Slammed #3 (4 page)

The team tried to rally in the second half, but it
was an uphill battle. A wave of relief moved across the stands when we finally
managed to close the gap at the bottom of the third quarter, getting a
miraculous touchdown when the other team’s defense left a gap—pure chance. I
was shaking my head, grabbing pictures where I
could,
trying to understand what was going on in front of me. It was as unlike the
previous two games I’d gone to as anything could possibly be, and I dreaded
having to interview the coach if we lost—he would be pissed, I knew.

My heart was in my throat throughout the fourth
quarter. Both teams—ours and the other team—were playing their hearts out,
trying to break the tie. The clock continued its downward count, and it seemed
as though it might go into overtime—the disorganization of the first half was
still present, but not as glaring, and it seemed like the team was trying to
just keep Zack from being tackled long enough to get a pass. The line of
scrimmage moved from one end of the field to the other, back and forth; it was
exciting but dreadful at the same time, and I knew that by the time I got back
to my dorm—even if everything else went the right way for the rest of the
night—I would be exhausted from the stress of the game. There was a near moment
when Zack went down, thrown to the ground by an overzealous offensive lineman,
when he laid there for a long time after the whistle was blown. My heart
pounded in my chest—what if he was injured? It wouldn’t just mean the loss of
the game. In my mind I chanted at him to get up, get up,
get
up. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being seriously injured, even if I had
cut him out of my life for the duration of the season.

But then he got to his feet and shook it off, and I
sighed with relief. Everyone in the stands was screaming, shouting, cheering,
trying to get the team to a final touchdown by any means they possibly could.
Of course, it would be exciting if the game went into overtime—but if we could
get a definitive win before the clock ran out, that would be much better. I was
clenching my fists as the end of regulation time came closer and closer,
rocking on the balls of my feet, staying quiet but wishing I could make myself
scream and shout to get rid of the nervous energy that filled me.

With only a couple of minutes left on the clock, the
final play of the game started. Zack handed off the ball successfully just
before being tackled—and the player he’d handed it to managed to dodge and
evade, spinning away from the group that had gone straight for the QB and
exploding into a desperate full-pelt run. I stared at the field, without even
the presence of mind to take the pictures I knew would be the most dramatic of
the game, as the clock came to the last minute of regulation time. Everyone was
silent—all the screaming and shouting down to nothing, the tension thick enough
to cut with a knife—until the instant right after the player got to the
touchdown line, with just seconds to spare. After a brief sigh of relief,
everyone in the stands on our side erupted in an enormous, shrieking, shouting
cheer.

I sank down onto my seat with relief, closing my
eyes and breathing as slowly as I could. At the very last, we’d managed to eke
out a win—that would make it easier to interview the coach in a few minutes,
once everyone was done with the post-game celebration and started to clear the
stadium. Zack was uninjured, and the team would go on to Nationals. The
cheering went on and on; I looked up to see that the team was cavorting about
the sidelines, congratulating themselves on the narrow victory they had managed
to eke out in the very last moments of the game. A few of the players grabbed
up cheerleaders and got kisses or hugs from them—or simply lifted them up into
the air. I smiled to myself; I could easily understand their excitement.

After several moments, though, people in the stands
realized that there were better things to do. It was chilly out and there were
parties to go to, other celebrations with free or at least cheap liquor. As the
people started to slowly trickle out of the stands, the band played on, the
players kept to the field, and I tried to decide if it was worth the risk of
confronting Zack to get my interview without missing the coach. I was sure that
in spite of the team’s apparent desire to keep jumping, running, and shouting,
they’d be corralled into the locker room soon—and the coach would follow, to
congratulate them and to critique their performance. I needed to get out onto
the field before Coach
Bullden
left. I looked around
and spotted Zack talking to some of the other members of his team; I hoped that
if I could just slip out onto the field and pull the head coach aside, he might
not even notice me at all.

I took my pass out of my purse and took a deep
breath, moving in the opposite direction of the steady flow of students and
fans who were heading to the exits. I got down to the field level and showed my
pass quickly to the security guard standing there and he nodded, giving me a
little smile.

“You were here last game, too; I remember cute faces
like yours.”

I smiled in return but felt more than a little
strange at that compliment from the source. I dashed out onto the field.
Bullden
was calling out to the players to finish up their
celebration and start heading in.

“You have plenty of parties to choose from, guys—get
yourselves cleaned up so you can get out of here.”

I slowed down as I got closer, determinedly not
looking for Zack. If I spotted him, he might feel my gaze and look in my
direction. Of course, even without looking at him, he managed to see me.

“
Evie
!”
I heard my name in his voice and determinedly looked anywhere but the direction
it had come from.
“
Evie
!
Do
you need another prime quote? C’mon,
Evie
, I won’t
even make you go on a date with me for it this time!”

I squared my shoulders and tried my best to ignore
the calls.

“Coach
Bullden
,” I said,
moving quickly to intercept him as he turned to head for the locker rooms. “Do
you have a few minutes? I’m from the campus newspaper—I was hoping I could ask
you a few questions about tonight’s game.”

The coach stopped and gave me a quick, polite smile.
“You spoke with Zack last game, didn’t you? That was a fine article. I don’t
mind at all.”

He turned towards the stragglers—and following his
gaze, even though I knew better, I saw Zack among them, watching me intently.
He ran up, stopping a few feet away from me, staring at me with so much hope in
his eyes that I felt my heart lurch.

