Author’s note: I don’t normally write fiction. I’ve certainly never shared any fiction publicly. But this is a story I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while and I felt compelled to get it out. It’s not auto-fiction (For one thing, the furthest I ever made it in the playoffs during my high school football career was the state semi-finals), but it is hyper-personal. I hope you enjoy it. And if you don’t, be gentle.
Charlie stood at the back of the tunnel, looking out at his teammates ahead of him. Some were jumping up and down, slapping their helmets and pads. Others were more reserved, a slight side-to-side sway the only movement that betrayed the emotions roiling beneath the surface. Through the walls, muffled cheers rang out from the far side of the stadium. Their opponent had just taken the field. The state championship was moments from kickoff.
“This is our last game,” Charlie thought to himself. It was an obvious fact, and something the team had been harping on all week in practice, but the reality of it fully dawned on him at that moment. “Win or lose, this is the end.”
Charlie craned his neck and peered towards the mouth of the tunnel. Even from all the way in the back, he could easily spot Dan Curtis. Dan, a hulking all-state defensive lineman with scholarship offers from every major college program in the country, was the obvious choice to lead the team onto the field. He was bigger than most adults. Imagine being a teenager and having to line up against someone who could kick your dad’s ass. Charlie had to do it in practice sometimes. It was terrifying.
He remembered a moment from summer practice heading into their freshman season. Dan was a man amongst boys on the freshman team, demolishing his peers with seemingly little effort. In a few weeks, he would be called up to varsity, mostly because of his ability but partially for the safety of the kids he was tossing around like rag dolls on a daily basis.
They were lined up opposite each other in a tackling drill. Charlie was the ball carrier, Dan the defender. When the coach blew his whistle, Charlie ran diagonally while Dan mirrored him in pursuit. Charlie tensed up right before the moment of impact, waiting for the crunch that his other teammates had experienced. Except the crunch never came. What he felt was more like a light tap. Dan pulled up at the last moment, taking it easy on Charlie. The fact that Dan held back, showing something resembling pity, felt worse than getting hit full force.
“THIS TITLE BELONGS TO US!” Dan bellowed to his teammates as Charlie snapped back to attention. “SHOW THEM WHO WE ARE! LET’S GO!” He turned and sprinted onto the field, bringing the rest of the team with him. As the tunnel cleared, Charlie followed.
He was greeted by a gray, overcast sky on this mid-December afternoon. For a team that had played every game at night for the last three months, entering a field covered in natural light felt surreal. It underscored how unique this particular game was. They were the same team, wearing the same uniforms and running the same plays they had all season. Nothing about them had fundamentally changed. But the frame of reference was slightly off. It was like being in a dream about playing a football game.
Charlie took his spot on the sideline, where he would remain for the rest of the afternoon. As with most games in his football career, there was no chance Charlie was going to play today. He only saw the field during blowouts when his team was up multiple touchdowns. In a game of this magnitude, victory would not come so easily.
Charlie watched as the captains departed the sideline and walked to midfield for the coin toss. A few moments later, the referee signaled that they had won the toss and would kick off to start the game. As the captains returned and the kickoff team got set, Charlie felt a powerful sensation permeate his body. He was nervous.
He was usually nervous before big games like this, but the intensity of his feelings was unlike anything he had experienced before. His throat was tight. He could feel his bones vibrating as the ball flew through the air during kickoff and landed beyond the end zone.
The sensation grew once the defense took the field. He watched the first few plays - a tackle behind the line of scrimmage by Dan, an incomplete pass, a quarterback scramble for a first down - and felt an almost unbearable tension. The stakes of every block, every tackle, every step, were readily apparent to him. Each snap could make or break their chance at a state title. If he was feeling like this on the sidelines, what must it feel like to actually be out there on the field?
He remembered one particular play from earlier in the season, during one of the few instances where he got in a game. As the ball was snapped, he ran towards the line of scrimmage from his linebacker position. There was a giant opening in the A gap, right next to the center, exactly where his assignment placed him. He had a clear view of the running back barreling through the hole. All he had to do was bring his body forward and make the tackle. Except when the moment came, he flinched. He didn’t “stick his face in the fan” as his position coach liked to say. Instead he sidestepped the runner and attempted to make the tackle with his arms. The ball carrier blew right through his half-hearted effort and ran for the first down. That would be the last play of the game.
