The girls had it set up so I’d be in the middle and they’d be along the walls to give out flowers. Each flower had a postcard that had a hole punched in it so it could be tied to the flower with ribbon. The card showed Stryker bare-chested and said, ‘To My Special Valentine.’
I was a little disappointed they’d taken my idea and turned into a promotional event. I’d planned for this to just be a bit of fun and to make people smile.
“Hey, can we lose the cameraman?” I asked Caryn.
“But Frank said …” she began.
“I know, but this feels a little creepy.”
“Thank goodness, I thought it was just me,” Megan said and then clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Let’s take the banner down, and I’ll just go from class to class and hand them out,” I suggested.
Kendal, Megan, and I broke down the table and took down the banner. Caryn sent the cameraman home with the promise he would get paid. We went to one of the coaches’ conference rooms to hang out until the bell rang to start school. We had to hurry, but with the four of us splitting up, we were able to hit all the classes.
It turned out to be a lot of fun. I made a point to give one to each of the teachers as well, even the men. The guys gave me some shit. Word of my good deed got out, naturally. I think Frank forgot that teenagers have cell phones and access to the Internet. By lunchtime, there was online video and pictures of me handing out flowers. I was much happier to have it work that way than to stage it. I’d resigned myself to the fact that almost everything I did seemed to end up on the Internet, now that the movie had come out.
◊◊◊
“There he is. I think we all need to kick his ass,” Wolf announced at lunch.
“Who knew he would need to buy girls’ affections?” Tim piled on.
“I wish I’d thought of it,” Phil complained.
“Isn’t David the best?” Gina said, batting her eyes.
“He’s so sexy without his shirt on,” Halle cooed.
Wolf and Tim made barfing faces.
“Okay, bite me. Yes, all of you; bite me,” I said, pointing to everyone at the table.
“I still wish I’d thought of it,” Phil complained.
I never had to worry about my head getting too big.
◊◊◊
Today Moose showed up with Bryan and Brock while I practiced with the pitching machine. We followed the same routine: Moose talked to them as I batted, then after thirty minutes, one of them stepped into the cage. I spent fifteen minutes with each of them. Moose would insert himself if he noticed I’d gotten something wrong, but otherwise let me teach them.
After we were done, I stopped Moose.
“Why are you having me coach them? You obviously have a lot more experience than I do,” I admitted.
“It’s because they need to hear it from someone other than me. I’ve been coaching them and telling them what you’re saying. You’ll figure out that for whatever reason, sometimes it takes someone else to tell you the same thing to get you to believe it. All I’ve done is tell them you received special coaching and came home a better hitter. They all know what you did in football. They want to believe you, so they do,” Moose explained.
“If it makes us better, I’m in.”
◊◊◊
Caryn called me after I got home from the dojo.
“Your dad and I talked at length with Mr. Morris. He’d like to set up a conference call for tomorrow and talk to essentially everyone who’s either involved with you or works for you.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“He said that the NCAA will receive your application tomorrow and that they won’t hesitate to call people directly. They would rather get information from the source than have you provide it to them. So, for example, they might call Saul and talk about your movie deals. Mr. Morris also wants to talk about a few matters you need to be careful about moving forward. He said he’d send your dad a letter next week that lays out a few issues that might be concerns and his take on them. We also gave him permission to contact everyone in case he needs to get additional information.”
“Do I have anything to worry about?” I asked.
“Mr. Morris is confident that you’ll be fine. If you’d gotten the wrong case manager, they could have made things difficult. Many of them are volunteers from different member institutions and some even from the general public. Mr. Morris said that you didn’t get a nonpaid case manager because your case is more involved than usual,” she explained.
“Okay. I’ll be interested to hear what he wants to tell everyone.”
“I also have news from Saul. He received the contract for the James Bond movie. You have the part if they make the movie,” she said.
“What do you mean,
“Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, has said he doesn’t want to be away from his family. I hope you’re sitting down. He turned down a hundred million dollars to do back-to-back movies.
