plays a game on offense. Every time Bo Harrington or some other recruiter would try to quash my dream of playing every down, I would point to Jabrill. They also moved him all over the field; he managed to play fifteen different positions.

For the coming year, Coach Rector had talked to me about moving to inside linebacker, where I would be beside Tim. Yuri moved to the outside, with the other outside linebacker spot going to Jake. The plan was to switch from a four-man line to three. Our strength was our speed, and since everyone had gotten stronger, Coach Rector felt we could fend off linemen better.

There was one player I wanted to go up against: Damion. Last year, he’d been a beast but was hit-or-miss as far as catching balls. This year, he was doing much better. There wasn’t a defensive back in high school that I knew of who could handle him one-on-one. I was glad Wesleyan wasn’t on our schedule, because I wasn’t sure we could keep him out of the end zone.

When Damion lined up to catch a pass, I casually strolled over and gave him a five-yard cushion. It got even better: Mike was playing quarterback. Let the fun and games begin.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Damion asked.

“I got tired of playing quarterback, so I thought I’d come over and watch how awesome you are close up,” I said with a big grin.

“It would be my pleasure to give you a demonstration.”

I suspect he believed he would just run by me. He wasn’t a happy camper when I put him on his butt.

“Come on, he can’t do that,” Mike complained.

“Of course he can. He was inside five yards when he engaged Damion,” Coach Haber said, and then turned to me. “Let’s tone it down a couple notches. We’re just in shorts and t-shirts.”

“You’re an asshole,” Damion muttered so only I could hear.

“Wimp,” I shot back.

From there, it was game on. Damion was six-six and weighed 230 pounds. He was fast and, to this point, had relied solely on his athletic ability. He’d never faced a defensive back who was close to him in size and could run with him.

On the next play, he executed a swim move that got his hips past mine, which was a bad thing. I flipped my hips and ran with him. Another defender yelled ‘ball,’ and I got happy when Damion used his right elbow to give himself some room to catch the football. I hooked it under my left arm, which in effect forced him to try to catch the ball with one hand. When he caught the ball, I was ready. As he brought it down to secure it, I punched it loose.

We were almost equal in speed, with Damion having a slight edge. I was quicker off the mark and could get up to full speed faster because of my speed training. Damion was like Roc in that he had long strides that ate up a lot of ground. The downside of having long strides was that you couldn’t accelerate as quickly. He could also outjump me. My advantage was I was stronger and had better eye-hand coordination. Lifting and working with Cassidy had helped. Finally, I had much better stamina.

One advantage he had was that he and Mike played together. I’d never said that Mike was a bad quarterback. He was objectively better than all the other area quarterbacks that had signed up for camp. I was just better than he was, and that was what had caused our problems.