Out of His League Read online

  Dave led Ozzie over to the men, who were hunched close, talking intently.

  “All that’s fine in theory,” Coach McCulloch was saying, “but Denham’s got a new two-hundred-pound linebacker who can run the forty in 4.4, and a running back who’s even quicker.”

  “Both black guys?” asked the pastor.

  Coach nodded. “And you know who we picked up? Five Mexicans and an Australian who I’m not even sure knows—”

  “Gentlemen, I don’t like interrupting,” said Dave, “but there’s someone I’d like the mayor and pastor to meet.”

  Coach spun around. He gave a tired smile. “Well, Austin will be sick of me soon enough, so I’ll say good-night.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” the pastor said to him.

  “Coach, before you go,” said Dave. “I liked what you said tonight, about looking to the future.”

  “Thanks.”

  “There’s one sure way to get everyone looking forward,” said Mayor Green. He paused for a moment. “Win.”

  Coach McCulloch shook his head and left.

  The men turned to Ozzie. “I admit, we got a shock to see you up there tonight,” said the pastor. “We like to know everything when it comes to the team.”

  “And we didn’t know about you,” said the mayor.

  “So you play football in Australia?” asked the pastor.

  “Not like this,” said Ozzie.

  “Have you ever watched it on TV?”

  Ozzie thought for a moment. “Once. I think it was the Superball.”

  “Superbowl?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “Do you know what a quarterback is?” asked the mayor.

  “Nah.” There was a pause. “My best mate’s a halfback, though.”

  Dave chuckled. “Well, that’s twice as good!”

  The pastor didn’t smile. “Good luck, boy. I can’t guarantee you any playing time, but I can offer you time in church on Sundays. I’d like to see you there.”

  “And ask your family and friends to visit you,” said Mayor Green. “Hope could do with more tourists.”

  As Ozzie was leaving, Coach Marcus Wright, the man who had a thing for yelling, slapped a hundred-page book of defensive plays into his hands. “Homework,” he said. “These plays have to be memorized by Friday night’s scrimmage. Our first game’s less than two weeks away.”

  Ozzie looked at the book when he got home. It was full of Xs and Os and arrows, and made about as much sense as Rambling Frank from the Yuranigh footy team after a beer or twenty at Wazza’s pub. Ozzie put the book down and took out the pack of twenty-five postcards that Jess had given him, one for each week. A postcard was small enough to be doable, she said, and the aerial picture of Yuranigh on the front would remind him of home. In the top left corner was the primary school where they’d met, the bottom right his grandfather’s farm, where they’d said good-bye.

  He thought back to that night, in each other’s arms. They were silent, mostly, which was how Ozzie liked it. Things only became confusing when words got in the way, words he wasn’t good at using. She had turned and looked at him, before it had come time to smooth out her dress and her hair, before it had come time to leave.

  “Girls will want you,” she said.

  He shook his head and was about to speak when her hand covered his lips. “It’s okay, I watch TV. I know American girls are bold and beautiful. Of course I want you to be faithful but that’s gonna be up to you. But don’t forget, I’ll be waiting when you get back. Remember, here.” She put her hand on his heart.

  “And here.”

  She put her hand on his other heart.

  After his mom died Ozzie forgot what touch was like. Sure, Pop gave him a clip around the ear every now and then, and he did a lot of tackling and roughhousing with his mates, but you couldn’t compare it, it wasn’t in the same world. A world with a woman’s touch was something he craved but had forgotten, so he didn’t even know he craved it. Not until he met Jess.

  Ozzie sat with pen in hand, but everything he thought about writing sounded dumb in his head. Luckily, you couldn’t fit much in a postcard, anyway.

  Dear Jess,

  So I’m in Texas. It’s a lot like Yuranigh, just more people who speak funny. Guess what? I made the footy team. They had a special do for us tonight, it was a cack. I wish you could’ve seen it.

  Miss ya.

  Love Ozzie

  PS Give Penissi a kiss for me, it might help you pass maths. PSS Tell Johnno to get off his arse and lift some weights.

