39. We Rise
THIRTY-NINE
SpottingAvery on the sideline carrying one of Pippa’s bags like a shield, Cameron wished for only a second that she was an anonymous blur in the student section like she always was, and not close enough to catch his eye. A team hat, again courtesy of Pippa, covered her pale blonde hair.
He turned his back and locked in.
Tennessee went on the scoreboard first with a field goal. UND matched it. Ethan threw a touchdown. Cam tossed a shovel pass to a running back for a short rush and UND brought the game back to a tie. They chased the opponent the entire first half, never down for more than one score, but never snagging a lead.
“That’s the heat!” Cam shouted in the locker room at halftime, tied at twenty points each. “I’m getting a goddamn sunburn in November! Matching isn’t good enough when they start the half, so we’re going to hit them in all three phases and take that lead! Y’all know how we’re going to do it?”
He smiled and pointed at Mario Madison, his cornerback who still looked deflated from a costly pass interference penalty. “We’re going to do it together. Lights out on those bastards, defense. I believe in every one of you to make those stops, and get that turnover. I believe in every man on this offense to take the lead. And special teams, I know you will to pin them at the end of the field on every damn kick, because we are going to do this together! All three phases, we rise when they bring the heat!”
Bold words.
In the middle of the fourth quarter, tied at twenty-seven, the defense recovered a fumble during a sack. Isaac was tackled with the ball almost as soon as he grabbed it, but the defense gave Cameron the turnover he demanded, and now he had to capitalize on it.
Five more yards, he prayed, checking their field position over and over to make sure he could still count. The home crowd was deafening, and a smudge on the right side of his glasses was just enough to worry him. We need five yards to field goal range for a lead. Five yards.
He drew in a deep breath as he stepped into the huddle, and exhaled the noise, the yard lines, and everything else but the play call. At second and ten, and with two of his best receivers sidelined by injury, a touchdown wouldn’t be easy. The field goal, if they could get into range, might be enough.
His offensive line had protected him like a wall the entire game. He had time for passes, if a receiver could get enough separation to catch one.
Cam felt Ethan’s eyes on him as he lined up in shotgun formation, and before the count, he exhaled that, too.
He dropped back with the ball in his hands. No one was open. He looked to Benny for a screen pass and found him holding a block for a receiver in double coverage.
He ran.
He blew past the line of scrimmage and his five yards for field goal range, aiming for ten yards to pick up the first down. Spotting the linebacker closing in on his right, he leaned to avoid him and threw out a stiff arm to protect the ball cradled against his left side. The linebacker lowered his head and jammed his face mask against Cam’s hand. When his fingers closed as a reaction to steady himself before sliding, his heart stopped before the yellow flags hit the ground.
A player may not grasp, twist, or pull another player’s face mask.
A fifteen-yard penalty.
Cam hadn’t drawn a penalty for weeks. Driving for the comeback when he demanded the best of everyone on his team, he dragged them all back—literally. Five yards was now twenty. If they couldn’t make it at least twenty yards on the next play, Tennessee would have the ball and could beat them with one kick.
Coach Keyes didn’t look at the receivers when they paused for the two-minute warning, only his quarterback and tight end. “I want that play you two drew up,” he said as Cam took off his helmet and wiped his glasses. “Get Benny the hell out of the trenches and open on the right. Cam, you’ve got to set up the protection better. Talk to Zack out there. Nine out of ten, they blitz you on this because they think we’ve got no one to throw to. Go.”
A shiver chased up Cam’s back, and he slapped his neck like a bee stung him. “We’ve got this!” he yelled, smacking helmets as the team jogged back to the field. “We’ve got this!”
RISE!
The team’s response to the play call in the huddle sucked the sound from the stadium. Tennessee’s defense spread into what looked like zone coverage. He didn’t like it, and was just about to call a shift when they tightened their formation for a blitz.
He signaled his running back into motion for a fake handoff, looking left. His tight end, at his right, stared down the linebacker who thought he was facing a blocker, not a receiver. Benny had spent the entire season trimming bulk and gaining speed, and not many people outside their training facility had seen him shoring up his skills as a dual threat route-runner.
The snap.
The dropback.
The offensive line held. Cam let the ball fly as Benny hit the route, sprinting first for the sideline, then back to the middle of the field as a receiver drew coverage on the left for a slower version of the same route—the distraction that would hopefully open the route to the end zone.
Time slowed as he watched the ball arc over everyone but Benny, wide open on the ten yard line for an over-the-shoulder catch on the run. Cam raised his fist and opened his mouth to scream for the touchdown as a defender hit him from his blind side and knocked him backward onto the grass.
The nausea came in bursts lasting only seconds, but the clench of his throat while he was still on his back was enough to make him wobble when Zack helped him up and Hakeem and several other linemen converged on Tennessee’s defensive end, menacing him for the late hit.
“I don’t care,” Cam said, even though no one asked him what he thought. “Where’s Benny? What a hell of a catch.”
