2/03/2009

Good Surprises -- Matt Foster

I love a good surprise. Mary Beth was a good girl, and in many ways a good player too, but why Elijah would ever pick her blew my mind. I’m a fan of surprises, mostly because they’re few and far between, but that decision blindsided me.

I had never known Ryan Davis to be a grizzly, in fact girls rarely crossed his mind. He wasn’t known for being suave or even confident with the ladies. Many a young maiden had been perplexed by the shy boy in the ladies man body.

A product of West Texas, he was a football legend from a family of football legends. He’d been around the game all his life, so much so that around Abilene, you could hardly tell the two apart. His father played at ACU, a linebacker for the ’77 National Championship team. A brief but lucrative enough stint in the NFL afforded John Davis the notoriety to be a successful car salesman to the entire Big Country. He nabbed his high school sweetheart, a doctor’s daughter, and they produced one of the most prolific prep sports star the city had ever seen. Everyone expected big things from him, this benefactor of West Texas royalty, everyone but Ryan. Who knows why, but everyone thought they did – the rumors were more plentiful and twisted than dust devils. Whether or not there were multiple acts of indiscretion with a daughter of a state judge wasn’t mine to… well… judge, what was clear was determination, and for what Ryan lacked in charm he made up for in determination. Whether it was one too many concussions or an aversion to the years of pressure, Ryan was done with football. He had no desire to win championships or even compete… which is why he made the ridiculous trade. He was a football god who now refused to mingle with mortals, save one. He had an eye for talent, he’d seen what he wanted, and in true West Texas style, no matter the cost, he got what he wanted: Mary Beth.

And so did Elijah, except he got two.

The wry smile won its battle with composure, Godfrey thought he had the upper hand. He walked down from the podium, moving the toothpick back and forth in his mouth, shooting a quick wink at his assistant coach. He nabbed two bulldogs for the price of a chihuahua, and he knew the whole time.

Genius. Pure genius.

His subtle strut betrayed the seemingly calm demeanor; he’d won the talent round… he thought. Ryan may not have wanted to compete, but I was a different story.

I didn’t care about Mary Beth, I didn’t care about Porter or even Conder. Which was the whole point. I couldn’t care less about my next pick…

Still sauntering away to his nest of confidence Godfrey didn’t even bother to listen to the next selection.

“Janine Watson.”

It wasn’t a stop, and it wasn’t long, but it was a pause – and a pause was all I needed. Like I said, I love a good surprise.

1/31/2009

Two for One -- by Troy Oliver

I slowly leaned forward and peered over Elijah’s shoulder at the clipboard. Just as I suspected. There was a line drawn through the words “will begin promptly at 9:00am.” Elijah was attempting to make Foster think we wanted Spradling, but didn’t get her. Foster was building a finesse team, and if he thought we were too, he might play us that way later on. That’s how far ahead Elijah was thinking. But, in reality, we had used our first pick to take a smash-mouth quarterback. Tara McCain. And Elijah was building … a junk-yard team.

Rounds two, three, and four were the money rounds. Anybody could make a top-ten list. But not everybody knew how to make picks. These were the rounds where teams were crafted, like spokes around the cog of a wheel. Our cog was a rough-and-tumble quarterback with a gritty style and a mean heart. She wasn’t the athelete that Emily was, but Tara had a way of getting to the next yard-line. So that’s what kind of a team we intended to build.

Elijah knew who to pick next. As he walked over to the mic, the crowds hushed.

“Mary Beth … um … “ He pointed. He didn’t know her last name and I was now holding the clipboard. I scrambled to find her name but it was nowhere on the board. He said it again. “You know … Mary Beth.”

It was embarrassing. Our new player, whose last name we had yet to learn, sauntered over. She had curly hair and a pleasant smile, and seemed to be forgiving of our lapse.

Elijah walked back over and grabbed the clipboard out of my hand, with a look that seemed to say Where were you, dude? I shot one back. How was I supposed to know it?

Suddenly we were approached from the side. I turned to see Ryan Davis. He was the tall, dark, and handsome type. A method football coach, with a very quiet approach. He and Foster had coached together in the past and were rumored to be on bad terms. He stood next to us a moment, stroking his chin. Elijah stared back.

