Page 16 of Love Game

It didn’t take a PhD in psychology to figure it out. With Mack, they were players. The best he had. But next to Danny, with his gameday glory past and a gaudy Super Bowl ring to his name, they felt like they were nothing. He made them feel like nothing.

Now it was time to fix that.

Mack looked up as Danny approached. Like a flock of birds rising on an updraft, the boys dispersed, putting space between themselves and Danny. Danny smiled at them all, but only the boldest—Kilgorn, the wide receiver soon-to-be quarterback—had the guts to flash a grin. The others just shuffled their feet and tugged at their practice jerseys.

Danny turned to Mack, nodding to the field and the mesh equipment bag at the older man’s feet.

“Thanks for getting all this together.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a single football. “I think this’ll be all we need.” Danny couldn’t help but smile when that pebbled leather settled into his palm and his fingertips found the laces. He curled the ball into his chest, cradling it like it was a damn security blanket, then eyed his players. “You’re welcome to stick around if you want, but we’re going to keep this pretty low-key,” he said to Mack.

Mack snorted, then nodded to the aluminum-framed lawn chair he’d set out on the sideline. “Whatever the hell this is, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The old man shambled toward his chair, leaving Danny alone with his handpicked players. He eyed them as closely as they watched him. Jerking his chin toward the center of the field, he said, “Follow me,” and took off at a jock trot, not daring to look back to see if they actually did. He turned to face them at the fifty-yard line. His players stood assembled a safe five yards away.

He tossed the ball from hand to hand. Though he knew exactly what he wanted to say to them, he’d be damned if he knew how to get the conversation to kick off. Thankfully, Kilgorn wasn’t afraid to wade into the silence.

“Are we in trouble for something, Coach?”

Danny caught the ball and tucked it safely into the crook of his arm. “Trouble? No. Should you be?”

“How come it’s only us?” a deeper voice asked.

Danny’s mental roster clicked. Oswalt. Defensive end. Junior. Six four, two seventy. Quick off the blocks. Leading the team in sacks. Which meant he actually broke through one of the massive Mid-American Conference offensive lines last season and caught the quarterback’s ankle. He might lack confidence but certainly not intelligence.

“I picked you guys because I’m looking to you to be team leaders next year.”

“We’re not all seniors,” Kilgorn was quick to point out.

The cornerback, a wiry kid named Nelson with kamikaze instincts, snorted as he eyed the true freshman wide receiver standing on the other side of the linemen. “Some of us aren’t old enough to be out of our red shirts yet.”

No, Danny’s bench wasn’t deep, and moving Kilgorn to QB meant he would have to play green in the passing game. But young Marcus Landry refused to rise to his teammate’s bait, proving he was part of the reason Wolcott put up such a high grade point average each year. Before they could start ripping into each other, Danny smacked the ball against his open palm and dropped back a few yards, ending in the passing stance he’d learned in the peewee league. “Spread out.”

They stared at him blankly.

He smacked the ball again, then zipped one straight at the freshman’s gut. Landry wasn’t without skill or instinct. He caught the ball right in the breadbasket and cradled it close. When he looked up, his dark eyes were wide with surprise. Danny nodded, confirming that he did indeed just catch a pass from a former Heisman candidate and NFL quarterback.

Tossing off a shrug, Danny took a few more steps back and clapped his hands, signaling for the return of the ball. “Sorry. That’s gonna leave a mark.”

To his credit, Landry did his best to wing it back at him, but as soft as his hands were, the kid didn’t have much of an arm. Danny caught the ball one-handed and dropped back again. This time, the players started to back away.

“Let’s play a game of five hundred,” he challenged.

“What’s that?” Russell, the leader of the offensive line, asked.

Danny cocked his head in disbelief, then shook it slowly. “You never played five hundred as a kid?” A couple nodded, but most wagged their shaggy heads. He tsked and pointed the end of the ball downfield. “Get down there around the twenty-five or thirty.”

The players backed downfield but spread out along the line as if he were about to put them through a series of Mack’s favorite drills.

He shook his head and waved them in. “No, bunch up together,” he called to them. When they complied, he tucked the ball back under his arm and rubbed his palms together in anticipation and raised his voice. “Okay, here’s how it goes. I throw the ball, you fight to be the guy to catch it. Whoever snags it gets a hundred points. First man to five hundred gets to throw.”

“We’re supposed to catch it?” his senior defensive tackle called back.

“Yep.” Danny nodded. “And anything goes. Well, no shots to the sac or eye gouging,” he amended, “but, you know, go for it.”

“But, Coach, we’re on D,” Oswalt protested.

Danny stared at the kid, letting his incredulity show. “Are you telling me that you never once dreamed of snagging some hotshot QB’s pass and running it straight down his throat?”

Oswalt shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

---