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“You cannot teach a ; you can only help him find it within himself”—Galileo
The late afternoon sun glinted off the bleachers and sent a prisleahter than usual at this tier shadows It rees in the shade still, but fall was definitely co We were a feeeks into the new school seames into our football season Thankfully, on by respectablea slew of our better players graduated last spring Starting over with a s were looking good
Which usually meant bad neas on the horizon
Hey, I wasn’t a downer If anything, I consideredwinning streaks I signaled a play to Gonzalez, one of the faster running backs on our team, then pulled h, tight spiral It sailed in a perfect arc for sixty yards and hit ht in his hands Gonzalez secured the ball and ran like the wind toward the end zone
I laughed when he let out a loud whoop and broke into a ridiculous victory dance A few of the other guys joined in, but the second our head coach, Flannigan, blew his whistle, everyone hustled off the field I waved absently to a couple of the assistant coaches chatting on the sideline as I jogged toward the locker rooroaned when Coach Perez stepped aside and motioned me over
Mike Perez was our offensive coordinator and an all-around good guy But the dude could talk, and it had already been a long day The last thing I wanted to do was go over additional plays Surely it could wait until
“Yo, Rafferty!”
I veered left to meet him and pulled off my helmet “What’s up, Coach?”
Perez was a huskyhairline he hid with a ubiquitous baseball cap He was about five inches shorter than my six four with a completely different build He looked more like a linebacker now than a foro, he’d played e similar to Chilton He knew the ins and outs of a Division-Three program at a school better known for academics than athletics I respected his football acuh and had a habit of talking about his wife and kids that was kind of endearing I thought it was cool that as ame, his family always came first
“That ar?” he asked, adjusting the rim of his cap
“Great” I squinted and gave hi a complicated play I need to perfect in two days”
“Nah” He nodded at a couple of guys passing by and then inched closer to me in a maneuver that clearly indicated this was a private conversation “I like e’ve got down”