Out of His League Read online

  The supporters who did leave, however, missed the best Hope play of the night.

  In American football the scoring team kicks off, so the cocky Warriors lined up ready to charge after their touchdown. Malivai was ready to try and dodge as many tacklers as possible, but the kicker shanked it, the ball tumbling end over end. Ozzie was standing in front of Malivai, ready to block another Warrior and be called a pussy, when the ball bounced on the 40-yard line, kicked up high, and landed right in Ozzie’s hands.

  “Run!” yelled Coach McCulloch.

  Ozzie started off lazily across field, searching for a hole in the opposing line. Suddenly, big Tex knocked down two Warriors with a single block and there was a hole big enough to drive a truck through. Ozzie accelerated. He didn’t look fast but once he was in the open even the men who he played against rarely caught him. As he came to the Warriors’ safety, their last line of defense, Ozzie could feel a presence on his right, a friendly presence. With the end zone in sight he thought he could probably slide by the safety with a shoulder fake followed by a big step off his right foot, but then thought, why?

  “Mal!” Ozzie yelled, right before getting tackled.

  Malivai got a shock. He was sprinting beside Ozzie just in case there was another Warriors’ player he could block. Actually, he’d been trying to block the safety before Ozzie reached him but the Australian had been too quick. Malivai had no idea why Ozzie called out until suddenly the ball came toward him.

  In the stand, Pastor Slipper threw out his arms in disbelief.

  Unity squeezed pom-poms to her chest.

  Coach McCulloch dropped his jaw.

  And Malivai almost panicked. But when the ball hit him in the heart, his hands wrapped around it like it was made of glass. And to the delight of the Hope supporters still at the game, he carried it all the way into the end zone.

  chapter 15

  The Shooters lost, 38–14. They let in five touchdowns and scored only two: one a feathery pass by Sam to Malivai in the dying minutes of the game, and the other a freak kickoff return that was shown on Channel 5 local news.

  “Quick!” Dave called out, pressing the record button. “Ozzie’s on TV!”

  “It could have all gone so horribly wrong,” said the sports reporter as Ozzie’s pass teetered through the air in slow motion, “but some quick thinking by star receiver Malivai Thomas saw this act of craziness result in an unlikely touchdown. Frank, let’s hope Coach McCulloch teaches the Oss ie a lesson in ball control.”

  “Indeed,” said Frank, a news anchor with more gel than hair. “And tell us, Bill, what do you make of the Shooters’ chances against Booth this Friday?”

  “To put it bluntly, Frank, not much. The Bears are bigger and stronger than the Shooters, and Hope’ll be facing a hostile crowd down there. If the scrimmage is any indication, Hope’s in for a rough season.”

  “Their fans won’t like to hear that. Now, on to the weather, it’s going to be hot, hotter, and hotter still …”

  Dave turned the television off. Everyone was silent for a few seconds.

  “What do they know?” said Dave finally.

  “Yeah. Just ’cause they’re on TV doesn’t mean they’re smart,” said David Jr.

  “That’s why they’re stuck doing local news,” said Nancy.

  “And they’re ugly, too,” said Alison.

  Ozzie was still looking at the blank screen. It was the first time he’d ever been on TV. “Can we watch it again?”

  At Monday’s practice Coach McCulloch signaled to Ozzie, who was running up and down stairs with the rest of the defensive team.

  “I want to talk about that lateral you threw,” said the coach.

  “What’s a lateral?” asked Ozzie, puffing.

  “A backward pass.”

  “Oh.”

  Ozzie prepared to get yelled at. Instead, Coach rubbed his chin. “I’m curious. Why’d you do it?”

  “Umm, I don’t know. At home, we do that all the time.”

