Safety Net (2 page)

When the season roster went up, it
wasn’t a surprise -- though a disappointment -- that Lowell was a redshirt. He’d
grown another half-inch over the summer and the trainers wanted him to bulk up
more (“You look like a stringy basketball player”), and no denying that having
a year to learn the plays and watch the team on the field would be a benefit.
But still.

Almost all the freshmen redshirted.
Only MacAdam, Babcock, and a wide receiver named Dale Lennart were the true
freshmen players. Lennart was a walk-on and Lowell didn’t know much about him
yet. Lowell tried not to begrudge him -- the only one out of the three he wasn’t
tight with -- his varsity letter.

Their first game was at home
against Sacramento State, a non-conference match. All the excitement of a real
game was there, even though Lowell would be watching from the side. Despite the
blazing afternoon sun and the shockingly three-quarters-empty stadium, Lowell
felt the pride and adrenaline rush coming out onto the field with the team to
face their first opponent.

Crocker won 28-10, but not through
brilliance. Sac State’s offense was a shambles, and their defense was
stubbornly reluctant to learn from their mistakes and kept letting Crocker get
through. Even then, it wasn’t the one-sided rout it should have been. Some bad
fumbles, a few Duran passes that were wildly overthrown, and Sacramento’s lone
touchdown had been scored on an interception. Afterwards, Coach Bowman was not
happy. The winners went home chastened, knowing they had to pull it together.

The next week was away, down to
Phoenix to face Arizona State in the first conference game of the season.
Crocker did better against a better opponent, but not good enough. The Sun
Devils took that one, 21-28.

The team’s travel coordinator did
the hotel room assignments for the freshmen. (“They like to mix you up before
you become too set in your ways,” Mullin had explained.) Lowell ended up
rooming with Erick West.

He hadn’t really spoken to the guy
yet, just a few things here and there. Lowell didn’t know why he felt awkward
in his presence, unless it was falling into quarterback-worship bullshit. In
their hotel room after the game, to push past his awkwardness, he tossed out, “How’s
it going to work with two freshmen quarterbacks?” and endured a wretched
silence while West fiddled with the air conditioning settings.

“I don’t know,” West said at last. “That’s
for Coach Bowman to say.” Then he turned, fixed his gaze on Lowell -- before
now Lowell had never noticed that West’s eyes were a sharp, bright blue -- and
asked, “What do you think of Hutchinson?” The way he asked, it was a real
question, with something behind it, but not vanity.

Lowell had claimed the bed closer
to the window and stretched out over the covers. “You know, I met him during
recruits’ weekend and he seemed okay, but he’s not making any friends on the
team. That wouldn’t be so bad if his passing was fantastic, but I don’t think
he’s impressing anyone with that, either.” It was the first time Lowell was
being honest about Hutchinson, but he wondered if he’d made a bad move trashing
one QB to another.

West dropped onto the other bed,
quiet for a moment before he said, “I watched his highlight reel  a dozen
times -- not that crappy one online, but the full one he sent to colleges. And
I just don’t get it. He’s got it all. He can pass, he can move, he can spot
guys on the other end of the field, he can run. Where is it? Why aren’t we
seeing it?” He actually sounded angry, and Lowell had no idea what to say.

West shook his head. “Seriously?
Back in Texas, when it looked like I’d have to face Hutchinson in the
championships, I nearly peed my pants. There wasn’t any way to beat the guy.
But our teams never matched up.” He looked over at Lowell, explaining, “We lost
our star running back right before State. Kind of shook up the team. We had a
rough time at State.”

“Your running back got injured?”

“He got drunk, drove his car into
the side of a church, by some miracle walked out alive and unharmed, but no one
could get rid of his underage DWI.”

“Not even in Texas? And I thought
Texans were serious about football,” Lowell said before he could stop himself.

West grinned. “I guess every once
in a while there’s something even Texas can’t do. But don’t let Texas know that.”
His grin faded and he said seriously, “I was co-captain. It shouldn’t have
happened. I shouldn’t have let him get that far out of line.”

Lowell raised an eyebrow. “More the
coaches’ responsibility than yours, wasn’t it?”