“What?” Elijah asked.

Ryan waited a moment.

“I want Mary Beth.” Ryan was scheduled to have the next pick, but because he had traded his first pick away to Brandon Booker, he had the next two picks. We saw an opportunity.

“We’ll take those next two picks off your hands …” Elijah said looking back at his clipboard.

“Done.”

Mary Beth squealed. She was not happy about playing for a coach who had not bothered to look up her last name, and seemed also to have a bit of a “thing” for Ryan Davis. We wished her well, and went back to work, as she and Ryan made their way to her new camp.

“I knew we could get those picks,” Elijah muttered. I looked over at him.

“Huh?”

“We all have a reason for every pick. I want to win. Davis wants to score.” He nodded in their direction. They were already flirting. “Now I get two.” He headed back over to the mic, where Andy Zimmerman was announcing the trade.

Elijah stood for a moment behind the mic. Then he looked up. I could see the gears turning.

“Holly Porter. Tara Conder.”

The junk-yarding had begun.

10/02/2008

Talent Round -- by Matt Foster

Though space is limitless in the universe we occupy, the freshman league was not. There were over 200 girls in the draft room, but there were only 10 freshman girl teams… space was indeed limited. It was no secret that hearts would be broken and tears would be shed tonight.

For the average person feelings were of great concern, not in this room. Life-long friends sacrificed it all at the altar of opportunity if your name happened to come through the cheap, portable speakers. As one name was called you could watch a girl’s exuberant relief, hugging her friends and realizing her dreams coming true. The light in her eyes was obvious, any fool could see that. The truly observant, the one who saw the real picture, would see a group of girls standing around that lucky individual, putting on a smile, but wondering what will become of their soon-to-be long lost friend. There were the friends that were supportive, there were the friends that were jealous, and there were the friends that just didn’t understand. It wasn’t the end of the world, it was the beginning. You only have one freshman year, why give half of it away to football? What the outside world might see as another bright eyed, naïve freshman girl running towards her dream was a water-colored fairy tale compared to the dark reality the truly observant already knew, another poor salmon one leap too many.

Thanks to the Round Robin draft style, I didn’t have a pick for a while, but I didn’t need a pick for a while – I had back-to-back picks to end round 2 and start 3.


Round 1 was a breeze, any idiot can make a top ten list, some blue chips were common knowledge before they graduated high school. Teams are made in rounds 3 through 5. To the casual onlooker or untrained eye, round three meant panic time – it was the “needs” round, some needed position players, others needed skill players. But to the truly observant, there was no need to panic, round 3 was the beginning of the draft, the real draft starts now.

Yesterday two girls caught my attention, and when it’s caught, it’s rarely set free. Defense is a fairly simple concept born out of obstinacy, whatever the offense wants they NEVER get. Defense isn’t a pattern or a scheme, it’s a mindset. One goal – one thought – one word – “No!” Memorize that, and you’ve mastered defense.

On the practice field full of talent you could not have found two more different girls. Standing next to each other in line, waiting their turn in the coverage drills, were the two staples to my defense – and they couldn’t have been more opposite.

The first in line was a spitfire to put it mildly, most just called her mean. The very first drill she came in tight to press a receiver, and jammed her at the line so hard the poor receiver was laying on her back. She stood there, hovering directly over the shock-ridden receiver, waiting for the poor girl to catch her breath. Seeing it as an act of sportsmanship, the receiver raised her hand for a help-up off the ground, and it was immediately met by a sharp barking of intimidating and inappropriate words hurled unexpectedly at the poor girl. Teary-eyed, the receiver helped herself up and to the back of the line. Astonished, most people just looked the other way, chalking the incident up to a combination of poor sportsmanship and the pressure-laden situation. They were right about the sportsmanship, but no one saw this loose cannon coming.

She was from Alaska; America’s final frontier. She grew up hunting caribou and cleaning the salmon that her dad brought in every summer during the run. She was the only girl in a house full of boys, although some might even question her femininity. She was a survivor, she did what she had to do; she was afraid of no man, especially not a spoiled little rich girl with a football.