  “I see.” Coach McCulloch ran his hand through what was left of his hair. There were black marks under his eyes, and the jumbled thoughts that had kept him up all night still bounced around in his head. The Shooters had lost to Placeville, a team that hardly rolled off the tongue during conversations about great football programs, and the weaknesses had been there like he hoped and prayed they wouldn’t. A few weeks ago he could have almost convinced himself that the team’s lack of size could be overcome by desire, by speeches about pride, by heart. But size beats pride every time, and if you’d given Coach truth serum before the season he would have told you that this was always going to be a tough year. Just like last season.

  “Control the line of scrimmage, men,” he’d yelled to his players in the moments before battle. “If we do that we control the game.” The team had speed in Malivai and Jose, a quarterback who could throw, and Tex, a big man who could move like a small man, but it wasn’t enough. They didn’t have enough quick big men to control the line, and if you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t win. That reporter was right about one thing, the other teams were bigger and stronger than the Shooters, and Coach knew that he could lose trying the same old moves as last Friday, or try something new. It didn’t really matter, anyway. Both the pastor and the mayor had called him up after the loss, and they sure as hell weren’t offering a raise. Coach knew he was practically a dead coach coaching.

  “This might seem like a strange question,” he said to Ozzie, “but do you know any rugby plays that might help our offense?”

  “It’s Rugby League.”

  “What?”

  “I play Rugby League. Rugby’s more for the private school kids.”

  “Okay then, do you know any Rugby League plays that can help our offense?”

  Ozzie gave him a big smile. “Heaps.”

  From then on, in the mornings, when the players did endless runs up and down steps and around the field, Ozzie, Malivai, and Jose were excused. The other players grumbled, none more so than Sam, but what a Texas football coach says, goes.

  Ozzie started by explaining to Jose and Malivai the theory behind Rugby League. He’d been in America long enough to know it wouldn’t be easy. “Us three, we’re all the same. I can pass to you, you can pass to me. I can run, you can run.”

  Jose and Malivai glanced at each other.

  Ozzie continued, searching for the right words. “I don’t care who does better, I actually don’t give a stuff. If I can draw a player and pass to Jose, then he’ll go further than me. That’s good. Then he’ll draw a player and pass to Mal, and he’ll go further again. That’s good, too. You see what I’m saying?”

  “You’re saying that it’s good,” said Jose.

  There was a pause. “Umm. Any questions?” said Ozzie.

  “So we’re like a triple threat?” said Malivai.

  “What?”

  “You know, like in basketball.”

  “I played basketball for the school once. But I didn’t know the bloody rules so the ref kept fouling me.”

  Jose and Malivai looked at each other.

  “We’re not like a triple threat,” said Ozzie. “That’s what we are.”

  They started trying to put theory into practice. “Pretend it’s a giant egg. Look at your target, aim at their chest, and catch with soft hands.” Ozzie threw one to Jose, knocking him back a step.

  At first, the giant egg would have been scrambled many times over, but soon the boys caught on, and before long it was whizzing from one player to another. They ran up and down the middle of the field, sometimes in a straight line, sometimes zigzagging behind each other.

  Coach sent over some young defenders and Jose and Malivai began to sense when the tackler was committed, just by the look in his eyes, and then whip off an inside or outside lateral. Sometimes, Ozzie would play defense and run hard at the intended receiver, trying to break his concentration. It rarely worked. Jose and Malivai had had tacklers running at them all their footballing lives and
were trained to forget that defenders were hoping to smash them in two. They kept their eyes on the ball.

  After a few days the boys really started to connect, on and off the field. They ran through plays on napkins in the cafeteria, before cracking up at how Ozzie called ketchup “tomato sauce.”

  The other players wondered what was going on, particularly Sam. It wasn’t easy seeing his two best receivers do something other than catch his bulletlike throws.

  He sought out Coach McCulloch. “I’d like to know what’s happening to our offense.”

  “Nothing big,” said Coach, not meeting his eyes. “I just want a few tricks up our sleeve for later in the season. Don’t worry, you’re still our number one man.”

  “I’m worried,” Sam said to Unity, as they lay on top of the water tower that helped keep the animals, crops, and people of Hope alive. “Coach is up to something and it’s pissing me off.”

