The other player who stood out was Roc. He’d grown taller and put on muscle since last year. And he was even faster. He had a long, smooth gait that ate up yardage in a hurry. In many ways, he reminded me of Damion Roth, probably the high school receiver with the highest ceiling I’d ever played with. Damion had enrolled at Wesleyan and would be Mike’s number one target. Damion reminded me of a young Odell Beckham Jr. Granted, Damion had issues, but he was a freak athletically. Roc had sneaky-good speed because it didn’t seem like he was running hard. When he kicked it into overdrive, I would bet he could outrun Bill Callaway. And Bill had gotten himself a scholarship to play at USC and was the Gatorade Player of the Year for our state his senior year. I honestly thought Roc could be special.
What made all the difference in the world was the addition of Wolf to our offense. It made a lot of sense to move him inside to play tight end. He was another one who had taken to the training since last year. Even in shorts and t-shirts, he was disruptive in the middle of the field. I was sure Ty would love to have Wolf block for him when he ran the ball. I certainly loved to throw to Wolf; he was my security blanket. We were comfortable with each other, and I was confident if I got it near him, he’d catch it.
There were two new receivers, Don Crown and Tom Wells, who’d recently moved to town. Don looked to be Wolf’s backup at tight end and would see the field when we were in either a big package or goal-line set. He was big and strong, but he wasn’t speedy.
Tom looked like he would challenge Ed Pine for the other wide receiver position. While Ed was probably a better fit as a slotback because of his smaller size and speed, Tom just looked the part. I’d had a long talk with Tom about catching the football. He was taking advantage of our JUGS machines. I told him I wanted him to catch at least a hundred balls a day. Word must have gotten around because all the skill players had taken up my challenge. It was good that the boosters had bought a couple more machines. We now had four going almost constantly.
I worked up a good sweat after an hour of running the team up and down the field. I think the defense was happy to see me leave to go work on baseball.
◊◊◊
“How do you feel?” Moose asked me.
“I’m ready. Good thing I did Elite 11 last year, or this would be freaking me out.”
“I’m nervous, and I’m not playing,” Coach Haskins shared.
“They were smart in how they calmed us down at Elite 11. We all knew it was a competition, and ‘everything counted,’” I said, making the appropriate air quotes. “But the coaches told us the real competition was with ourselves. We were receiving world-class coaching, and if we were smart, we would focus on making ourselves better. I plan on doing the same at Under-18.”
“I don’t get you sometimes. If it were me, I’d be checking out all the other players and worried about how I stacked up,” Moose said.
“While you were worrying about me, I’d just be focused and playing ball. I would end up kicking your butt because you would eventually mess up.”
“Why’s that?” Moose asked.
“When you should be 100% focused on baseball, you’d be splitting time seeing what I was doing. The lack of focus would cost you at some point. Why do you think I trash-talk sometimes? It’s to get into the heads of my opponents. I got this,” I said with a smile.
“I’m going to quit worrying about you,” Coach Haskins said.
“No, don’t. If you guys worry and check out the competition, I won’t have to,” I said with a big smile.
“You’re a dick sometimes,” Moose said with a grin.
I just shrugged.
◊◊◊
Tim’s parents had gone to his grandparents’ on his dad’s side for the weekend. What’s the rite of passage for every teen who finds they have a home-alone situation? You throw a party. Tim was smart: he called in our local party planner, Mona, to put it together. We would miss her when she left for college in the fall.
I let Paul have the night off since he had to go with me to North Carolina. Cassidy was in charge of me. She insisted that she drive me in my Jeep and that we pick up Brook. I had a feeling I wouldn’t see either of them for most of the night because they were busy talking to each other. I had to remember that I’d stolen Cassidy for my trip to Cuba while Brook stayed home. It seemed that they had some serious catching-up to do. What confused me was that Cassidy had been home since Sunday.
Tim lived in an older neighborhood of small ranch homes. I was glad to see it was a gorgeous night because his house was too small for the crowd that showed up. I had to be honest, I didn’t miss the heat and humidity of Cuba. It felt good to be home, weather-wise.