The next drilled ended with a receiver being carted off the field with a dislocated shoulder. Alaska was asked to leave, and she boisterously complied, for lack of a better term, with an explosive tirade clear to the parking lot. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief; it was the last they would see of her… so they thought.

Immediately behind her could have been her twin, athletically speaking. They were both tall, quick and built for speed. However, that’s where the similarities ended and the polarities began. Bouncing back and forth, donning two short pigtails and a perma-smile was the most jubilant, light-hearted, unfocused girl out there. She had no idea what just happened, she was too busy running as fast as she could in as tight of a circle as she could, until she fell over. Then she hopped up, jumped on an unsuspecting girl’s back and started raking her down with her spurs. British nannies would have written this girl off – she had the focus of a kitten with ADD.

Zimmerman had to yell at her twice before she realized it was her turn. Blushing, but still smiling, she came to the line and squared up with a little speed demon from Breckenridge. The receiver put a crisp double move on pigtails and had her running in circles all over again, but not on purpose. Bewildered, pigtails finally located the speed demon, 10 yards behind her. In a gear unknown to even pigtails herself she took off toward the speed demon in a desperate attempt to salvage some purpose to this drill. Unfortunately for her, the ball was underthrown, and while the speed demon made the correction, pigtails did not, and she ran right past the receiver who took the ball to the end zone. 8 clipboards shook their heads, writing things like: “Unfocused” “Not teachable” and “Too silly”. Across the field was the ninth clipboard, with a goatee and a Nebraska hat, who stood there, stoic. He whispered something to the tall, lanky guy next to him, wearing a palm leaf hat with shrugged shoulders and hands in his pockets.

Did he know, did he see what I saw, a lightning flash of brilliance amidst a storm of incompetence? I wasn’t sure, he was lucky enough to have the same speed demon fall the him the pick before in the 2nd round. I had to know where he stood, his eye for talent – after all, this was the talent round – which is why I chose to look at him when I made the announcement,

“We’ll take Erin Baldwin and Stephanie Spradling.”

Quizzical looks and awkward fumblings filled the room. This time no one looked at their clipboards – these girl’s names were nowhere to be found on them. I didn’t have to bother checking what everyone said or did, only one man’s opinion mattered. Elijah Godfrey stood there, as stoic as always, his eyes locked on mine. Still staring, he took the pen clipped in the collar of his John Deere shirt and emphatically clicked it. He never broke the stare, just put a single line through an unknown name on his clipboard, and tipped his hat as if to say, “Welcome to the talent round.”

I tipped mine back, “Thanks Godfrey, it’s good to be here.”

9/22/2008

The First Pick -- by Troy Oliver

For the most part, the room was silent. A few random streams of clapping came from the masses of girls standing against the far wall, but for the most part ... the room was silent.

Matt Foster had used the word "Dynasty" at the draft.

To the common observer it might have seemed too haughty. Worthy of an eye-roll or a snicker under the breath. After all, practices hadn't even started. Teams hadn't been chosen. To use the word "Dynasty," seemed downright idiotic.

But those of us on the inside. Those who had been to the run-throughs, and watched and evaluated the talent. To us ... it was a word worth using. The simple truth was: Emily Wallace ... was that good.

Zimmerman pointed to Elijah. "You're on the clock, coach!"

Elijah studied his clipboard. He knew that Foster was the only other person in the room with an eye for talent in the same league as his own. Other coaches would look for obvious skills; quick feet, speed, catching ability, throwing ability. But few knew how to place girls. How to tell which players would compliment other players. Elijah and Foster didn't have good players listed on their clipboards. They had the right ones. So, in all practicality, while the others were picking good players ... Elijah and Foster would be creating good teams.

That was how we knew Foster would be the one to beat. And now ... he had the best weapon.


I stood close to Elijah so people would think I was his assistant coach. I wasn't. Not yet. Of course, I was hoping he would ask but I thought dropping hints would be a little above my talent level. I figured, howver, that doing the little things like attending the draft, working up schemes, drawing charts ... and leaving a mint on his pillow ... might put me over the top.