“Does she need another interview, coach? I’ve got
lots to say about the game.” Zack was talking to
Bullden
but he was looking at me, and I felt my cheeks getting hotter and hotter. I
kept my lips pressed together to keep from saying anything at all to him.

“Nah, Zack—you did well enough last time, but this
lovely lady wants to talk to the man in charge. Hit the showers.” The coach
gestured for me to walk with him to the bench, and I sat down next to him. He
was an older guy—it seemed like there were no young head coaches in college
football—in a windbreaker spattered with our school colors, with good-quality
embroidery on the sleeves and the lapel showing the school’s mascot. In the
corner of my eye I saw Zack reluctantly heading back to the lockers and put my
mind firmly back on the task at hand: getting good quotes out of the head coach
for my feature article about the game and about him.

“Thanks for agreeing to the interview—after a game
like that you must be exhausted,” I said, smiling politely as I took my
recorder and my notebook out of my bag.

Bullden
grinned. “You’re right about that,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “Are
you a fan of football, young lady?”

I shrugged. “Please, call me Evelyn. I watched a lot
of football in high school; one of my boyfriends was on our school’s team.” I
somehow suppressed the blush that threatened to give me away at the thought of
Zack. “I would have been a pretty terrible girlfriend if I didn’t go, you know.
So I appreciate the game.”

“Probably got your fill of training routines too,”
the coach said with another smile.

“Oh yes, definitely.” I laughed and set down the
recorder between us. “Now I need to get your agreement that it’s okay for me to
record. I want to make sure that everything that ends up in the article is
exactly what you said, exactly how you said it.”

“Good to see a responsible journalist. Of course
I’ll give my consent.” I hit the button to start the recording and the coach
cleared his throat. “This is Head Coach Charlie
Bullden
,
consenting to be recorded by Evelyn here, so that she can write another great
article about the team. That okay?”

I grinned. “More than okay, Sir,” I said, opening my
notebook.

“Please, just call me Coach. I get too used to it
from the players—even my own kids call me Coach.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Coach. Now, this was a
rough game—why do you think that was? The odds for a shut out for our team were
really high.”

“Well, of course you never fully know what you’re
going to be up against when you play another team. You can prepare for weeks,
and look at their games—their style of play, you understand—and then when you
get to the actual game, they might have changed everything up during their
practices.” I nodded. “In this case, we were as ready for State as we could
possibly be, but they were ready for us too—they knew about the few weaknesses
the team has, and more power to them for exploiting them.”

I consulted my notes. “It’s unusual for our team to
lag behind at the half, isn’t it? What did you see going on there on the field
to explain it?” I licked my lips, looking up from my notebook.

The coach smiled wryly. “We had good plays; I think
there was just some miscommunication. Between
me and Zack
or between Zack and the other players—it happens. There was a lot of pressure
this game, even if we weren’t playing rivals. The last game of the season is
always tough—everyone gives it all they have.” The coach paused a moment to
reflect. “Especially if a team’s going up against one like ours—where we’ve won
almost our whole season—they have something to prove. They may not have the
record, but they knocked the top team down a peg.”

“I was thinking that when the other team came out,”
I said with a smile. “They looked hungry for it. They looked like they at least
wanted to go down having scored some points on us.”

The coach laughed. “You’re a shrewd woman. Of
course, we had those issues in the first half, and we struggled in the third
quarter, but we all came together in the fourth.”

“Do you think it was more an issue with offense or
defense?”

The coach picked a piece of lint off of his chinos. “I
think our defense was doing all they could. There was some scramble-up with the
offense. Timing was off. Guess I’ll have to focus on that in the next couple of
practices leading into the nationals.”

I found myself becoming more and more at ease with
the coach the more questions I asked—it helped that he praised my thorough
research on his strategies and the other team’s coach. In the back of my mind,
however, the whole time I was getting the information I wanted and needed to
write the best possible article about the game, I kept thinking about Zack. I
had hoped to avoid him; but of course, he had seen me—and he would have to have
noticed the way I ignored him. It was too obvious. I felt a minor irritation at
the fact that he had shouted across the field to me—in effect creating another
spectacle of himself even after he had told me he wouldn’t do that. But then, I
thought, I had sort of goaded him into it by ignoring his texts and calls and
the note on my door. I hadn’t given him any reason for my sudden break-off of
contact.

I finished up the interview as quickly as I could,
thanking the coach profusely for giving me so much to work with. “I look
forward to your article, Evelyn,” Coach
Bullden
said,
shaking my hand firmly and professionally. I smiled up into his weather-beaten
face and said I’d email him the finished article before I submitted it to my
editor.

I left the stadium, shivering against the chill in
the air. It was a long walk across the campus to the dorms, but I didn’t mind
it. I had a lot to think about; in the back of my mind I could still see Zack’s
face—hopeful, excited—as he’d called out to me, asking if I needed to interview
him again. I closed my eyes and swallowed against the lump in my throat. It
wasn’t fair—it wasn’t nice—but I knew I had made the only choice I could in the
situation.

I managed to get the article done just as quickly as
the first I had written for the newspaper; I sent it to Coach
Bullden
to get his approval—I hadn’t
embelished
anything, or tried anything fancy at all. The story of the game was compelling
on its own, and I was glad that I had done my research to learn about passing
game and running game, strategy and tactics; it fleshed out what there was to
say about the game itself and the reasons that it had so nearly gone poorly for
us. The coach replied to my email quickly, thanking me for doing such a
thorough job and for getting his quotes precise.