Charlie watched the clock wind down to zero and trotted off the field, hanging his head. Because the result was already well in hand, nobody was really paying attention to what was occurring on the field. But Charlie knew what had happened, and he had to sit with that shame for the rest of the night.
Dan never made those kinds of mistakes. On the very next play, he burst into the backfield and collided with the running back at full speed. Charlie saw the ball drop to the turf. He heard the sideline erupt half a second later. Carter Diggs, the team’s best linebacker, dove on the ball. The cheers grew louder as the fans in the stands realized what was happening. Once the referees blew their whistles to signal the end of the play, Carter emerged from the scrum and ran back to the sidelines, holding the ball aloft for all to see.
Carter Diggs. Charlie really did not like that guy. In fact, he hated him. Carter was rude and dismissive towards Charlie, but that wasn’t the root of the problem. The real reason Charlie hated Carter was that all of the girls in their grade loved Carter. You could hear it in the way they said his name out loud. They let that first R in his name hang for an extra beat - Carrrter. Nobody said Charlie’s name that way. But why Carter? He wasn’t particularly attractive, funny, or charming. One thing that Charlie did notice, however, was that Carter never seemed to need or seek out the approval of others. This made him a hot commodity.
Charlie was glad they recovered the fumble. He just wished someone besides Carter got to the ball first.
The offense took the field, led by their quarterback, Andrew Teller. Teen comedies conditioned people to believe that the starting quarterback is supposed to be a huge asshole, but Andrew was probably the nicest guy on the entire team. It’s like he was so thrilled with how awesome his life was, he couldn’t help but radiate joy to everyone around him. That was Andrew off the field. When he broke the huddle, he played with an intensity unmatched by anyone else within those white lines. He wasn’t the best passer in the state, but he more than made up for it with his leadership, grit, and ability to run the ball, always powering through would-be tacklers for extra yardage.
Charlie’s nerves flared up again before the first offensive play. They needed to capitalize on this turnover. He watched as Andrew took the first snap and ran a quarterback sweep for eight yards.
He remembered the last day of third grade. He and Andrew were desk mates for the entire year. At the end of the day, right as they were preparing to leave, Andrew showed Charlie the underside of his desk. It was completely covered with dried up, crusted boogers.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Andrew asked him, a proud smile on his face.
Charlie had memories like this, going back over ten years, with nearly everyone on the team. They had grown up together, been in the same classes, gone to each other’s birthday parties. And it had all led to this game. His nerves became even worse. He thought he could feel his chinstrap shaking.
The offense marched methodically down the field, as was their game plan. Their opponent employed a fast-paced, high-scoring passing attack. If Andrew and the offense could run the ball and control the clock, they’d limit the number of possessions in the game and tilt the odds in their favor.
The plan was working perfectly so far. Before long, the offense was just a few yards away from the end zone. Andrew took another direct snap and ran straight into the line of scrimmage. An opposing linebacker filled downhill to make the tackle, but it was no use. Andrew plowed right through him, still standing when he made his way into the end zone. Touchdown. The extra point was good, and the score was 7-0.
Charlie jumped up and down, cheered, and high-fived his teammates. The excitement radiated from the field to the sidelines and all the way up to the fans in the stands. The game couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. With a momentum shifting play on defense and a slow, grinding scoring drive on offense, everything was going exactly the way it was supposed to.
That all went out the window on the following kickoff.
Their opponent’s greatest asset was their speed, and they made use of it when they ran the kickoff all the way back for a touchdown. Charlie could tell it was going to happen after the returner took only a few steps. He was too quick, his angle to the wide side of the field too sharp, to be stopped.
Just a few seconds after their initial touchdown, the score was now tied 7-7. The energy on the sideline quickly deflated, and that nervous feeling announced itself once more.
The next few series ended in stalemates for both teams. Offensive drives stalled. Defensive players locked down their assignments. As the teams traded punts back and forth, Charlie observed the environment as it swirled around him.
Assistant coaches were loud and animated, signaling and screaming out to their charges on the field. But in the middle of all of that, their head coach was a picture of steely calm. A physically imposing presence even in middle age (their starting center had once described him as “a brick shithouse”) he stood stoically on the sidelines, arms folded across his chest, staring intently out onto the field. He called plays and gave directions into his headset. He coached his players up when they came back to the bench. He was the gravitational center the team anchored itself around.