Since the middle of the last year, after a rumor surfaced that Elijah would be coaching a team, there was a secondary rumor involving Foster. Many believed that Foster would be approached for the assistant's job. As close as I was to Elijah, I still didn't know if that rumor was true, but knowing Foster, I knew that he would be nobody's assistant.

So here we were. The yellow socks were gone. Taken. But Elijah still needed a quarterback.

Elijah walked over to the mic. It cracked and buzzed as he leaned in.

"Tara McCain."


There was no dynasty in that pick ...

"The Grizzly Details" -- by Matt Foster

“MATT!”

Screaming has never been a way to start a day. Julia Roberts and I were flying back from a weekend in the Alps, and just as I lean in for the car-side good-bye kiss, lips puckered, awaiting the culmination of all that is good in this world, I open my eyes to see Josh Lankford standing above me, shaking my shoulders, his blood-shot, green eyes as wide as his enthusiastic grin.

“Wake up, mayne, they’re here!”

Peeling my head away from the drool in the pillow, eyes still focusing, still searching for Jules, I’m desperately clinging to the hope that the Alps are just outside the window. Disappointed, I find no silk sheets, no crackling fireplace, no soft pillow or 88 inches of therapy there with me, just an unshaven, hyperactive man-child still screaming as he threw open the shades,

“Let’s go, you’ll miss them all! Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go!”

Like I said, screaming has never been a way to start a day, but Lankford’s booming voice and the unwarranted exposure to the mid-morning sun only sent things snowballing faster downhill.

We’d been around the block a time or two, in the words of Jeremy Gordon, “This ain’t my first rodeo.” Every upper classmen knew how to schedule their classes, we had early access, inside connections, and years under our belt; we had the power of the three-day weekend. Why schedule a Friday class, when you can get everything done by Thursday? Friday was the new Saturday; after all, it’s 2000, the new millennium, why hang on to those antiquated ideas? Friday was recovery day, sleep in, then maybe leave on an out of town trip, find a date, the possibilities are endless.

Sure, school hadn’t “technically” started yet, but there was no harm in starting a schedule that was a proven winner, and for crying out loud, it was Friday, and Friday’s mean sleeping in.

At noon, and believe me when they say noon they mean 12:00 sharp, the intramural football “run-throughs” began. It was the last opportunity for the unknown freshman girl to solicit a spot in gridiron glory, the last chance for the top prospect to get a heads up on the competition, and the last opportunity for Lankford to watch the pre-football stretch routines… and he would NOT be late.

There are few things as remarkable in nature as the phenomenon of a salmon run during the spawn, the only thing more impressive is the ever keen grizzly wading through chaos, in search of the best looking piece of meat. Every year, thousands of teenage girls made the trip up the stream of adolescence to give birth to freedom, to new opportunities, to adulthood – to college. And for every young fish, there is a grizzly waiting to meet them on their journey. If you were interested in the athletic type, then this was just your stream, and Josh was just the bear to meet you there.






It was a little surreal, the things dreams are made of, and the concept still hadn’t completely sunk in. There were people that abused it, there were people that judged it, and there were people who hated it. There were always grizzlies, of course, but their moment in the sun was yesterday afternoon, the run-through. This, this was a new event, this wasn’t about the scenery like yesterday, this was about the talent, the athletes, the potential, and this stream was loaded with fish… and just for tonight I happened to be top grizzly.

Evening in the West Texas summertime spelled relief, freedom from stressful work and the pressures of the day. It was created for sweet tea and a rocking chair, and some of the most beautiful sunsets God ever graced his creation with. A relief so sweet it was meant to be appreciated, to be “soaked-in”, relief from a litany of things – except the heat. This late August evening had all the sentiments of every summer evening before, but the heat wasn’t emanating from the sun-soaked ground, it came form a complex across campus, where a couple hundred freshman girls await their fate, where several coaches anxiously fumble through flow-charts and mock drafts, wondering who’ll fall to them and who’ll snatch their future talent away, and where I stood, figuratively, a head and shoulder above the rest.