  Unity was gazing at the horizon. “Look over there. It’s beautiful.”

  Sam didn’t. “And that Australian guy, what the hell’s going on there? He’s in the country two minutes and Coach thinks the sun shines out of his ass.”

  Unity was still watching the edges of the sky.

  “Are you gonna talk to me or what?”

  “This isn’t about Austin,” Unity said. “It’s about you having to be the best. Your daddy wouldn’t let you be anything else.”

  “As a shrink you make a good cheerleader.”

  Unity tried to stand but Sam grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t walk away,” he said.

  “Let go of me.”

  His face softened. “Please?”

  “Only if you let go.”

  He did.

  Unity slowly sank back down. “Sam, you know I care about you, but …”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know if I need someone who lives their life like there’s something to prove.”

  He sighed. “What I know is you love dating the quarterback of the football team, even if you pretend it doesn’t matter.”

  “And you’d still date me if I wasn’t head cheerleader?”

  Sam shrugged. “But you are. There’s ordinary people … and there’s people like us. We’re meant for each other.”

  She gave her head a tiny shake.

  After a pause, Sam picked up a pebble. “You know my dad took me to see Coach Hayes when I was ten years old?”

  She looked at him but didn’t answer.

  “He’d stopped coaching by then but he was still Dad’s hero. Mine, too. I let go a few spirals, as hard as I could throw, and Coach bent down to my face. ‘You want to be a Shooter one day?’ he said. ‘Yes, sir.’ He pinched my stomach. ‘You’re gonna have to lose some of this puppy fat, but if you work hard enough, I believe you can do it. That’s one heck of an arm God gave you.’ My daddy was so proud when Coach said that.”

  Sam threw the pebble off the tower. It flew a long way. “Not long after, Dad moved up east. He phones every Saturday morning during the season, and the only thing we talk about is football.”

  “At least you can talk about something.”

  Sam shook his head. “If I get through this season with decent stats and no injuries, I can get a scholarship to Justice University, and we can go there together. Imagine that, you and me, at college! But if Coach starts pulling me from the field …”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “No. It won’t. What else am I gonna do? Work the oil fields?”

  Unity began stroking Sam’s scalp through his thick hair. “Let me take your mind off football.”

  Sam let his head fall back and finally watched the reds and pinks of the sun as it died another day.

  chapter 16

  After being waved off by the Hopettes, the players boasted about the mayhem they’d create, at both the game and the after-party. But as they reached the edge of Hope—past the Wal-Mart that sells everything from Bibles to bullets, the Dairy Queen that sells instant burgers and shakes, and Pastor Slipper’s church that sells eternal life—it started to sink in that they’d return either heroes or villains, and most gazed out the bus window in silence.

  In the stale visitors’ change room the players’ helmets sat in front of their lockers like alien heads, cleaned by the student trainers so they sparkled black and white. Underneath the bench, white shoes showed no sign of last week’s dirt. They were pure and ready to run, almost as if they could do so on their own. Uniforms were folded identically and cups turned upside down, reminding players to think before they drink.

  IF YOU WANT SOMETHING BAD ENOUGH, YOU WILL BE DENIED BY NOTHING OR NOBODY

  That quote, from A Winning Focus, was taped to the locker-room wall. It made Ozzie smile, recalling how the only thing ever taped to the wall before a Yuranigh game was the weekend racing guide.

  Otherwise, Ozzie discovered that football players act in similar ways, no matter where they’re from.

  In Australia, Rambling Frank liked to pace around the change room and roar, “Let’s smash ’em!” Here, Tex slapped guys on the chest and growled, “We’re gonna kick some Bear ass!” If the recipient didn’t say “Yeah!” he’d hit him harder and say, “Aren’t we?”

