A kid can’t grow if he’s walking around with his coach’s foot on his neck 24/7. You have to give the leash some slack before you can snap it back—when needed.
My players huddle around me and take a knee.
“Good practice today, boys. We’ll do the same tomorrow. Go home, eat, shower, sleep.” They groan collectively, because it’s the last week of the summer. “Don’t go out with your girlfriends, don’t frigging drink, don’t stay up until two in the morning playing Xbox with your idiot friends across town.” A few of them chuckle guiltily. “Eat, shower, sleep—I’ll know if you don’t—and I’ll make it hurt tomorrow.” I scan their faces. “Now let me hear it.”
Lipinski calls it out, “Who are we?”
The team answers in one voice: “Lions!”
“Who are we?!”
“Lions!”
“Can’t be beat!”
“Can’t be beat! Can’t be beat! Lions, lions, LIONS!”
And that’s what they are—especially this year. They’re everything we’ve made them—a well-oiled machine. Disciplined, strong, cohesive—fuck yeah.
~ ~ ~
Before I head home, I put Snoopy in the Jeep and walk down to my classroom, where I’ll be teaching US history in a few more days. I have a good roster—especially third period—a nice mix of smart, well-behaved kids and smart, mouthy ones to keep things from being too boring. They’re juniors, which is a good age—they know the routine, know their way around, but still care enough about their grades not to tell me and my assignments to go screw myself. That tends to happen senior year.
I put a stack of rubber-band-wrapped index cards in the top drawer of the desk. It’s for the first-day assignment I always give, where I play “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” by Billy Joel and hang the lyrics around the classroom. Then, they each pick two index cards and have to give an oral report the next day on the two people or events they chose. It makes history more relevant for them—interesting—which is big for a generation of kids who are basically immediate-gratification junkies.
Child psychologists will tell you the human brain isn’t fully developed until age twenty-five, but—not to go all touchy-feely on you—I think the soul stops growing at the end of high school, and who you are when you graduate is who you’ll always be. I’ve seen it in action: if you’re a dick at eighteen—you’ll probably be a dick for life.
That’s another reason I like this job . . . because there’s still hope for these kids. No matter where they come from, who their parents are, who their dipshit friends are, we get them in this building for seven hours a day. So, if we do what we’re supposed to, set the example, listen, teach the right things, and yeah—figuratively knock them upside the head once in a while—we can help shape their souls. Change them—make them better human beings than they would’ve been without us.
That’s my theory, anyway.
I sit down in the desk chair and lean back, balancing on the hind legs like my mother always told me not to. I fold my hands behind my head, put my feet on the desk, and sigh with contentment. Because life is sweet.
It’s going to be a great year.
They’re not all great—some years suck donkey balls. My best players graduate and it’s a rebuilding year, which means a lot of L’s on the board, or sometimes you just get a crappy crop of students. But this year’s going to be awesome—I can feel it.
And then, something catches my eye outside the window in the parking lot.Someone.
And my balance goes to shit.
I swing my arms like a baby bird, hang in the air for half a second . . . and then topple back in a heap. Not my smoothest move.
But right now, it doesn’t matter.
I pull myself up to my feet, step over the chair towards the window, all the while peering at the blonde in the navy-blue pencil skirt walking across the parking lot.
And the ass that, even from this distance, I would know anywhere.
Callaway Carpenter. Holy shit.
She looks amazing, even more beautiful than the last time I saw her . . . than the first time I saw her. You never forget your first. Isn’t that what they say? Callie was my first and for a long time, I thought she’d be my only.
The first time I laid my eyes on her, it felt like getting sacked by a three-hundred-pound defensive lineman with an ax to grind. She looked like an angel. Golden hair framing petite, delicate features—a heart-shaped face, a dainty jaw, a cute nose and these big, round, blinking green eyes I wanted to drown in.
Wait . . . back up . . . that’s not actually true. That’s a lie.
I was fifteen when I met Callie, and fifteen-year-old boys are notorious perverts, so the first thing I noticed about her wasn’t her face. It was her tits—they were full and round and absolutely perfect.