At the start of the second quarter, Dan tackled someone with such force that he cracked his facemask. He ran back to the sideline and worked with the equipment manager to get a new one screwed on, both moving with the ferocity of a NASCAR pit crew. Once finished, he ran back out onto the field and sacked the quarterback on the next play. Nothing could stop him, not even the impediments created by his own superhuman strength.
Towards the end of the half, hoping to find some relief from the stress of what was happening out on the field, Charlie turned around and looked up into the stands. He saw his parents. He saw a few teachers from his school. He saw Kevin Zhang, the quiet kid from his AP Calculus class. He had never seen Kevin outside of that classroom, and here he was at the state championship. Out of all the elements that made today special - the finality of their season, the advanced skill level of their opponent, the college football field they were playing on - the fact that Kevin Zhang was there might have been the most significant. If this kid came out to watch the game, you knew it was important.
Moving on, Charlie’s eyes wandered a couple rows behind Kevin. That’s where he spotted Claire.
Claire moved to town at the start of junior year. She and Charlie were in the same English class together. He remembered walking into class on the first day of school and freezing in his tracks the moment he saw her. Part of it was the surprise of seeing someone new, someone unexpected in a school full of familiar faces. It was also because she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on in person. A tuning fork went off in his chest, and it resonated within him for the rest of class.
As he had with other attractive girls at school, Charlie pushed his feelings down and did his best to ignore them. Girls like that were never going to talk to him, so what was the point of getting his hopes up?
Except Claire did talk to him.
English was Charlie’s favorite subject. It came naturally to him. He never failed to be captivated by the reading assignments, and found great joy in breaking down the texts and analyzing the important themes. He was a constant vocal presence in class, always raising his hand to give answers and add to the discussion. It was the only area of his life where success seemed to come naturally.
Surprisingly, Claire was like this too. Both her and Charlie were the two most active participants in class, and their talks often spilled out into the hallway after the bell rang. One time, they were both waiting to be picked up by their parents after school - she was working late on an art project and he had just gotten out of offseason weightlifting - and they spent close to 30 minutes talking about The Great Gatsby. It felt like the most important afternoon of Charlie’s life. He could hardly believe the fates had aligned to bring them together for such a moment.
By the end of the year, Charlie had resolved to ask Claire to prom. But one spring morning, while he was still in the early planning stages of his promposal, he happened to overhear a classmate’s conversation in study hall.
Charlie was sitting in front of all-star pitcher Grant Marks and finishing his Chemistry homework as Grant told another kid on the baseball team about a party from the previous weekend.
“Oh yeah dude, it was a wild night,” Grant began. “My cousin ended up getting us three kegs, some random kids from Valley showed up but we kicked them out, Carter fucked that girl Claire…”
Charlie’s blood ran cold when he heard it. He wasn’t friends with Grant, so he couldn’t turn around and ask him about it. He just had to sit in silence with his head down, eating his feelings, until he felt confident that he could look up from his notebook without crying. That was the end of his prom planning. He felt ridiculous for even thinking it was possible in the first place.
As the second quarter was winding down, Andrew was leading the offense on a promising drive down the field. Charlie was standing on his own towards the end of the sideline. He had a perfect view of the end zone as the offense fought to get points on the board before halftime.
With less than ten seconds left and just five yards until paydirt, Andrew took another direct snap and ran towards the goal line. It looked like the exact same play they ran for their first touchdown, until it wasn’t.
Once he was at the line of scrimmage, Andrew stopped and jumped up, gently lobbing the ball to the tight end who had slipped towards the back of the end zone. He was wide open, which somehow always becomes the hardest catch to make. The ball hung in the air as both the defense and the fans in the stands realized what was happening. Everyone on the sideline collectively held their breath. Charlie felt like he was going to explode. But they all let that air out in a raucous scream once the catch was secured. Touchdown.
Charlie was in awe at what he had just witnessed. What could it possibly feel like to make a big play like this, on such an important stage? How do guys like Andrew always seem to come through when it matters most?