  Ozzie’s handwriting was small and messy. He’d always been in trouble because of it, but when he started scoring tries for the school footy team, the teachers mostly left him alone.

  Dear Pop,

  How ya going? Any rain on the horizon? If it makes you feel any better it’s hot and dry here as well. I saw some cows and they looked fatter than ours, though I didn’t see any grass. They must be hand feeding them. I’ll try and find out what they use.

  Any news?

  Ozzie

  Ozzie fell asleep with the postcards next to him, in bed, but he didn’t dream of Jess or Pop. He dreamed of band music and people cheering. He dreamed of Texas.

  The next morning Ozzie asked David Jr. a question. “You know that computer game you’ve been playing, the football one?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, while munching on a Pop Tart.

  “You reckon it could teach me how to play?”

  David Jr. laughed, accidentally spitting out a piece of fake strawberry.

  “Gross!” said Alison.

  “You’re on the football team and you don’t even know the rules?” asked David Jr.

  Ozzie shrugged.

  He pressed buttons on the way to school, in the backseat of the Buick. “What’s third and four mean?” Ozzie asked, reading the screen.

  “That means it’s third down with four yards to get,”

  said David Jr.

  “You have four downs to make ten yards. If you don’t, the opposition gets the ball.”

  “What’s a down?”

  “A play.”

  “Thanks.”

  By the time they’d got to school Ozzie knew the basics of American football, thanks to a computer game. It made him feel a lot better.

  He met up with Jose who took him to his first class. In the corridor Ozzie received more praise than when he’d won the South-West Queensland Rugby League rookie of the year award.

  “I heard you knocked down Tex. Way to go,” said one boy.

  “You the man!” cried another.

  All he’d done was make a high school team. In Yuranigh, club footy was decent, but all you needed to do to make the school team was show up.

  While they waited for the history teacher, a girl wearing a tight red T-shirt and a matching bow in her hair approached Ozzie. “Hi, I’m Angela, and I’ve been assigned your Hopette. It’s sooo good to meet you!”

  She gave him a hug. Ozzie hugged her back. It seemed the polite thing to do. “I’m sure we’ll get to know each other real well,” she said. “But for now, I just want to know one thing: what’s your favorite type of cookie?”

  Ozzie didn’t have to think.

  “Anzacs. Bloody love ’em.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Ozzie thought for a second. He gave himself a mental uppercut. “Yeah, I s’pose you don’t have those. How about … chocolate?”

  Angela’s huge smile returned. “I make the best chocolate brownies!”

  Brownies? Aren’t they young Girl Guides? “Sounds good,” he said.

  She hugged him again and walked off, her ponytail bouncing off her back. No one should be that excited about making me cookies, thought Ozzie. Then he noticed her legs, long and shapely. His own girl-slave? It would take a bit of getting used to.

  During class, Miss Webb talked about the fight between the Mexicans and the Texans, when the border was in dispute in the 1830s. “The Alamo was where a few Texans sacrificed the
ir lives rather than surrender to the large army led by the Mexican president, Santa Ana. The Texans ended up killing nine hundred before they died, and it was this act of bravery that was said to have inspired others to defeat the southerners.”

  “Hey, Jose. Remember the Alamo?” said Sam Wilson, making the class laugh.

  Miss Webb turned to Ozzie. “Has there been anything like that happen in your country?”

  He thought for a bit. “There was this bloke, Captain Artie Beetson, who led Queensland to victory in the first State of Origin.”

  “Did many people die?”

  “Nah, but there were quite a few casualties.”

  Ozzie was still chuckling when the bell rang, and students rushed past as Miss Webb tried to yell out homework. The teachers would skin students alive if they tried that at home, Ozzie thought. Out in the hall another girl came up and introduced herself. She looked familiar.

  “I just wanted to say hello and welcome to Hope.”

  “Thanks,” said Ozzie.

  A voice yelled from down the hall.

  “Hurry up, Unity!” She ignored it.

  “Let me know how Angela works out. Coach asked me to choose a girl for you and Angela’s lots of fun. But if she doesn’t look after you real fine, come see me.”