A nervous chatter filled the room, trying to mask the anxious presence that clouded it, but it was all in vain. Worry covered every face; eyes darted about the room from one circle to the next, sizing up competition, wondering who will go where and when. There was no face more wrought with worry then a girl standing in the corner, her hand shaking a little as she raised the plastic cup to her mouth, spilling a couple drops on her maroon shirt – no one else noticed. Unlike every girl in there, she wasn’t worried about when she’d go, she already knew, everyone knew, it was an issue of where. Throwing the cup away, she looked up to see Andy Zimmerman, head of the officiating and an impeccable judge of talent, standing right in front of her, invading personal space in a way only a Zimmerman could do. He bent over, whispered something in her ear, and then pointed at me. Our eyes met, and immediately she turned away, trying to play it off. I stood there, still pondering her choice of tall, yellow socks when a voice cracked through the feedback of the speakers,

“Alright, we’ll make this quick – y’all know why we’re here. Foster, you’re up.”

Confidently making my way to the microphone, I look back at the group of coaches, quickly gathering last-second information and formulating back-up scenarios. I didn’t even bring a sheet of paper, much less a plan B. It didn’t matter. I walk tall, I have the first pick, and as far as I'm concerned it's all I need.

“With the first pick I select Emily Wallace – let the Dynasty begin.”

Before the Beginning -- by Troy Oliver

"You wanna go?"

Elijah Godfrey was standing in the door of the "computer room" in our new, three-man dorm room at ACU. We were finally sophomores. The angst and frustrations of our freshman year were behind us and the air was full of promise. I had become friends with Elijah over the past year. He was a farm boy. From the Panhandle of Texas. Tough as nails and soft as silk all at the same time. Elijah knew how do two things well: Work hard ... and play football.

Our Freshman year had been a blast. He and I played on the same flag-football team, of which he was obviously the quarterback. There were few at ACU who could throw like Elijah, fewer still who could run like him, and none who could see the field like he could. Elijah was a football maestro. In his eyes, it was a dance. He watched it move at whatever pace he wished. He could slow it down, speed it up, turn it over, pull it inside out; all in the space of his mind. Others needed film, chalk-boards, x's and o's. But Elijah breathed football. It gave him life.

So, appropriately, our team had blitzed through the competition to a speedy championship victory. For the rest of us, it was one of our proudest moments. We were champions. Better than everybody else. The Best ... trophies and all. But Elijah wanted more. Elijah wanted to be a legend. And he knew how to get it.

It may sound odd, and indeed it is, but at ACU the flag-football season is not one of masculine exhibition. It is not dominated by Boys' games, and the last game of the night, under the lights of the Sanders Intramural Complex, when the crowds are at their fury peak, is very rarely between teams of men. At ACU ... it's all about the girls ...

From the time they are in pig-tails, the little girls of ACU heritage are told the stories. Their heads are filled with the lore. The graceful, elegant women, who they know to be their mothers, soon become the shadows of a previous life. Women of dirt and blood. Desire and Grit. Triumph and defeat. In the tradition of ACU, moms are the bearers of lives once lived under the lights, where the air is crisp, the grass is cool, and the soul can be filled ... or tragically ripped away.

At ACU, the Flag-football season is ... for some reason ... all about the girls.


And so, Elijah knew how to get his legend. He would coach the greatest women's team, in a place where coaching women's teams, made men legends.



I looked up from my computer. "You want me to come with you?"

He was holding a clipboard. A stopwatch hung around his neck. "If you want ... "


It was 7:30 in the evening, on the Saturday before school started. At most schools this would be the last great fling before classes began. The final hurrah of summer. But here, at Abilene Christian University, it meant one thing: The draft.



We pulled up to the Complex. Evening was coming on. Elijah stopped the truck and we sat for a moment. The complex was flooded with Freshmen girls. Each with a different name, different hometown, different story. Elijah had been scouting the "run-throughs" for almost a week. He knew who he wanted. And as luck would have it, he had drawn the number 2. He would get the second over-all pick.

He pointed through the windshield toward a group of girls on the other side of the Complex.

"You see that girl over there ... with the tall yellow socks. The one in the Aggies shirt."

I nodded.

"Thats my first pick. Emily Wallace. She has a gun, dude. A gun." He paused and stared through his Oakley's.

"That's my first pick."


"As long as Foster doesn't take her first ... "