Most of Charlie’s friends were not on the football team. They weren’t really interested in sports. One ran cross country, but that wasn’t exactly the same thing. Because of this they always asked him why he bothered with football. He rarely saw the field, and it’s not like he was close with any of his teammates. He had some acquaintances in the locker room, but no one he ever really saw outside of school. Charlie was never able to give a straight answer to his friends, but he thought it might have something to do with a desire to unearth attributes that lay dormant within him.
He didn’t want to be the kind of player he was in that moment earlier in the season, the one who shied away from contact. He wanted to be like Andrew, running through defenders. He was loath to admit it, but he also wanted to be like Carter, the way he dove on that fumble with reckless abandon. He played football because he was searching for the part of himself that wouldn’t flinch, that wouldn’t turn away during a crucial moment. The search had been fruitless throughout his career, but he still felt compelled to look. He always believed that it was in there, somewhere.
But that can be hard to articulate to someone, so he usually just shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s fun, I guess.”
The team went into the locker room up 14-7. The momentum was on their side, but there was still a lot of football left to play. There was no room to get complacent.
Charlie loved halftime. The scope of the entire football experience shrank in an instant. When they walked through those locker room doors, things went from grand and chaotic to personal and intentional. The boundless sky gave way to a low ceiling. Gone were the crowds and the noise they generated. Instead, players gathered with their position groups to quietly discuss strategy. Carter and the other starting linebackers spoke with their coach about their opponent’s blocking schemes. Andrew diagrammed plays on a whiteboard with the offensive coordinator. Charlie, having nothing to contribute, stood by and observed.
Before heading back out for the second half, their head coach gathered them in the center of the locker room for one final message.
“Alright, listen up!” he started as the players snapped to attention. “I want to make sure you understand one thing before we go back out there.” Every single pair of eyes in the room were now locked on him.
“We all know what’s on the line in the second half. But I want you to know that it doesn’t really matter. The state championship doesn’t matter. Getting a shiny ring and a banner to hang in the gym doesn’t matter.”
A few players looked at each other quizzically.
“What matters is the guy next to you. You all grew up together. You went to the same schools and played on the same Little League teams together. And now you all get to finish this game, together. Nothing is more important than that.”
Everyone was dead silent. Nobody moved. But you could feel the vibrational energy of the room begin to pick up.
“So you all have a decision to make right now. When you look back on this game, five, ten, twenty years down the line, how do you want to remember it? When you’re grown men with jobs and families, and you get together at a bar and talk about this game over a beer, what are you going to say? Are you going to say that you held back? Are you going to say that you could have played harder? Are you going to say that you were scared?”
A few players shook their heads “No.”
“Or are you going to say that you played your ass off? That you gave everything you had during each and every snap you were out on that field?”
The intensity of his voice began to increase.
“Are you going to tell each other ‘I had your back, you had mine, and there was nothing they could do to stop us?’ ARE YOU GOING TO SAY ‘WE PLAYED LIKE CHAMPIONS!?’”
Players were now nodding their heads in agreement. A few even offered a verbal “Yes” or “Yes sir.”
“ARE YOU!?”
“YES SIR!” they all screamed in unison.
“Then let’s go out there and make that memory. Captains, lead us out.”
The team stood up and let out a unified roar. The quiet part of halftime was over. They were soon back in the tunnel, ready to go out for their final half together.
Charlie sprinted onto the field at full speed. But once he got to his spot on the sideline, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was fired up from his coach’s halftime speech, but there was nowhere to put that energy. His teammates that were in the game could transfer it to their play. All Charlie could do, all he was allowed to do, was stand there and watch.
He so desperately wanted to be like the starters, to be relied upon in important moments, to be a contributor. He always worked hard in the offseason, lifting weights and running conditioning drills. But once summer practice rolled around, he was still a step too slow, a few Newtons too weak. He never found himself around the ball the way other defenders did. And so he stayed confined to the sidelines, watching.
But Charlie didn’t want to feel useless in this moment. He didn’t want to feel like a bystander. Everyone on this team had a role. Some were meant to be out on the field deciding the game. Others, like Charlie, were meant to watch and be a supportive teammate. And since that was Charlie’s role, he decided to play it to the best of his ability.
So Charlie watched the second half, but this time he watched with intent. He put all of his focus on the in-game action, zeroing in with laser-like precision. He cheered until his lungs burned. If the starters were giving their all out on the field, he would give his on the sideline.