West shook his head. “Coaches build
the team, train the team, but it’s up to us to
make
the team.
Be
the team. That’s our responsibility.” He got under the covers, kicking half of them
to one side, and added in a lighter tone, “Or is that how Indiana football is,
Mr. State-Champ Tight End? You just do whatever, and let the coaches take the
fall?”

Lowell switched off the light,
countering with a smile, “Oh, fuck you, Texas.”

It took him a long time to get to
sleep that night, between thinking about what Erick had said about Hutchinson
and about teams, and the realization that Erick knew he was from Indiana, knew
about his award. Knew who he was.

At the breakfast buffet the next
morning, Erick nudged him and said, “There’s Dale. Let’s sit with him.”

Lowell, spotting MacAdam and
Babcock grabbing a table together, hesitated for a moment. Erick nudged him
again.

“We’re on the same floor in
Hopkins. He’s a good guy.”

Dale Lennart was shorter than
Lowell and West, with a strong, stocky build. He had short brown hair and an
alert, intelligent expression, and seemed really...
neat
, was the only
word that came to mind. Like he was a neat person, someone who folded his
socks. Kind of incongruous with football, but Lowell figured appearances could
be deceiving. What Lowell had seen of him on the field so far was that he was a
good receiver working on his speed.

Lennart waved Erick to the table with
a hearty, “Yo, cribmate!” and greeted Lowell with a, “Hey, homie, ’sup?” Appearances
were definitely deceiving.

Erick sat down and smirked at him.
“Lennart, you are, like, the whitest dude on the team.” Aside to Lowell, “He’s
from Dayton.
Ohio
.”

“Dayton’s very culturally diverse.”
Lennart tapped Erick’s plate with his fork. “My pediatrician was Jewish and our
family dentist was Lutheran.” He looked Lowell over. “’Sides, I don’t think I
can be the whitest dude on a team that includes the blond all-American here.
Aren’t you from Kansas or Missouri, some place like that?”

“Indiana.”

Lennart bumped a fist against
Lowell’s shoulder. “State neighbors. That makes you more of a cribmate than
Texas here.” He gave Erick a dismissive look, which Erick took in stride.

“Damn right,” Lowell said with a
smile at Erick. “Homie,” he added to Lennart, and Lennart grinned at him.

-----

The season fell into a routine:
practice, class, practice, team meeting, study, hang with the guys, sleep, wake
up, practice. Rinse and repeat until game day. Their season was slowly improving:
they walked all over their non-conference opponents, San Jose State and Wake
Forest, but lost conference games to UCLA and Oregon State. Then the University
of Washington game, which no one expected Crocker to win, went wild and into
double-overtime, with Crocker winning off a last minute fumble by the Huskies.
Their first PWAC win buoyed them to face Arizona on home turf in what became
their second PWAC win, exploiting Arizona’s patchy defense and shutting down
their predictable offense.

The team should have been high and
arrogant after back-to-back conference wins, but there was an undercurrent of
sober, serious dread: the remaining games were all PWAC teams, and the line-up
was brutal: Oregon, USC, then Crocker’s biggest rivals, the CU Rockridge Mountain
Lions, and finally Washington State, who were having a respectable season,
after beating Oregon State, Arizona State, and UCLA.

The Oregon game was rough but
unsurprising. Oregon, coming in after their bye week, were fit, fierce, and
ready. They anticipated all of Crocker’s plays and knew exactly how to match
them. Crocker rallied at the challenge, and Lowell had never seen Duran play so
well; he knew he was seeing the Terrence Duran of two years ago, Crocker’s big
hope. But as good as Crocker was, Oregon was better, and the game was out of
reach by the middle of the third quarter. Only a freak miracle, like every
Oregon player suddenly forgetting what football was, could’ve saved the day.
Crocker came off the 24-55 field exhausted, grim, and hungry for blood.

They had a week of rest before
facing USC at the L.A. Coliseum, and the Oregon loss had put a respectable dose
of killer instinct into the team. Lowell arrived in L.A. with confident hope.
He’d been watching his guys for nine games now, and from what he saw of SC from
the films, he was sure Crocker could beat them. Terrence Duran might be “Crocker’s
unreliable QB,” but he was unquestionably better than SC’s QB, Daniels. Hell,
even Ryan Hutchinson in practice was better.

