Old Fashioned - Becker Brothers

“And how about some chicken nuggets, too,” I offered.

“Yes!”

“And broccoli.”

Her nose wrinkled, shoulders deflating. “Broccoli,” she repeated, dragging the word out. “Yuck.”

I chuckled, tugging on one of her braids before I steered her toward our car. “Greens make you strong, baby girl.” I tossed a look back at Jordan. “See you on Monday.”

“See you,” he said, then he hollered at Paige. “I’ll be sure to get onto Parson for you, Paige.”

“Tell him if he wants anyone to draft the defense team he plays on for their fantasy football team in the future, he better get his act together.”

That made us all laugh, and with one final wave at my boss, Paige and I climbed in the car, leaving Jordan with his mud.

And me with a burning curiosity over what he was going to say before my daughter interrupted.SydneyThere was a different energy in the locker room that following Monday.

Gone were the smiles and the rambunctious boys from the weeks prior. No one looked excited as they tugged on their cleats and wrapped their wrists. No one was telling a loud story about a girl or making a joke about another player’s mom. Instead, each boy filed in quietly, one by one, and got dressed without much of a word to anyone else.

They weren’t exactly defeated, either. They didn’t seem sad. No, it was more of a determined silence, as if they knew before Coach said anything that they had a lot of work to do, and they’d all shown up ready to do it.

I found the quietness welcoming as I worked, helping players with their bandages and doing some soft tissue work on those who needed it. I even checked in on Parker, who was sheepish and blushing when I approached him. He apologized and seemed sincere in it, so I dismissed him, deciding to let Jordan determine what his punishment would be.

When Jordan finally made his way into the locker room to stand in the center, I found my usual corner, trying to all but disappear and just observe.

He wore a permanent frown that day, his eyebrows folding so low I wasn’t sure he could see at all. The quietness somehow silenced altogether when he stood in the center of the room, as if everyone were afraid that even a sneaker squeak would set him off like a ton of missiles.

I expected him to roar and growl and put the fear of God into those boys. At the very least, I expected an epic pep talk like the one he’d given the first day we’d all walked into this place. Instead, he looked at his clipboard, flipping through pages with all eyes on him for what felt like an eternity before he lifted his gaze and said three simple words.

“On the field.”

Immediately, there was a shuffle of cleats and pads and heads hung as the boys made their way outside. And I learned that afternoon what all of them already knew.

If coach was quiet, there would be pain.

Suicides. Burpees. Bear crawls. Gut busters. Snakes.

Every football player’s most-hated drill was called on that day, and I watched from the sidelines with a grimace as those boys sweated and screamed and cried and fell and threw up and still, every time, they got up and got back to work.

Not a single one complained.

Not a single one asked to stop.

Jordan didn’t say another word after those first three in the locker room. The other coaches led the torture, with Jordan on the sideline watching like a king over his subjects. When more than two hours had passed, he found my gaze on the sideline, and he must have seen the worry etched in my features because he finally blew the whistle that signaled the persecution to stop.

I breathed out a silent sigh of relief along with the boys, who all hit the ground in sync, panting and groaning and catching their breaths. Jordan didn’t say another word before he was heading back toward the locker room, and slowly, the rest of the coaches and players did the same, shuffling in with their helmets in hand and their heads held a little higher than they had been on the way out.

When we were all settled in the locker room, I checked in with each group of boys, making sure no one needed me before I found my corner again. Jordan seemed a little less tense, but not enough to make anyone in that room feel safe yet.

“We don’t get time to rest in football,” he said after a while, looking around at each player. “We don’t get time to recover from a loss or come down from the high of a win. Because in four short days, we’ll play our next opponent, and we have to be ready.”

He paused, rolling his lips together.

“I’m not angry with your performance on Friday,” he started. “I’m disappointed with the attitude you all had when you walked onto that field. You thought it would be easy. You thought that win was yours, like you’d already earned it before you’d even laced up your cleats. The Raptors?” He tongued his cheek. “They went out there ready to fight for that win, and they did, and they got it. And you know what else? They deserved it.”