Phil paid attention, and I noticed that Dare had turned his phone on me while I coached the finer points of how to hold a football.
“Now, you want to have your thumb wrap around the ball so that it’s about even with your index finger. You want to make sure that you don’t let your palm rest on the ball. There needs to be a small gap so that when you throw the football, it won’t stick to your hand, and you won’t get what looks like a wounded duck. Your pinky and ring finger come off the ball at the same time, leaving your first two fingers in contact as you flip your wrist. That causes the football to rotate in a tight spiral.”
I had him throw the ball to a receiver a couple of times. He finally let one go that was perfect.
“That just felt different. Thanks, David,” Phil said, and trotted back to get his turn.
In practice, I tried to do what I saw Ridge Townsend, USC’s starting quarterback, did. He was focused on what he did each snap. Ridge said he’d gone to a camp where Tom Brady, the starting quarterback for the NFL’s Patriots, had been. Ridge said that Tom was 100% about the business at hand when he was on the football field. They’d seemed like two quarterbacks I should emulate.
I found I enjoyed stepping back and helping coach. After all, I’d accumulated a lot of knowledge going to camps like Elite 11 and from the personal coaching I’d received from Coach Mason and Coach Harrington. This was an opportunity to pass it on.
I found that Dare paid attention to what was happening around him. If I could ever get him to communicate, he would be a tremendous asset. I’d learned from my uncle that you couldn’t force someone to change. He’d helped me understand that I wanted to change. Once I knew I didn’t want to go through life like I had, it was easy for him to help me decide what I wanted my life to be like. A summer at my uncle’s would do Dare a world of good.
When practice was done, Coach Mason took me aside.
“Thanks. Sometimes they need to hear it from someone else.”
He was right because I knew he’d talked about everything I’d worked on with all the quarterbacks today to make them better. He’d singled me out more than once to show them how to do it right and wrong.
“Funny how that works,” I said.
“I think Trent turned a corner today. He hasn’t looked this good since he realized that he wasn’t going to start in two-a-days. What did you tell him?”
I told Coach Mason about the prayer.
“I’ll hit him with my second favorite saying tomorrow. ‘If it is to be, it is up to me.’ I find that if I focus on those two things, I can accomplish just about anything.”
That got Coach Mason grinning.
“If I heard that from just about anyone else, I would say they were being cocky.”
“How are you feeling?” Jeff, my favorite reporter, asked, startling me.
He and his camera crew were constantly around, and I’d begun to ignore them. Coach Mason rolled his eyes and headed off to the locker room, leaving me to face Jeff.
I glossed over my injuries and admitted that I wouldn’t play this week, but left the door open for the following week. I said we would play it one week at a time and see whether or not I was ready to go. When they were done with the interview, Jeff sent his crew to the truck.
“What’s the real word?” he asked.
I told him three to six weeks and that I could barely get around.
◊◊◊ Thursday October 13
We were eating lunch when Dare jumped up and excitedly showed me his phone. It was an article about this week’s opponent, Beverly. I looked at him, and we both smiled.
“This is never good,” Brook almost moaned.
“Let me guess,” Wolf said. “Hannah Minacci is going to be David’s date to Homecoming.”
“Have you asked anyone to go?” Cassidy asked me pointedly.
I gave her a look. It was just assumed that if Brook was my girlfriend, she would go with me. Right?
“Here I bought a dress and everything. I thought my boyfriend would ask, but he hasn’t. I guess I need to find a date,” Brook pouted.
As I looked around the table, I saw that everyone had an amused look on their face. This smelled like a setup.
“I’ll take you,” Dare blurted. I’d been looking at Cassidy, and the expression on her face was priceless. Everyone must have been in on it except for Dare. I turned to Brook and dared her to turn him down.
She had this fish-out-of-water look.
“I … uh … I … um … would love to go with you,” she said.
Poor Dare realized what he’d done, and I was afraid he might start crying.
“I guess I better see if I can find someone on short notice,” I said, then shrugged and started to surf the net with my phone.
Dare just blinked when he discovered I wasn’t going to pummel him. I would make sure they had their pictures taken at the dance. An evil plan suddenly came to me, but that could wait.
“I have some great news. They’re all sick!” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Johan asked.
“Beverly! They may forfeit the game,” I explained and held up Dare’s phone. “Their starting tackle got the flu and was hospitalized. On Monday, their whole team visited him there.”