  Mick was always so nervous before his pregame speech that he’d usually throw up his ham sandwich. After that, however, he was as calm as a Samurai warrior. The day of the Grand Final he spoke slowly and quietly, like a funeral director. “It’s all about the basics, fellas. We run hard, we tackle hard, we hold onto the bloody ball. And don’t forget your one-percenters.” He looked at Johnno when he said that. “I’m talking about ya kick chases, about not givin’ away no silly penalties, about backin’ up the ball carrier. And if someone’s givin’ you young blokes a hard time, let me or Frank know. We’ll sort ’em out.”

  “Bloody oath!” Frank said.

  And that was it.

  Before Coach McCulloch clapped his hands and fiftyone boys crouched on one knee to listen, Malivai did the same as Mick. He threw up his hamburger.

  “There are a lot of boys who’d love to trade places with you right now,” said Coach. “Boys who’d give their left arm to be sitting where you’re sitting. But they’re not. For one reason or another, you are the men who are going out on that field tonight. You are the men representing our school, representing our town.”

  Coach McCulloch was a lot more eloquent than Mick. His head made slow half-circles as he spoke, trying to gain eye contact with each and every player.

  “Why? Well, for one, you all have God-given talent. But what you do with that talent is up to you. You can question it, you can doubt it, you can roll over and quit and piss it all away if you want. Or else”—Coach put his index finger in the air—“you can trust it. You can use that talent to the best of your ability. You can stand up and be counted and walk onto that football field knowing that, no matter what it takes, you’re going to get the job done. And you can play like champions here tonight.”

  “YEAH!” Everyone exploded into action. Some boys jumped in the air and chested each other; others slapped their own faces, hard. Then they put their hands into the middle and yelled the team’s war cry: “SHOOTERS! SHOOTERS! SHOOT ’EM UP, SHOOTERS!”

  Ozzie was about to run onto the field when someone grabbed his hand. The team stood in a circle.

  “Heavenly Father,” Coach McCulloch began.

  Praying before a game was something else Ozzie had never done in Yuranigh, though a few of the blokes didn’t mind taking the Lord’s name in vain. Ozzie followed the others’ lead and bowed his head, watching adrenaline-pumped legs twitch and shuffle.

  “Give us strength tonight to do our absolute best. Let us believe in the talent you have given us and let us play as well as we can possibly play. We make this prayer through Jesus’ name.”

  “AMEN!”

  “One more thing,” said Coach McCulloch. “Let’s go bust some heads!”

  As the players entered the field, Hope supporters stood and salute
d their gladiators by waving black and white scarves. The teams lined up and sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” and Ozzie was surprised that not only did everyone know the words but they all sang. Loud. Ozzie didn’t know all the words to his own national anthem, let alone this one.

  The electronic scoreboard showed the American flag, but as soon as the referee raised the silver whistle to his lips the flag was replaced by the score.

  The game began.

  In the fourth quarter, with the scoreboard reading Bears 31, Shooters 10, the game was as good as over. There were positives, of course. Sam had thrown a fifty-yard touchdown pass to Malivai, Tex had sacked the quarterback, and, in a real surprise, Ozzie had made three tackles. After the first half Coach Wright had plunked Ozzie into nearly every defensive play.

  Unfortunately the negatives outweighed the positives. The offensive and defensive line had been pushed off the ball, just like they had been last week, and just like they would be next week. The coaches yelled “Control the line of scrimmage!” like a mantra, but they were only words, and words couldn’t hold back the Bears, who were bigger, stronger, and quicker.

  When the defensive line collapsed and Sam got sacked, again, Coach called him to the sideline. “I’m going to give you a break,” Coach said.

  “Why?” Sam said. “We’re getting killed out there.”

  “Exactly.” Coach put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I want to save you for next Friday. You’re our MVP.”

  This made Sam feel better, until he saw that his replacement was not the skinny sixteen-year-old backup quarterback who hoped like hell he wouldn’t be sent onto the field, ever, but someone who had never thrown a tight spiral in his life. Or a loose spiral, for that matter.

  It was Ozzie.