When I went to first-period gym, Wolf was at his locker, which was right next to mine. He glanced over and began to chuckle.
“I can’t help it,” I tried to explain. “Brook and I sort of made out before school.”
“You need to go get into the ice bath. That’ll fix it.”
Now that was a true friend. Ice-cold water caused everything to shrink. I hurried up and got ready for PE, grabbing a towel to drape over my arm to help cover myself. Both Jill and Becky were busy preparing to treat other players.
“David pulled something in his groin area,” Wolf announced behind me.
I couldn’t be too mad; I would have said the same if it’d been him. There would be payback, though, as both trainers turned to see what the problem was. I flipped them all off and dropped the towel. I figured they’d seen it before, so I dropped my shorts, took off my shirt, and climbed into the ice bath.
“Jesus, Dawson. Have you no shame?” Wolf asked.
“Don’t make me come out of here,” I warned him.
Both Jill and Becky barked ‘no’ at the same time. That got both of us chuckling, and the trainers joined in. It didn’t take long for the ice water to have the desired effect, both on my obvious problem and my bumps and bruises.
◊◊◊
Last period, the coaches pulled the skill players out of class and took us to the film room. When we were all seated, they showed us some plays from the Waterloo game.
“We’re sure that Beverly is watching the same film you are right now,” Coach Hope said.
Coach Mason was running the machine and had his laser pointer out.
“This is the first play. See how the cornerback snuck over to intercept the toss to Ty?” he asked.
He then showed a series of plays where they had done something similar.
“I want you all to switch gears and think defense. How would you defend us?” Coach Mason asked.
Coach Rector, our defensive coordinator, weighed in. It was evident he and Coach Hope had talked about this from the way they looked at each other.
“I’d try a variety of different maneuvers to trip you up. I might drop some linemen back and also spread out our linebackers.”
They had gathered film of us doing some of those things to our opponents. They showed some Beverly film, and we saw them laying traps on pass plays. When I’d gone to football camp at Kentucky, we’d talked in depth about how to not necessarily trust something if it seemed
“Can you bring up a couple of plays from the rugby game you showed us?” I asked.
When we watched it before, I’d only looked at it from the offense’s point of view. I began to shake my head.
“I don’t believe they’re going to trap as much as you think,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Coach Hope asked.
“The rugby guys expect the ball to be tossed around. If you watch how they defend it, you’ll see they use a zone approach and keep it in front of them. They don’t care how many times you toss it back and forth because they have you hemmed in.
“If I were Beverly, I would do two things. I would focus on not giving up big plays, and I would force the ball out of my hands. As a defender, I would hope that the opposition would get a penalty by forward-lateraling the ball. Or that they toss to someone with the wrong jersey to turn it over,” I explained.
“That makes sense,” Coach Rector said. “The rest of our players aren’t used to handling the ball. They’re much more likely to make a mistake.”
“I don’t want anyone to think that this will replace our offense completely. It’s simply adding a wrinkle that keeps them guessing,” Coach Hope reminded everyone. “In any case, if we know they’ll zone up on defense, then I can game-plan accordingly.”
“I might have some wrinkles that’ll work,” Coach Mason said.
We knew he would.
◊◊◊
While we were flying, Roy scolded me: “You’re losing altitude. Check your trim. You’ve been slacking off on your instrument scan while you’ve been sightseeing.” I hadn’t changed the trim, and the position of the horizon as I saw it out the windscreen hadn’t changed, which I told Roy. As for the “sightseeing,” that sort of went with the “see and avoid” requirement of Visual Flight Rules. But he was right that I hadn’t kept up with the engine instruments.
“Hmm. The IVSI (Instantaneous Vertical Speed Indicator) shows that we’re bleeding off altitude slowly. Manifold pressure is down slightly. Remember how I told you that you control speed with pitch (nose down or nose up) and altitude with power? What does that tell you?”
“We’ve lost a little power? Do you think the throttle is just creeping on its own?”
“Push it in a bit, and let’s find out. Initiate a climb of 500 feet per minute until I tell you to level out.” I did as instructed while keeping the nose of the aircraft at the chosen speed.
“Now that we’re paying attention, does the engine seem a little rougher than usual? And does the tachometer needle appear to be oscillating slightly?
I swear I was only inattentive for a minute. We both looked up to see the barn roof was too close for comfort. I pulled back the yoke, and we slowed as we quickly climbed back to altitude.
