31 - Ethan
Ethan
The lights in the film room were dim, and the only illumination came from the projector that was humming a soft tune at the front of the room.
Grainy footage flickered across the old, rickety screen, showing one of our offensive drives from a previous game.
The air was stale, and it carried. The smell of old coffee and athletic tape was constant.
I slouched in my chair near the middle row with one leg stretched out and my arms loosely folded.
The film sessions were always such a drag, with Harris constantly rewinding our mistakes and asking questions that none of us knew how to answer.
Then waiting awkwardly while the guys stared in every direction but at him and his screen until someone muttered something obvious.
This session felt different, though. I was actually paying attention for once, and to my astonishment, I saw something. On the screen, the offense lined up at the line of scrimmage. The quarterback clipped once, and then the play froze.
“Pause,” Harris said, earning quite a few disgruntled moans.
The frame was locked mid-motion; the linemen were crouched, and the receivers were half-set in their stances. Harris pointed at the projection with his remote.
“Okay,” he said. “Walk me through it. Tell me what you see.”
The room was completely silent, save for a chair that creaked somewhere in the back row.
Cam leaned back with his arms crossed, staring at the screen like he was expecting the answer to magically appear if he looked hard enough.
Kind of like I did during my last study session.
Dylan sat forward with his elbows on his knees and squinted. Harris waited patiently, like always.
“Blocking broke down?” someone offered weakly from the back.
Harris didn’t even bother to look at him. “That’s the result. Not the cause.” He clicked rewind, and the play rolled back by three seconds. “Look again. Pay careful attention to what each person is doing.”
The video ran again. There was a snap, and two seconds later our Dylan got swallowed up behind the line. Harris paused it again.
“Come on, guys,” he pleaded. “You’re smarter than this.”
I stared at the screen, knowing I was missing something. The defense shifted slightly before the snap… The linebacker leaned inward… The safety—
I leaned forward, intrigued by what I had found. “The safety is cheating.”
A few heads turned, and Harris slowly looked over at me.
“The what?” Harris asked, seeming just as astonished as the rest of them looked.
I pointed to the top-right corner of the screen.
“Right there, number twenty-seven,” I said eagerly. “He’s leaning left before the snap.”
Dylan squinted again. “Where?”
Harris hit the rewind button again, and this time he played it in slow motion. The clip rolled, and I quickly pointed at the safety.
“Watch him,” I said.
There was a snap, and the safety took two quick steps toward the sweep side before Dylan even had the ball. Harris paused it again. The room shifted slightly as the guys leaned forward in their chairs.
“Oh,” Cam muttered.
“Yeah,” Dylan added quietly.
I gestured at the screen. “If we fake the sweep and cut inside, that guy is already out of position.”
Cam leaned forward now and rested his elbows on his knees.
“The linebacker’s sliding over too,” he added, pointing to a spot lower on the screen. “They’re over-committing.”
Harris looked from Cam to me and back again before rewinding the clip yet again.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s test that theory.”
The play ran again and the safety bit early. The linebacker shifted, and Harris pressed pause.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Harris said, his surprise evident in his voice.
A couple of the guys chuckled, but Harris couldn’t be fazed. He just turned to me with a crooked grin.
“Look who finally decided to join the team,” he teased. “And now we might actually stand a chance of winning.”
A few more guys joined in the laughter. I was one of them. It felt good to contribute and to have my efforts seen.
“I’m just telling you what I saw,” I said with a shrug.
“Well, in that case, please keep saying it,” Harris encouraged before hitting play again.
This was more thrilling than anything I’d done in quite a while. I had no idea why I was so against it in the beginning because it could give us a serious advantage. Maybe Coach wasn’t as far behind as he led us all to believe.
“Okay,” Harris said excitedly. “If we exploit that, what changes?”
Cam cautiously raised a hand. “If we motion the slot receiver across first, that might pull the corner to him.”
Dylan shook his head immediately. “No, the corner’s in zone. Watch.”
Harris rewound the clip again, and all of us paid careful attention to the corner.
“Right there,” Dylan said, pointing. “See how he’s watching the quarterback instead of the receiver?”
“Yeah,” Cam admitted.
Dylan leaned forward, and I could tell that he was completely energized now.
“If we stack the tight end on the inside, though,” Dylan added. “That linebacker will be forced to decide who he will cover.”
“Or he crashed the run,” someone called from the back, earning a few laughs.
“Which leaves the seam open,” Cam finished triumphantly.
Harris’s expression instantly changed. The wide smile he had remained, but it was as if the guys had just overrun him with a range of new ideas and techniques. He turned toward the whiteboard and started drawing out our characters.
“Okay, get up here,” Harris said.
Cam stood first and grabbed a marker. He quickly drew his idea of the formation, labeling the positions with big block letters. Dylan got up next and took a different colored marker to draw out the defensive shift.
“No, no,” Cam said, pointing at the drawing. “The safety needs to be here.”
“This is where he ends up,” Dylan said, slapping his hand. “This is where he starts from.”