He watched their first offensive drive stall out. Their opponent had made adjustments at halftime. They were filling gaps and getting to the ball more quickly. On a third down run, four defenders swarmed Andrew and stalled his progress before he could cross the first down line.
He watched their opponent take the ball and swiftly advance down the field. A 12-yard slant here, an 8-yard counter there. Before long they were on the doorstep of the end zone. A wide receiver screen got them across. Touchdown. The score was now 14-14.
He watched his teammates' ferocious response on the next drive. Andrew seemed to take that last touchdown personally and responded in kind. He threw his entire body into potential tacklers and guided his passes with intention and zip. On a third-and-goal from the 8-yard line, he ran straight up the middle for another score. Touchdown, or so it seemed.
Because he was watching so closely, Charlie saw the referee take the yellow flag out of his pocket and throw it on the ground mid-play. A holding penalty would negate the touchdown and bring up third-and-goal from the 18. Andrew’s next pass attempt fell short. The offense had to settle for the field goal and a precarious 17-14 lead.
While locked in on all of this action, Charlie noticed something. Or, more accurately, he noticed an absence. There was no tight feeling in his throat, no uncontrollable vibration throughout his body. His nerves were gone. He wasn’t thinking about the past or what might happen in the future. There was only the present moment. The next play was all that existed. His vision was a tunnel that blocked everything except for what he trained his eyes on. In this focus he found peace amidst the chaos of the second half.
With only five minutes left in the game, and the defense holding on to a slim three point lead, disaster struck. A cornerback tripped and fell, leaving a massive hole in their coverage. Their opponent exploited it, taking a pass more than fifty yards for a touchdown. They had surrendered their first lead of the game, and were now down 21-17.
It was do or die for the offense. They would only get this one last possession to make things right. Charlie should have been more nervous than ever, but he resolved to do what he had been doing for the entire second half. He would focus, cheer on his teammates, and fully immerse himself in the game. As the offense took the field, Charlie locked in.
They made steady progress down the field. A hitch. A draw. But the clock continued to bleed. With less than two minutes left, Charlie knew they would soon have to make an explosive play if they were going to reach the end zone before time expired.
The moment came on a third-and-one from midfield. Logic said to run the ball here, to get the first down and open up your entire playbook for one last push. But that’s not what they did. Andrew faked a handoff to the running back, set up in the pocket, and threw the ball downfield. It was at that moment that wide receiver Tyler Kincaid - the same kid who got suspended for a week in seventh grade after he put a cone in his shorts during gym class, walked up to a group of girls and asked “What’s up ladies?” - hauled in the pass and crossed the goal line untouched.
There was pure jubilation on the sideline. They had gotten the touchdown they needed, but there was one more trick up their sleeve. Rather than kick the extra point and go up three, allowing the opportunity for a game-tying field goal, their coach decided to gamble and go for the two-point conversion. In what would be the final play of his high school career, Andrew took the snap and once again ran straight through the line of scrimmage and into the end zone. The two-point try was good.
Up 25-21 with just 1:30 left, the responsibility of finishing the game fell on the defense. If they kept their opponent out of the end zone, the state championship was theirs.
The final drive was a blur. Armed with a sense of desperation and no timeouts, their opponent began heaving the ball all over the field in search of chunk plays. When one connected, they advanced closer and closer towards the end zone. When one missed, the clock stopped, saving time for more attempts. Their opponent’s speed, which had been neutralized for most of the game, became too much to contain. The ball was soon past midfield. There were less than 30 seconds left.
At the 32-yard line, Dan was inches away from getting another sack and draining the clock before the quarterback escaped his grasp and threw 30 yards downfield to his receiver. The receiver fully extended his body, laying out to make the reception at the two-yard line. After the catch was marked complete, their opponent sprinted to the line of scrimmage and spiked the ball with only three seconds left, setting up one final play.
Charlie took a deep breath and collected himself. This was it. The game would be decided here.
Charlie saw it all. He saw both sides get set. He saw the quarterback take the snap and fake a handoff to freeze the defense. And before he pulled it back in preparation for a pass, Charlie saw the tight end release his block and run into the end zone. Charlie opened his mouth to scream “PASS!” but it was already too late.
Carter bit hard on the fake handoff, anticipating a run. This put him half a step behind the tight end as he slipped out into the flat. When the article recapping the game ran in the paper the next day, the picture they used was of the tight end catching the ball in the end zone, Carter reaching out in vain behind him.
