Gladiators of the Gridiron

Ty POV

Regular practices had at least made the summer pass by faster, and eventually, my waiting was almost over—we’d finally made it to the last session before our opening game of the season.

Though the closer we got to that fated date, each day seemed to drag on longer. I could feel the energy building inside of me more, like every muscle inside of me had been wound too tight.

Game day couldn’t come soon enough. I still didn’t know who we’d be facing, but it didn’t matter, whoever was put in front of me, I’d crush them.

I dumped my bike at the field, rolling my shoulders as I walked onto the turf, as early as ever. Coach Long, his daughter, and Luke were there like usual too. I wondered if there would be anything special for this final practice before the game.

It turned out I wasn’t the first player to show up that day. Throughout the time between the first practice and now, Rabbit had been showing up to practice a few minutes earlier each time, until one day he had finally gotten there before me—that had happened about a week ago.

Right now he was already running laps around the field, though as I started going through my stretches, and he finished the lap he was currently on, he made his way over to me.

‘H-Hey! You excited, Ty? I hear Coach has an a-announcement to make,’ Rabbit said. I looked up at him as I sat on the ground, reaching out to touch my toes.

‘I wonder what that could be,’ I said. I had a couple of ideas—he could be announcing our opponents, or maybe Rabbit was hoping that Coach would be announcing the starting lineup for the game and could move some of the JV players up to the varsity squad.

‘W-Well, either way. I-I can’t wait for the games this weekend,’ he said, showing off his large teeth with a dumb grin.

As I went through the rest of my warmup to pass the time before practice officially got underway, Rabbit stuck by my side the whole time. A habit that he’d started since the beginning of our practices, and one he’d been getting more comfortable with as he stuck closer and closer to me each time.

I wouldn’t call Rabbit my friend, throughout the summer I hadn’t become friendly with any of my teammates; though I might’ve made a few enemies.

Rabbit at least was the most fascinating of my teammates. I mean, in a sea of unremarkable players, it was inevitable the worst of them would stick out. But even so, he tried the hardest, seemingly trying to outdo me when it came to effort.

But for what? He seemed just as hopeless as when we had our tryouts all those weeks ago. I frowned as we stopped for a sip of water and a little breather.

‘Why do you try so hard?’ I suddenly asked him. He was caught off guard by the question but answered after wiping his mouth.

‘T-To get better, why else? Why do y-you try so hard?’

I ignored his question. ‘But why football? You’re clearly no good at it.’ He was taken aback, looking hurt by my statement. He looked down, keeping quiet for a while before finally speaking up.

‘It-It’s true that… I-I’m not as talented as you, b-but even so, I-I’ll do my best and get st-stronger.’

‘You’re too small and weak. And you won’t change that, no matter how hard you work. I’m sure a lot of people have told you that if you work hard you can do anything, and even surpass those who are more gifted. But they’re lying to you. No matter how hard a piece of trash works, it’ll never close the distance between itself and greatness.’

He clenched his fists but stayed quiet, so I continued. ‘If you try to work twice as hard as me, I’ll just work even harder. You’ll never catch me, no matter how hard you chase after my back.’

‘Th-Then I’ll just keep chasing forever! I-I’ll never give up… even if it’s just you and me so high up that we tower above all others… wh-what’s wrong with being second behind you?’

It was my turn to be silent as I was surprised by the grit in not just his words but his eyes as well. By now, most of the team had shown up and practice was about to get underway.

Coach Long called for the players to gather around so he could start things off. Rabbit looked at me and then quickly lowered his eyes again, shuffling over towards the others.

That fucking trash. He doesn’t get it! He doesn’t deserve to stand on the same field as me.

***

Before practice began, the only announcement Coach Long made was for everyone to stay focused as the beginning of the season approached. And the practice itself wasn’t anything special.

Aside from going through some specific plays that were going to be a focal point of our offensive and defensive gameplans for the weekend, it was just like any other practice we’d had before.

Throughout it all, I couldn’t help my eyes from drifting back to Rabbit as he struggled through the drills and scrimmages. I watched him like a hawk, trying to see if there had been any improvement at all.

Maybe he was a little faster, a little tighter with his technique, his steps were more deliberate and his arms didn’t look like they were blindly flailing about whenever he tried to guard someone.

But he was still clearly the worst player even on the JV team. It was just embarrassing to see him trying so hard and failing to outperform other lowlifes who were just coasting through practice.

Eventually, we came to a point in practice where the DBs and Receivers were going up against each other in 1-on-1s again. When it was Rabbit’s turn to guard, I couldn’t resist my urge and forced my way over to the front of the Receiver line.

‘Hey, the fuck are you—’ the irrelevant WR I had cut off started to speak.

‘Shut up. I’m facing this one.’ I didn’t even look back at him. I was too busy staring down Rabbit in front of me.

Bella looked over, raising a brow. ‘Is there a problem here, boys?’

‘N-No Coach Short!’ Rabbit spoke up first. ‘Uhh… I mean um, Bella. Um, no… uh no m-ma’am.’

I looked at Bella, smiling a bit. ‘I’m just trying to show Rabbit something.’ I didn’t pay attention to the WR’s reaction.

