Chapter 17 Tanner
TANNER
The drive from Mom’s place to Huntsville took forty minutes, which was just enough time to convince myself this was all a terrible mistake.
I’d woken before my alarm, staring at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom while my heart beat too fast against my ribs.
By six, I’d already showered, dressed, and changed shirts twice.
By seven, I was pacing the kitchen while Mom watched me from behind her coffee cup with the kind of patient concern only mothers can manage.
“You’re going to wear a hole in my linoleum,” she’d said.
“I should go. I should leave early. What if there’s traffic?”
“Tanner. You’re going to be fine. Most people are off today, so as long as you avoid the mall area, you won’t hit traffic.”
She was right, of course. But she’d still handed me a thermos of coffee and kissed my cheek and told me she was proud of me, which was exactly the kind of thing that made my throat tight when I was already nervous.
The meeting wasn’t until noon, but I’d built in extra time because I was paranoid about showing up sweaty and frazzled to the most important professional conversation of my life.
The highway stretched out gray and empty under a November sky that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to rain, and I spent most of the drive rehearsing what I’d say and then immediately forgetting all of it.
David Holloway. VP of Research and Development at Riddell. The company that made helmets for most of the NFL, half the college programs in the country, and roughly every Pop Warner league in existence. The man who could open doors I’d only ever pressed my face against from the outside.
No pressure.
Lincoln had set the whole thing up, of course.
He’d called me the week before Thanksgiving to confirm details—lunch at the Brandywine Room in the Hotel du Pont, his treat, and I should bring whatever materials I thought would help explain my research.
“Don’t overthink it,” he’d said, which was like telling water not to be wet.
I’d spent three days putting together a presentation I’d then scrapped entirely, replacing it with a simpler overview that actually made sense.
Dr. Okonkwo had helped me refine my talking points, had reminded me that I knew this material better than almost anyone, and that confidence wasn’t arrogance when it was backed by data.
Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one about to sit across from a titan of sports equipment manufacturing and try to explain why a twenty-two-year-old college senior’s capstone project was worth his attention.
The Hotel du Pont was the kind of place that made me acutely aware I’d bought my nicest dress shirt at Target.
Marble floors, crystal chandeliers, staff in actual uniforms— I half expected someone to ask me if I was lost. But I found the restaurant without incident and spotted Lincoln immediately, his height making him impossible to miss even in a room full of people who looked like they belonged on the covers of business magazines.
Nixon sat beside him, and something about the sight of them together—Lincoln in a charcoal blazer that probably cost more than my car payment, Nixon more casual in a cream sweater that somehow looked equally expensive—made my shoulders drop half an inch. They were here. I wasn’t doing this alone.
Lincoln stood when he saw me, pulling me into a hug that was brief but genuine. “You made it. How was the drive?”
“Fine. Good.” I managed a smile that felt almost natural. “Mom says hi.”
“How’s she doing?” Nixon asked, rising to shake my hand. His grip was warm, his expression kind in that way that always made me feel like he saw more than I showed. “Still in the same house?”
“Yeah, she says she’ll never leave. Too many memories.” I glanced around the restaurant, all white tablecloths and muted conversation. “Is he—”
“Running about ten minutes late. Flight got delayed.” Lincoln gestured to a chair. “Sit. Breathe. You look like you’re about to bolt.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, sitting anyway. A waiter appeared with water I hadn’t ordered, and I drank half of it in one go.
Nixon’s mouth twitched. “Totally fine. Very relaxed.”
“Shush.” I swallowed hard when I remembered who I was talking to. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”
Lincoln laughed, that low rumble I remembered from childhood, from summer barbecues and football games and all the times he’d shown up to fill the space my father had left.
“Listen to me. Holloway’s smart, and he didn’t get where he is by missing opportunities.
He’s already interested, or he wouldn’t have asked for this meeting, and he sure as heck wouldn’t have agreed to meet on a holiday weekend.
All you have to do is show him what you showed me. ”
“What I showed you was a preliminary model and a lot of theoretical projections.”