The final score was 27-25. The game was over. They had lost.
Charlie could feel the tears well up in his eyes before he had even processed what happened. He hung his head so he didn’t have to witness their opponent celebrating out on the field, but he could still hear them and their fans cheering their victory. Once everything settled down a few moments later, he approached the handshake line with wet cheeks.
Both teams repeatedly said “Good game” to each other as they went down the line and tapped hands, but only one side meant it. Once they made it through their procession, Charlie and his teammates gathered in the end zone and took a knee as their coach addressed them.
Charlie couldn’t fully focus on what his coach was saying. Something about being proud of how they fought for the entire game, and how this hurts now but they’ll appreciate the experience when they’re older. He didn’t catch the entire speech because he kept looking around at his teammates. An overwhelming majority of these young men were crying. He had never seen most of these guys cry before. If he had, it happened early on in elementary school, when the cafeteria was out of ice cream or something. It was disorienting to watch everyone break down like this.
One particularly loud set of sobs came directly from Charlie’s left. He turned and looked to find their source. It was Carter.
Carter was a great player, but not big or fast enough to play in college. This was the end of the road for him. The last play of his football career would be giving up the touchdown that lost his team the state championship. That was the memory he’d have to live with for the rest of his life.
As Charlie watched Carter cry, he felt immense compassion for him. A face that normally filled him with rage instead elicited empathy. Charlie knew what it felt like to come up short, to not get the end result you were hoping for, to be deeply disappointed in yourself. Seeing Carter go through that, he knew exactly what he had to do for his teammate. It was what he had always needed himself.
Charlie reached out and placed a hand on Carter’s shoulder pad. He leaned in and whispered to him, “It’s okay, man. It’s okay. You did your best.” Carter cried harder and covered his face with his hand. Charlie kept his right where it was until the coach told them to get up and break the huddle one final time.
As the team meandered towards the locker room, still in a daze, Charlie knew that he would remember. Not just today, but everything. He would remember offseason workouts, the thrill and satisfaction of bench pressing two plates for the first time. He would remember summer training camp, sitting in the cool air-conditioned hallways of his school, drinking Gatorade in between the grueling practices of two-a-days. He would remember running onto the field for his first varsity game last season as a junior. He would remember pep rallies. He would remember the pride he felt wearing his jersey to school on Fridays. He would remember how terrified he was the first time he got into a game. He would remember standing and listening to the national anthem, the “home of the brave” crescendo mirroring the anticipation within his own heart. He would remember the excitement of the students, teachers and parents when they exited the field after each victory. He would remember beating their crosstown rival for the first time in five years. He would remember senior night, walking out onto the field with his parents to be recognized. He would remember their playoff run, the regional championship they won and the euphoria of victory in the state semi-finals, knowing they would soon be competing for the ultimate prize. He would remember the week of practice leading up to the championship and how seriously everyone took it. He would remember the bus ride down to the stadium, the moments of tension in the locker room right before they took the field.
Most importantly, he would remember the game itself. Beyond what had happened on the field, he would remember its lesson of focus, of paying attention, of looking directly at the things that scare you. If there was one thing he couldn’t allow himself to forget, that was it.
Charlie had flinched in football. But there would come a time, during a meaningful pursuit later in his life, where he wouldn’t flinch. In that pursuit, a crucial moment would present itself. It would be his ultimate test, and he would not turn away. He would step into it full force and stick his face in the metaphorical fan. And that victory, when it arrived, would have its roots in his time on the high school football team. Charlie didn’t fully understand it yet, but that was why he played.
All of that would come later. For now, there was only the present moment. So he stepped off the football field for the last time and walked into the next phase of his life.
Nice. The play by play football drama was really good and held my attention. Maybe you could explore writing this stuff for middle schoolers and high schoolers. Thanks for sharing.
This is good, but feels a little like a draft or even a proposal for a much longer book. I think it's trying to do a bit too much, unless you want to try for more poetic compression. So there's a lot of what does football mean when all the other smart kids, etc., and why turn Claire into a slut -- seems gratuitous. Might make sense in a novel. But this, at least, isn't that. The football itself is good. The tension between different conceptions of "manly" in these United States is good, but needs more . . . anyway, good en route to being much better. To "be gentle," and keep up the good work.