Zack yanked Cam’s left arm toward the sideline. “You are getting your head checked before you go celebrate and knock helmets with your boy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They heard your head hit the ground back in Indiana. I know crazy eyes aren’t always bad, but I always dragged Jordy to get checked like I’m going to drag you. Come on.”
The kicker nailed the extra point to set their lead at seven while Cam slumped forward on the bench and muttered responses to the athletic trainer’s concussion workup. He was ordered to stand, balance on each foot, stare straight ahead and side-to-side, and submit to a battery of other quick assessments before being allowed to sit again.
“My man, I am so sorry.” Trevon Stevenson dropped onto the bench next to him. “That’s on me. I let up too early. I should’ve?—”
“I shouldn’t have been staring at my pretty pass,” Cam said, knocking into Trevon’s shoulder pads. “Got too high on myself for a minute. You’ve saved my ass a thousand times. This isn’t on you.”
After another burst of nausea, the clock ticked down as his energy ticked back up. The results of the concussion algorithm were inconclusive because he only had minor symptoms. Tennessee had a long field ahead of them thanks to the penalty for the late hit, but they could burn time so UND wouldn’t get the ball back if they managed to tie the game. They could force overtime. Anything could happen.
He looked to his left and spotted Archie Hawkes warming up.
Cam jogged down the sideline. “Coach. I’m going back in.”
“Inconclusive results mean maybe no, but maybe yes.”
“I already feel better. I just got the wind knocked out of me. I did all the balance stuff and?—”
“Go give Archie a hug and tell him you believe in him to hold onto our lead,” Coach Keyes said, keeping his eyes on the field. “He needs that more than you need to go out there and get wrecked and miss the next two games. They already showed us they’ll play dirty with that face mask trick and the late hit.”
“The face mask was on me.”
“I’m still not taking that chance.”
“It’s my job to take the chance for this team.”
“And it’s my job to decide who takes the chance.”
“So Archie’s the sacrificial lamb now.”
The coach watched Ethan call a play, and still didn’t meet Cam’s eyes. “He is. Just like you were.”
Cam slammed his sports glasses into the bench and held his face in his hands, jaw clenched so tight he heard his teeth grinding over the roar of the crowd.
He startled at a tiny noise that rose above the rest.
Click.
The cameras.
Even without any glasses on, he felt his teammates’ eyes on him while the captain’s patch on his jersey burned through his pads and seared his chest like a brand. Swallowing thickly, he fished his regular frames and his UND hat out of his bag, brushing the orange Tennessee cap aside. He put them on and got to work slapping hands and helmets.
The nausea lessened but didn’t pass, and he battled the residual dizziness enough to stay on his feet pacing and screaming for every play as Tennessee marched down the field and Ethan threw a fifteen-yard pass to tie the score with seconds to spare, sending the game into overtime. He couldn’t indulge a look in Avery’s direction and risk seeing the worry on her face, but he wouldn’t concuss himself or make anything worse by doing the only thing he still could do for his exhausted team. Cam’s throat was raw when the final whistle blew, and he grabbed Archie and his sideline bag and headed for the fifty-yard line.
“You looked good out there, Hawkeye,” Cam said. “I hate that you got thrown in like that, but you took care of us.”
“No, I didn’t.” He nodded at the scoreboard.
“You did. You got up when your team needed you. You went out there with barely a warmup, and you saw it through. Tennessee had a more complete game today, and the loss is on all of us. We rise and fall as a team.”
“All I had to do was get us in range for Matty to kick the field goal.”
“Hawk, if one play earlier in the game had gone better, you never would have been in overtime. We’d have been up by fourteen and maybe I wouldn’t have gotten hit, and who knows what else. You got up when the team needed you, and I’m proud of you for it.”
“Thanks, Cam.”
A few seconds later, he spotted Ethan and barreled into his side.
“Good God, man, get off me. You’re going to break your brain, if you haven’t already.”
“Hello to you too.” Cam pulled out his orange hat and plopped it on, then offered his white UND hat to Ethan. “I brought you a consolation prize, but I guess it’s a trophy now. We almost had you.”
“A buddy of mine taught me a little about fourth-quarter rallies. He said something like ‘come back.’” Ethan patted his chest and pretended to cry. “I took it to heart, man.”
“I’ll sign it for you.”
“Paws off, loser.” He pretended to knock Cam’s head. “What’s the word?”
“I’ll get a CT tomorrow and we’ll see.”
“I’m really sorry. That was a late hit. I cussed the guy down for that. We don’t play dirty.”
“Well, you don’t.”
Ethan adjusted the hat and put it on. “You going to talk about it?”
“What?”
“I know you whacked your head, but you’re not stupid.”
Cam blinked. Media and players wandered around them, seemingly oblivious to the opposing quarterbacks in friendly banter and wearing the wrong hats. “You think I should?”
“Why not? People are listening. Is this your backup?” He extended a hand and shook Archie’s. “Well-played. I’m not sure my backup could have kept his cool like you did.”
“I learned cool from this guy. Not quite sure I’ve got clutch yet.”
Cam held up his phone. “I’m only clutch when I blew the first three quarters. Arch, can you grab us a picture?”