Harris leaned back against his desk with his arms folded across his chest. His lips curled into a hint of a smile as he watched them argue. Then more guys got up to add their two cents to the drawing.
“Move the running back slightly left,” one of the seated guys suggested.
“Why?” someone else asked.
“So it sells the sweep better.”
I stood up before I noticed what I had done. It was as if my body was functioning on autopilot and it wanted to set all of these guys straight.
“Give me that,” I said as I snatched the marker from Dylan.
Then I erased a part of the route and redrew it. A few of the guys tried to argue while others cringed, but I didn’t care.
“If the tight end chips the linebacker first,” I said. “He will slow him down just enough for Dylan to cut inside.”
“Yeah,” Cam said, nodding slowly. “That could work.”
Dylan stepped back and studied the board. “Try it again.”
Harris rewound the clip one more time. We watched the play unfold one more time while glancing at the board. This time the mistakes felt so obvious that we could kick ourselves. When we reached the same spot again, Harris paused.
“Well,” he said. “That’s the most productive film session we’ve had all season.”
The room erupted in relieved laughter. Then the guys started gathering their things, but the chatter between them was still about the play. Harris didn’t move right away, though. Instead, he leaned back against his desk and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.
“Hold up a second,” he said after a moment.
The room fell quiet, and he took a second to look over each and every one of us.
“You know I’m not a career football coach.”
A few of the guys exchanged nervous glances, but no one spoke up.
“I’ve heard the rumors,” Harris continued. “About the alumni questions and I’ve heard the little comments.” He let out a small, panicked, and completely humorless laugh. “Some of you probably heard it at the fundraiser dinner.”
My stomach turned into a gigantic knot as Harris nervously scratched the back of his neck.
“They weren’t wrong,” he said quietly. “I came from basketball and I didn’t have twenty years’ worth of football experience.”
He gestured toward the line-filled whiteboard behind us and chuckled.
“Half of the time I’m learning this program along with all of you, but there is one small difference between me and other coaches.”
The room stayed quiet. There wasn’t even a nervous shuffle or a snide remark. Then Harris pushed away from the desk and stood a little taller.
“I didn’t take this job so I could coast through a losing season and jump ship.” He looked around the room and met each anxious gaze. “I took it because this program deserves better than that.”
He still hadn’t gotten a response from any of us. So he nodded toward the screen.
“Do you think the alumni trust us yet?”
A couple of the guys shifted uncomfortably, and a few of us shook our heads. We hadn’t done anything to deserve their trust, and from the looks of it, we never would.
“Do you think the athletic director feels confident now?”
Someone snorted softly, and I let out a little laugh, but Harris just shrugged.
“Fair,” he said, folding his arms. “But here’s what they don’t see.”
He gestured around the room before pointing a finger right at me.
“You seeing the safety cheating and you two finding ways around it. They don’t see what you go through on a daily basis to get to where you are. They have no idea how you suffered while trying to grow or how you pray for the longevity of your bus so you can make it to the next game.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. He didn’t mention any of that to Mr. Pine at the prep rally, but now I understand why. Firstly, we needed to hear it more than he did, and secondly, he was just a fish in a much bigger pond.
“This is how real teams get started,” Harris added, and a quiet focus settled on the room. “So yeah, I’m not a football coach and that’s really pissing people off, but I promise you guys that I’m not going anywhere. I’m here and I’m going to fight like hell for this team.”
For a moment the words hung in the air, and no one spoke, but then Dylan nodded, Cam smacked his desk, and Malik sank into his chair with a thoughtful expression.
I stared at the whiteboard and realized that something strange had happened.
For the first time since I arrived at Havenport, I believed every word Harris said.
“Okay,” Harris said with a clap. “Get out of here before I start assigning extra drills.”
Groans and laughter filled the room as the guys got ready to leave. As I was making my way out, Cam grabbed my shoulder.
“Great catch on that safety,” he said.
I smirked. “Don’t get used to it.”
Dylan walked past next and gave me a short nod.
If I hadn’t known any better, it was as if the locker room fight had never happened.
As I stepped outside, the cool campus air bit into my exposed skin.
I shoved my hands into my hoodie pockets and walked, not thinking about where I was going.
I should’ve gone right back to my dorm, but my legs carried me somewhere else, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of Elizabeth’s door.
My heart was pounding in my chest as my hand raised to knock, but something stopped me. Her delightful laughter filled the air, and it was accompanied by the voice of a man I didn’t know.
“So your method basically saved my midterm,” the dude said.
Elizabeth laughed again, sounding so bright and free while I felt a piece of myself withering. It was the worst thing I had ever felt, and it brought up so many different emotions, but the one that stood out above the rest was fury.
“I hear you’re majoring in marine biology,” she said, making me feel like an even bigger idiot.
“Yes,” he said sharply. “And from what I hear, you’re not too bad at the subject yourself.”
“It’s a guilty pleasure of mine.”
I lowered my hand ever so slowly as the realization of what was happening dawned on me. This was my fault. I understood that much, but I still blamed her.
Because she was the one who made me feel like this could be something.