  Ozzie found it difficult to look at Unity without staring. There were pretty girls in Yuranigh, but she was in another league. The American league.

  She touched his arm. “Bye, Austin.”

  Sam was still waiting, his fingers drumming a locker. When Unity reached him he pulled her so close that their hips were joined as they walked away. Unity swiveled her neck and threw Ozzie a smile.

  He couldn’t help but smile back.

  chapter 14

  Even though a scrimmage is just a practice game, a chance for the coaches to see who can handle the yelling and the pressure, and who can’t, three thousand people still dropped by to watch the Hope Shooters play the Placeville Warriors on the last Friday night in August. As the red West Texas sky turned black, the lights of Shooter Stadium could be seen fifty miles away, from the desert, and the people of Hope were drawn to them like moths.

  Both coaches tried to talk the game down, said it didn’t really matter too much, win or lose. “We’ll be trying to iron out a few of the kinks, that’s all,” said the Placeville coach. “Just want to get the boys used to hitting and being hit,” said Coach McCulloch. But the fans knew it was just coaches’ talk, trying to protect themselves in case their team lost.

  Long-time Shooters’ fans such as Dave Graham, Pastor Slipper, and Mayor Green were looking for the big four. If the quarterback connected his passes to sprinting receivers, if the running backs gained valuable and tough yards on the ground, if the defense rushed the opposition quarterback and hit hard on their tackles, it was bound to be a year when the people of Hope could walk down the main street with shoulders back and say, “So, how about those Shooters?”

  In the days of Coach Hayes they could walk with shoulders back down the main street of Denham—with its fancy shops and glass office buildings—and not have to say a word. The Shooters’ shirts they wore said it for them.

  If the team was successful in three out of the four, there was potential. If three legs of a chair are strong and one is wonky, a coach worth his salary, like a good carpenter, should be able to fix it, or hide it. Even the Hope State Championship team of ’82 had a quarterback who couldn’t throw for crap, but he sure could run.

  If the team showed weaknesses in two or more legs, it would mean a chair that, if pushed hard enough, would fall to the ground. It would mean a year when the locals would walk down the main street with shoulders slumped and say, “So, how about those Shooters?” in a tone of voice that made it clear that what they really meant was, “Why the hell aren’t they winning?”

  And tonight, all of that would become clear after forty-eight minutes of football time, which equaled three and a half hours of real time. After the band marched and the cheerleaders, led by Unity, excited the crowd with airborne splits, the players ran onto the field with arms outstretched, pumping up the crowd even more. The referee blew the whistle and the Placeville team kicked off. The season had started.

  Ozzie was one of those eleven Hope players on the field, one of the boy gods. Unlike the other ten, though, he didn’t know what was going on.

  He didn’t have to do much, which was just as well, because the bulky pads made him feel like a blimp, and the helmet, apart from weighing him down, acted like blinkers. Unless he turned his neck he could only see one way. Straight ahead.

  Malivai was the kickoff returner, and when he caught the ball eleven opponents bore down on him like terriers in the bodies of Great Danes. Hope had a few big players but they were leprechauns compared with these blokes. Ozzie’s job was to stop one of them by running at him and pushing him out of the way, which was called blocking. Blocking wasn’t allowed in League. If you tried it, you’d get ten minutes in the sin-bin. Ozzie did his job, knocked a bloke to the ground, and got called a “pussy.” He smiled, heard the crowd erupt, and looked up to see Malivai bobbing and weaving, floating across the turf like a black Jesus. Malivai made it over halfway before he was shouldered out of bounds.

  The cheerleaders cheered even more and the Hope crowd gave him a standing ovation.

  “That boy sure can run,” Mayor Green said to Pastor Slipper.

  “He can sing, too,” replied the Pastor, and the two smiled.

  Walking off the field Malivai slapped Ozzie on the back. “Good block, man.”

  “Thanks, Mal.”

  It was a long time before Ozzie made it back on. Except for kickoffs and penalty field goals he only played defense, and tonight Coach Wright said he wasn’t even going to play much of that because he was still learning the finer points of the game. He told him to watch and learn.