She frowned, studying me with an intense glare, but Coach Hoang’s voice took control of the situation.

‘Let them go at it. It’s good for the defence to get a bit of practice on the flip side of things. It’ll help them understand what their opponents are trying to do to them.’

Bella sighed quietly but raised her whistle to her mouth and paused to let us get ready.

When that shrill cry rang out, I burst forward, hitting Rabbit in the chest and forcing him off-balance as he struggled to backpedal fast enough to keep up with my charge.

I ploughed forward a few more steps before suddenly stopping and pivoting, putting my back to Rabbit as I raised my hands, calling for the ball.

I was more like a Centre in Basketball sealing out a defender in the low post rather than a Receiver running a route, but it was to prove a point.

I used my body to keep the smaller Rabbit at bay as the ball was slung my way. He struggled and squirmed, trying to wriggle around me and reach out to block the ball’s path, but I easily shielded him away from it.

I caught the ball on my chest with one arm, and at the same time, I shoved Rabbit off me, throwing him down to the ground and standing over him.

I glared down at him, and he stared up at him, eyes still full of fight.

‘Tch!’ I turned my head and spat onto the turf before dropping the ball onto him and walking off. Rabbit quickly picked himself back up and handed the ball back to one of the QBs before getting back in line.

Bella and Luke watched us both closely, but even as we stood together in line—Rabbit standing at attention behind me as I paced back and forth impatiently—we didn’t say another word to each other.

The rest of practice passed without issue. As we were making our way off the field and into the gym to finish with some weight training like usual, I couldn’t help but notice Luke off to the side, speaking with a familiar brat.

That damn spy had showed up to each of our practices, and though he kept to himself on the sidelines, it was still infuriating to see his stupid face and those unblinking, hawk-like eyes every time.

Seventy-five overall… His words from our first meeting still burned away at me a bit, even if I tried not to think about them.

The little shit wasn’t even anyone’s brother. He was just some creepy kid that showed up to watch every practice, and called himself a scout. What the hell would Coach Hoang even want with him? Maybe he was banning him from our practices finally. I could only hope.

I tried to focus on my sets, but my conversation with that “Seventy-five” brat kept echoing in my head.

I’d tried to reevaluate my game after the talk we had. My greatness should stand out clearly, but the tone of his words didn’t sound disingenuous or like he was simply lying to try and get a rise out of me.

Trying to find a mistake in myself would bring me back to my duel with Harry. But even there, where I was so easily defeated and dominated, I couldn’t see what I had done wrong. I was blind.

If there isn’t a specific problem, one key area where I fucked up … then I just have to get better everywhere. I thought. It was the best answer I had.

By the time we were done in the gym my whole body ached and I felt like I was burning up from the inside. But it wasn’t time to go home, Coach Long hadn’t made his announcement yet.

Coming out of the gym, Luke and the brat were still talking. I had to go over and see what was so interesting that they were still chatting away after all this time.

‘Oi. Don’t tell me this is your snot-nosed brother, Coach.’

The brat looked up at me as if I’d just said the stupidest thing ever. ‘How would that even work? He’s Asian and I’m Mexican. Do you need glasses or something?’

Luke laughed a bit, whirling himself around to face me. ‘Nothing like that, Samuels. Ricky and I were just talking about our upcoming opponents for this weekend.’

My anger at Ricky’s comments was quickly pushed aside by my intrigue at who we would be facing. ‘Who are they?’

‘Well, this year we’re starting things off against the Mayfair Monsoons, but that’s nothing special. What’s interesting is that they seem to have a fresh wave of talent joining them this year, according to our little scout here,’ Luke said, smiling at Ricky.

Ricky grinned and wiped his nose, looking pleased with himself, though I was more than a little sceptical. ‘So, what’s special about them?’ I asked.

‘They’re crazy athletic. They musta pushed really hard to recruit the stars of their Track and Field club to join the team this year. So uh, they’re pretty raw from what I’ve seen, but they’re really physical,’ he explained.

‘Who’s their best Receiver?’ That was all that mattered to me—who I had to shut down.

‘Uhh… I can’t really tell who they’d target most in a game. I guess it’ll depend if they wanna go for speed or power more.’ He scratched his nose. ‘They haven’t played any preseason games.’

I sighed, but before the conversation could go any further, Coach Norman let out a loud whistle and called for everyone to huddle up.

Luke and I made our way over, Luke heading to the front with the rest of the Coaches as I blended into the crowd of players. All eyes were focused on Coach Long.

‘First of all, great practice today, give yourselves a pat on the back, you’ve all done really well this summer. Which is a really great thing because I’m sure you’re all going to be excited to hear this news.’

There was some murmuring amongst the listeners as Coach Long paused for a moment, everyone taking guesses at what it could be.

‘The NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) has just recently announced, that at the end of this season, the champions of every state will compete against each other in a tournament to find the strongest team in the nation.’

I zoned out from everything else after that—nothing else was important after such a revelation. There was going to be a national championship.

I was going to be a national champion. There was no way I could let any other team come between me and the title of being strongest in the nation.