Max

  Chapter4

  Marvin Jones blew a long blast on his whistle and waved the players to where he stood in the middle of the practice field. Sweat poured off their heads and faces after working out in the eighty-degree humidity of a Cincinnati day in August. Their wet shirts clung to their bodies. All wore sweat-stained shorts. They looked as though they had spent the afternoon in a sauna. That is, all but one. One of the thirty-odd men appeared fresh and dry, as though he had spent the day in a cool breeze. Max Aries.

  The men formed a circle around Jones. Some dropped to the turf, panting. Max kept hopping in place like a jogger standing at a street corner waiting for the light to change.

  Jones held a clipboard and fanned his face with it. He slowly looked around at the men, then fixed his gaze on Max. “You. Take two laps around the track. Wait. Make that three.”

  Max trotted off. One of the men muttered, “How the hell does he do it?”

  Another said, “I watched him. He did two push-ups to each of mine.”

  Another: “Did you see that skinny kid push those blocking dummies around? Like they were paper dolls.”

  “And he skipped over those tires without missing a step.”

  Bronco Wilson, a three-hundred pound, six-foot-six linebacker snapped a line of sweat from his face, “Yeah. Now when it doesn’t count. Wait till the season starts. Let’s see how fresh-as-a-daisy he looks after he’s been on the field for a couple of hours. After he’s been pushed around and sat on all afternoon.”

  Max ran over to the group. Jones glanced at his watch. It had only been three minutes since he’d ordered Max to run the laps. He said, “Did you do the full three laps?”

  “Yes si—I mean, Coach.”

  Hank O’Toole, the reserve quarterback, mumbled, “This guy’s from Mars.”

  Max flicked a glance at him. “No, I’m from Oh Ess Yew.”

  “Ha, ha. Very funny.”

  Jones said, “Okay, guys. Team up, a little touch-tackle.” He pointed. “You, you, you…”

  Grumbling, the weary players pushed themselves off the turf. Donning red pullover t-shirts, one team lined up against the other who wore white shirts. Since this was a practice session, to guard against injury, there was no tackling; a player who carried the ball was considered tackled if he was touched by an opposing team player.

  Max was white-shirted. For the first fifteen minutes of the workout, he had not been assigned a position, but ran along the sideline, shouting encouragement to his team. Finally, Coach Jones tapped him on the shoulder. “Get in there for Kern.” Fred Kern was a cornerback on defense. His responsibility was covering an area on the field to prevent an opposing player in that area from catching a pass thrown by the quarterback.

  Max ran on to the field and joined the huddle of defense players. Kishwan Allen, a veteran linebacker called the defensive signals. In the huddle he said, “Watch for a 24-out. This one’s probably going to Caine.”

  Having studied the plays, Max knew that Allen was referring to a pass to a wide receiver on either side.

  The huddles broke and the men lined up. Max was responsible for pass protection on the right side of the field. The quarterback took the ball from the center and dropped back to pass. Two receivers came at Max. One broke toward the middle of the field, the other ran toward the sideline. Max hesitated. He had to guess which of the two to guard. He quickly made his decision, chasing the one who ran toward the middle of the field. Flicking a glance back toward the opposing quarterback, he saw the ball arcing in the air, but it was aimed at Caine, the receiver who was tearing down the sideline, now twenty yards behind him, heading for the goal line, his arms in the air. Max had made the wrong choice. Lunging for the ball, he missed, fell on his face while the receiver cradled the ball and scored. His first play and he had failed the test.

  Hanging his head, he trotted to the sideline. For the rest of the practice session, Max had to content himself with being a cheerleader. Although the coach hadn’t said anything to him, he figured he was being punished for his boneheaded play on the one chance he’d been given.

  Later, in the locker room, the other players seemed to avoid him. His attempts to make conversation, were met with one-word grunts. At first, he thought this was the way veteran players treated rookies like himself. But he soon noticed that the old-timers were friendly with the three or four other “newbies” on the squad. Nor was he able to make friends with the other rookies. They also ignored him.

  Max showered, dressed, and carrying his gym bag walked out into the bright sunshine feeling anything but elated. If this was to be the pattern, professional football was going to be a lonely life.