“What you showed me,” Lincoln said, leaning forward, “was a genuine breakthrough in force distribution technology that could meaningfully reduce concussion risk across every level of play. Don’t sell yourself short, Tanner. You never could see what the rest of us see.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Nixon cut in. “He’s right, you know. I read through those materials you sent Lincoln. I don’t understand half the engineering, but I understand passion. You’ve got something real here.”
Before I could respond, Lincoln’s gaze shifted to something over my shoulder. “There he is.”
I stood too fast, nearly knocking my water glass over.
The man approaching our table wasn’t what I’d expected—I’d imagined someone sharper, more corporate, the kind of person who wore their power like armor.
David Holloway was tall but not imposing, his silver-threaded hair neat and his smile surprisingly warm as he crossed the restaurant.
Mid-fifties, maybe, with the kind of weathered face that suggested time spent outdoors rather than just in boardrooms.
“Lincoln.” He clasped Lincoln’s hand, then pulled him into a brief one-armed embrace. “Good to see you. How’s the team looking?”
“Better every day. We’re building something special.” Lincoln stepped back, gesturing toward me. “David, this is Tanner McBride. Tanner, David Holloway.”
Holloway’s handshake was firm without being aggressive. “Tanner. I’ve heard a lot about you. And your father— I knew Patrick, back in the day. Hell of a player.”
Something complicated moved through my chest. “Thank you, sir. He loved the game.”
“He did. And from what Lincoln tells me, you’re trying to make sure kids can keep loving it without paying the price he did.” Holloway’s expression shifted, becoming more serious. “That matters. More than most of the research that crosses my desk.”
We sat. Menus appeared and were ordered from—I had no memory of what I chose—and then Holloway was leaning forward, elbows on the table, giving me his full attention.
“Walk me through it. Your approach to force distribution. Lincoln gave me the overview, but I want to hear it from you.”
I took a breath. Then another. Thought about Dad, about his eyes going vacant in those last months, about all the things this research could never undo but might prevent for someone else.
And I started talking.
It was rough at first. My voice cracked on the technical terminology, and I stumbled over the explanation of my baseline testing methodology.
But Holloway listened—really listened, asking questions that showed he understood the science and wanted to understand more—and somewhere around the five-minute mark, something shifted.
The nervousness didn’t disappear, but it moved to the background, replaced by the part of me that had spent two years obsessing over this problem.
I explained the multi-layer foam composite I’d developed, how it distributed impact force differently than traditional padding.
Pulled out the tablet I’d brought and showed him the simulation data, the pressure mapping from my test dummies, the comparison charts against existing helmet technology.
His eyebrows rose when I got to the reduction percentages.
“These numbers are from controlled testing?”
“Yes, sir. Using a pendulum impact system calibrated to simulate hits at various speeds and angles. I’ve documented every trial. I can send you the full dataset.”
“And you’ve run this by your academic advisor?”
“Dr. Okonkwo. She’s been overseeing my methodology. She’s the one who pushed me to make the testing more rigorous.”
Holloway nodded, something like respect flickering in his expression. Then he sat back, tapping his fingers on the tablecloth. “Let’s talk about scalability.”
This was the part I’d been dreading. “The current prototype is expensive to produce. The materials alone—”
“How expensive?”
I told him. His expression didn’t change, but I could feel the weight of the number hanging between us.
“That’s a problem,” he said. “The NFL will pay for top-tier equipment. College programs might stretch their budgets for it. But youth leagues? High schools? The families who can least afford medical bills if their kid gets a concussion? They’re the ones who need this most, and they’re the ones who can’t pay premium prices. ”
“I know.” I’d thought about this constantly, had run the numbers a hundred different ways, looking for solutions. “I’ve been experimenting with alternative materials that maintain most of the protective properties at a lower cost. I’m not there yet, but I think with more time, more resources—”
“More research.”
“Yes, sir.”
Holloway glanced at Lincoln, something passing between them I couldn’t read. Then back to me. “Let’s talk about what that might look like.”
The conversation shifted into territory I hadn’t expected—grad school, continued development, the kind of support that Riddell might provide to a researcher working on something aligned with their interests.
My head spun as Holloway outlined possibilities: consultation fees, research grants, and potential collaboration on prototyping.