Chapter 5
Five
Will
My eyes are blurry. The kind of blur that stems from exhaustion.
This particular haze has settled in because I’ve been staring too long at numbers and names and trying to make meaning out of them.
The depth chart in front of me might as well be written in another language.
Red ink, black ink, arrows, question marks, circles.
Potential starters. Second-string backups.
Practice squad possibilities. Cap hits. Injury histories.
College stats. Even high school stats. It’s all there, and after being at this for hours, it’s all one big blob.
I’ve been hunched over this desk since a little after seven this morning. The night shift cleaning crew was just leaving when I walked in, coffee in hand, already feeling exhausted before the workday had even started.
A quick glance at the wall confirms it’s just after eleven in the morning, but it feels like it could be eleven at night.
The draft for this upcoming season is fast approaching. In a few weeks, the decisions we make, or fail to make, will ripple throughout the entire season. Careers will be built. Others will stall. Young men will get their shot at a dream or watch it slip through their fingers.
That weight never gets lighter. If anything, it presses harder the longer you stay in this business.
I survey the yellow legal pad in front of me, filled with scribbles so frantic they border on illegible.
Names of prospects. Trade possibilities.
A star next to a linebacker with raw talent but questionable discipline.
Three underlines beneath a wide receiver with blazing speed but hands like stone.
Lines drawn from one name to another, as if connecting them will reveal some secret symmetry.
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
I’d love to say that there’s a method to the madness, but I’d be lying. However, by the time I work through it all, I’ll have my final list for draft day, and after that, all I can do is hope the choices I made were the right ones.
The whiteboard across the room is worse than the legal pad.
It’s covered in columns and magnets, each one representing a body, a contract, a potential gamble.
If you stare at it long enough, it starts to look less like a plan and more like a crime-scene investigation board, with threads connecting theories that may or may not hold up.
That’s eerily correct because, no matter how much thought, research, and stats say a player is right for our Rampage family, it could all still turn out to be wrong. I’ve been wrong before, and I’ve learned a lot over the years.
My phone rings, pulling me out of my thoughts. The sound cuts through the quiet of the room like a whistle at the start of a play. I ignore it instead, pulling off my glasses and reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose, and close my eyes.
I just need a minute. Just sixty seconds of quiet without the expectations of the job pressing on me from every direction. Without swirls of stats and names that are starting to jumble together.
The ringing stops. I exhale slowly, leaning back in my chair as relief unfurls inside my chest. Maybe I’ll take two minutes, because I can feel a headache forming, the pain starting to ache between my eyes.
The ringing starts again. With a heavy breath and a groan, I reach for the phone without looking, already preparing to tell whatever scout or agent it is that I’ll call them back, or the Rampage owner that yes, I’m working on it, and I’ll be ready for a full report by the end of the week.
I glance at the screen, and my lips tilt in a smile.
Bellamy.
This time, the air leaves my lungs for a different reason entirely. Guilt swirls in my gut, thick and familiar. Old habits die hard. Here I am, ignoring my daughter’s call because I’m buried in a depth chart. Her name on the screen is a reminder that some lessons take a lifetime to learn.
Swiping at the screen, I bring the phone to my ear. “Hey, sweetheart,” I greet her.
There’s a split second of silence, then, “Hi, Dad.”
My heart squeezes so tight it almost hurts. She always sounds so happy. No more tentative hellos. She’s just… happy.
There was a time when her voice held an edge anytime I was involved.
A careful, aloof politeness that cut deeper than anger ever could.
I earned that distance. I built it brick by brick, all the missed moments, recitals, birthdays, and so much more.
No matter how often I tried to insert myself into her life, she resisted, and from her young age, after my divorce from her mother, I let her.
I thought that I was doing the right thing, and it only took a short amount of time for me to realize I fucked up. It took me years to unfuck the mess I’d made of my relationship with my daughter, and that’s one mistake I’ll damn well never repeat.
Now that she’s back in my life—not just back, but an active participant, where I get happy phone calls and chances to watch my granddaughter—I don’t take it lightly.
“Everything okay?” I ask, leaning back in my chair. Already, this call has calmed me more than the two minutes I was thinking I needed just moments ago.
“Oh, yes, everything’s fine.” I can hear movement in the background and the soft giggles of my granddaughter. “Are you busy tonight?”
I almost laugh.
Almost.
Because if there’s ever been a loaded question, that’s it. Busy tonight? I have hours of tape waiting for me. A stack of scouting reports that haven’t even been cracked open. A meeting with the defensive coordinator later this afternoon, and more meetings throughout the week.
Time is not on my side.
However, the universe has a fucked-up way of resting you when you least expect it. Am I busy? Yes. Do I have more work than hours in a day? Also, yes. Will any of it matter if I look up in ten years and realize I missed it all again?
Not a fucking chance.
For far too many years, I put my career first. I told myself it was temporary.
Just until the next season, just until the team rebuild was done, just until we made the playoffs.
The excuses began to blend together, and since it was just me after the divorce, and my daughter wanted nothing to do with me, I doubled down, and football, my career, was all that I had.
I learned early on that there’s always another “just until” I could use as an excuse.
I told myself that if Bellamy ever let me back into her life, back into her heart, that I’d never again put my career before my family, and that’s a promise to myself that I intend to keep.
“Never for you,” I answer without hesitation. “What’s up?”
“I’m making meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner,” she says casually, as if she doesn’t realize the gravity of what she’s offering—that being included in her life is my greatest gift. “I know it’s your favorite. Want to join us?”
“You know I love me some meatloaf and mashed potatoes.” A smile tugs at my lips.
“What time?” A few hours to have dinner with my family won’t change the trajectory of this team next season.
But turning down this invitation? That could chip away at the fragile, precious thing I’ve spent years trying to rebuild.
Besides, I love spending time with them.
I stare down at the legal pad again, the words blurring together. The computer screen glows with paused game film. There’s still so much to get through. But I’ll be damned if I turn this down.
“I’ll have food ready by six.”
I mentally calculate how much time I have to work before heading to her place. That gives me a few more hours here. I can push the film to later tonight at home if I need to. Or early tomorrow morning. The work will wait.
I nod even though she can’t see me. “Six. I’ll be there. Need me to bring anything?”
“Just your appetite,” she replies, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
It does something to me, that smile. It feels like forgiveness. Like trust. “I’ll be there.”
“Great. Have a good day,” she says, and the line goes dead.
Silence fills my office like smoke; it’s almost suffocating as I swivel in my chair and stare out the window.
The view is of an empty practice field, empty just as my life has been for the past decade or so.
There are no players, no coaching staff, and no whistles cutting through the air.
Just the spring air brushing across the turf.
The silence never used to bother me. I could work fourteen- to sixteen-hour days and not even notice. I’d get lost in my work, the draft, plays, game tape, the list goes on and on. It was my entire life, my entire being.
I told myself that if I poured enough of myself into my career, it would give back in equal measure.
I guess in some ways it did. Respect, a reputation built on discipline and results.
A career that any coach, young or old, would envy.
From the outside looking in, things were great, but that success came at a cost. Honestly, I can’t say that I’d still be where I am if I hadn’t given all of myself and forgotten everything but work. I’d like to think that yes, I would be.
I’ll never know.
I’ve invested well, and I make a significant living.
That’s something to be proud of, but money doesn’t tuck your daughter in at night.
It doesn’t clap in the auditorium when she looks out into the crowd, searching for your face.
It doesn’t answer the phone when she calls, asking you to come to dinner for meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
All that drive and determination got me the dream career. It also got me divorce papers and a daughter who once believed I didn’t love her.
That’s a guilt that I’ll carry with me forever.