It was Lowell’s first time at the
Coliseum, his first time seeing the mythological USC aura live and up close.
The endless sea of red and gold (didn’t help that Crocker’s color was also a
shade of red, making the small but enthusiastic section of Crocker supporters
invisible). Tommy Trojan on a horse. A marching band the size of Lowell’s high
school graduating class. All the pomp and attitude and confidence. No wonder
USC was the only California team people east of the Rockies paid attention to:
they were the only team that brought the whole college football experience to
the table, all the bells and whistles places like Kansas and Alabama took for
granted. Looking at SC, Lowell could understand for the first time why bloggers
sneeringly called Crocker “the geek squad.”

But Crocker could take SC, Lowell
knew it, and said as much on the sidelines, sitting with the other redshirts.

“Our D is as good as theirs, and
our offense is even, but we have Duran while they have Daniels. We can win this
one.”

Kryzinski gave him a sidelong look.
“Tell that to SC. You didn’t grow up in L.A., you don’t know what they’re like.”

“Why didn’t you go to SC?” Lee
asked Kryzinski, and Kryzinski frowned. “They didn’t recruit me. I had an offer
from UCLA, but between UCLA and Crocker...” He made balancing motions with his
hands.

Lowell wasn’t going to let it go. “Okay,
sure, SC has the history, the glory, what-the-fuck-ever. But I’m telling you,
today, right here, Crocker’s better than they are. It shouldn’t matter what
they think. It’s what we think.”

Lee leaned forward to rest his arms
on his thighs, watching the field. “No, Menacker, what matters is what our guys
on the field think.”

In the end, Lee and Kryzinski were
right. Crocker made every mistake they could have, missed all of the
opportunities USC’s blunders handed them, and USC walked away from the game
with a blistering 58 points to Crocker’s zero.

Afterwards, Coach Bowman was so
angry he changed color twice, and spoke loudly, saying each word carefully, “You
know why we lost to SC? Because you decided to lose. Not because they were
better. SC are not better. But they’re not idiots. When you come into the game
and fucking hand it over to them, they know what the hell to do with it. You
tired now? You tired of getting your asses kicked all night? You want to go
home and cry yourselves to sleep? Well, guess what. We’re staying here, and I’m
going to tell you every single time you gave SC their win and there is not a
single player who was on the field tonight who wasn’t responsible.”

And all of it was brutal and hurt
like hell to sit through, because Coach Bowman was one hundred percent right.

After the USC disaster, half the
team looked like they just wanted the last two games to happen, end the season,
get it over with. The other half looked like they wanted follow USC into a dark
alley and slit their throats. The two halves found common ground with the game
before Thanksgiving: Crocker’s arch-rival, California University Rockridge.

The week before the game was Hammer
Week, and the campus, which had been indifferent to football all season,
exploded with anti-Rockridge spirit. The fountains gushed red water, “beat CU” signs
hung from dorm windows and the student union railings, stuffed toy animals
vaguely resembling mountain lions were subjected to all sorts of inventive
means of disposal. On the way to practice every morning, sorority girls lined
the sidewalk and chanted to the team, “Beat CU!” Someone hacked into a giant
LED in the atrium of the School of Engineering and turned it into “The
Rockridge Deathwatch Clock,” counting down the seconds until Crocker won back
the Golden Hammer.

Since the Golden Hammer was
presently in Rockridge’s possession, and had been for a bitter five years,
Lowell had never seen it and envisioned a large, trophy-sized hammer sculpture
in gold. When the Rockridge student custodians brought it out for the Hammer
Game, the Crocker freshmen lined up to get their first look. It was an old
prospector’s hammer with some patches of gold leaf on it, mounted to a wooden
plaque with the results of every Hammer Game printed on it. Not exactly
inspiring, but Lowell kept that thought to himself; Crocker took the Hammer
seriously.

Rockridge had begun their season
like bats out of hell, dominating their first six games before falling to USC.
They were coming off an easy win over Arizona. Lowell wasn’t sure what to make
of Rockridge, though his gut told him if they could fall to SC, they could fall
to Crocker. And Crocker was pumped for the game. They had one motivation CU
didn’t: they hadn’t held the Hammer for five years. No one on Crocker’s current
roster had ever played on a team that had won it.