The dumbass was sitting next to his girlfriend when he said it. He really was a work in progress, and Jan had her work cut out for herself with him. In his defense, Jill was H.O.T. hot.
That was when my girlfriend touched my hand. I looked at her and tried to read her mind. Mr. Happy thought it would be a good idea to throw this live grenade in her lap and make her the bad guy by turning everyone down. Curse Tami and her common-sense advice to ignore my first reaction.
“Guys, we’re going to St. Louis to play football,” I said and meant it.
None of them believed me. Mr. Happy wondered where ‘fun David’ had gone, too.
◊◊◊
The Booster Club had sprung for charter buses for our trip. They’d gotten six buses that seated 56 people each. The coaches had decided to bring all the football players and cheerleaders, regardless of class. They had also invited the marching band. Then there were the chaperones and support staff. When I was in middle school, I’d gone to football games at State where the opposing team had had nowhere near that many buses for a college game.
I would have to make sure everyone let the Booster Club know how much we appreciated their support.
I settled in towards the back of the first bus with the usual suspects. Brook had to sit with the cheerleaders, who were on the fourth bus. I’d just gotten comfortable when Coach Hope made his way down the aisle.
“You need to come up front,” he said.
When I was halfway to the front, I saw Fritz, Paul, and Cassidy climb on board. Something was up. When we got seated, the buses all pulled out.
“The Marriott called me,” Fritz said. “I’ve been working with them to set up security.”
When we had traveled this past summer, one of Fritz’s crew had rented the room next to mine and had put video surveillance inside my room. We hadn’t kept that same level of security when I’d gone on recruiting trips. Something must have triggered this response.
“ESPN Radio has been hyping the game for the last couple of weeks. This week, all the local TV, radio, and print media have picked it up. Of course, you’ve been a focus of their reporting. St. Louis doesn’t have a local football team that everyone supports. They’ve sold a lot of tickets in the last three days,” Fritz explained.
“That’s good, right?” I asked.
“The Marriott isn’t so happy about it right now. It seems news trucks showed up this morning. That has attracted a crowd, once word got out that you’re on your way.”
“We’ve dealt with this before,” I said.
“Think the Washington fundraiser,” Fritz said.
That made me flinch. Well over twenty thousand people had shown up for a fundraising event that was planned for a couple thousand attendees. We were lucky that there was plenty of room and that Governor Higgins had made sure the state police were there to help manage the crowd.
“You can’t be serious. How would that many people get into downtown St. Louis?” I asked.
Okay, I’m a ‘stupid boy’ sometimes.
◊◊◊
Before we reached East St. Louis, we pulled into a rest stop. I got off the bus with my security team, and we found a limo waiting for us. The plan was for the buses to unload in the back of the Marriott, and we would pull into the front. I was glad when Coach Hope and Coach Mason joined me.
We led everyone through East St. Louis and over the bridge that spanned the Mississippi River. The view showed barges making their way down the river, and on the other side was the Gateway Arch National Park. It was a memorial to Thomas Jefferson’s role in the expansion to the west. It was near the actual start of Lewis and Clark’s historic journey. We got off I-55 and drove right by the Arch. The Marriott was close to The Dome at America’s Center, where we would play our game.
A couple of blocks before we reached our destination, the Missouri State Highway Patrol was waiting for us. We pulled over, and the buses continued on. It felt like I was with the governor when we were in the middle of four patrol cars with their lights flashing.
“I think we should have stayed with the team,” Coach Mason said, sharing his opinion of this convoy.
I found myself agreeing with him when we turned onto the street where the Marriott was located. Local police had blocked it off to through traffic. From all the hand-wringing, I’d expected we would have an out-of-control madhouse. What I found was more of a block party of my peeps. I shook my head when I saw a bunch of fanboys and girls. Some of them had dressed up as characters from various sci-fi or fantasy shows. Some restaurants on the street had taken advantage and set up tables and were serving food and adult beverages.
“Turn your jersey inside out,” Fritz advised.
I almost forgot the NCAA. If I was going to talk about movies, I needed not to be sporting my football gear.
“He could just take it off,” Cassidy suggested.
I thought I’d fired her.