  Sam Wilson and the offense jumped and pranced onto the field, and on their first drive Sam connected a perfect spiral pass to Malivai, who caught it and ran close to the end zone. The aim of the game, Ozzie knew, was to cross the goal line, same as Rugby League. In League it was called a try, in American football it was called a touchdown, even though you didn’t have to touch the ball down on the ground like you did in League.

  On the second play a huge Warrior broke through the middle and tackled Sam before he got a chance to throw. Sam was hit so hard that his chin slammed into his chest, which made him bite his tongue, which made him drop the ball. The brown leather egg bounced free across the turf until what seemed like a hundred bodies dived on top of it. This made Ozzie smile. Only one player ever bothered to dive on a ball in League—the first bloke who got there. This looked like a game he and his mates used to play in primary school called pile-up. When the last of the bodies was removed, a collective groan came from the Hope fans. The Warriors had recovered the ball. The Hope fans groaned again a few minutes later when the Warriors’ running back busted through for a touchdown. Warriors 7, Shooters 0.

  Before the first quarter ended the Warriors kicked a field goal to take the score to 10–0, and they scored again before halftime. Hope had problems, big ones. You didn’t have to be an expert coach or a long-time booster to see that.

  But Coach McCulloch believed in positive thinking. Every night before he went to bed he read a page of the Holy Bible, followed by a page of his own personal bible, A Winning Focus, which said that before you address the negatives you must focus on the positives, so this is what Coach did in his halftime speech.

  “Sam, you’re throwing the ball real well. You’ve completed six passes, five to Malivai and one to Jose, and they’ve all been fine throws.”

  “I could do a lot more if our line would stop ’em,” Sam snapped. “They’re worse at protection than a leaky rubber.”

  Coach held up his hand. Obviously, the kid had never read A Winning Focus.

  “And Tex, you’ve made eight tackles,” he continued. “That’s a great effort.”

  Tex�
�s head rested between his knees, dripping sweat into a towel. He looked up and nodded.

  “And Malivai, what can I say? Great runnin’, great catchin’. “

  Then Coach’s voice got louder. “The rest of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are playing like a bunch of SKIRTS!”

  The positives were over and it was time to address the negatives. Coach did a lot of yelling over the next ten minutes, about pride, passion, and executing their game plan.

  Ozzie knew about pride and passion though he couldn’t have executed the game plan if he tried. He didn’t know what it was.

  “When playing man on split receivers, align yourself with an inside out position and use the red zone in coverage,” Coach said. “If we run cover two, then get on the outside shoulder. Bump ’em to the inside, which’ll force that receiver to run into deep coverage. IT’S AS SIMPLE AS THAT.”

  In Yuranigh, when Ozzie’s team had the ball Mick yelled “up the guts,” and if that didn’t work he yelled “spread it wide.” And the funny thing over here was, even with the hundreds of complex plays, all the quarterback ever seemed to do was hand the ball off to a running back, who’d run, or pass it forward to a receiver, who’d catch it and run. There were no backline moves, wrap-arounds or switches of play. Nothing like League. Though the Hope players were fast and well drilled, there was more they could do, thought Ozzie. Much more.

  The Shooters kicked off in the second half and Ozzie managed to actually make a tackle. He drove in low and hard and knocked the Warriors’ big running back to the ground and got called a “pussy.” Coach Wright gave Ozzie a pat on the backside as he came off. Ozzie raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t used to coaches patting his arse.

  Unfortunately Ozzie’s tackle didn’t matter, because the Warriors scored again to make it 24–0. The Shooter who missed his man was almost tackled himself as he slunk off the field. “How could you be so stupid!” screamed Coach Wright, scrunching up the player’s jersey as he made a fist.

  The Warriors’ offense pointed to their green jerseys as they pranced off, rubbing in the score line to the Hope crowd. The Hope supporters responded by leaving, their only consolation being that this was just a scrimmage, and perhaps the team would turn it all around by next Friday. And perhaps the price of oil would shoot back up to how it was before those crazy Arabs joined together to try and squeeze the good ol’ Texas oilmen out of business. And perhaps it would rain, and perhaps pigs would fly.