Football Fraud, page 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Chapter 1: Mr. Clutch
Chapter 2: Cheap Shot
Chapter 3: Limping and Lying
Chapter 4: Mr. Crutch
Chapter 5: Friendly Advice
Chapter 6: Warning Bell
Chapter 7: Backup
Chapter 8: Lying and Flying
Chapter 9: Soft Knocks
Chapter 10: Sore Losers
Chapter 11: End Zone
About the Author
Glossary
Discussion Questions
Writing Prompts
More About Football Bloopers
Explore More
Copyright
Back Cover
Cover
Title Page
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Acknowledgments
Glossary
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CHAPTER 1
MR. CLUTCH
DeSean Mitchell stood at his own ten-yard line, waiting for the kickoff. He glanced at the scoreboard.
Home team: 17. Away team: 21.
Seventeen seconds left on the clock.
Moments ago, Park City Middle, the away team, had scored a go-ahead touchdown. Now they were about to kick the ball back to the William H. Johnson Junior High Tigers. The home team. DeSean’s team.
Hopefully, they were about to kick the ball to DeSean himself. Not that kicking it to him would be the smart thing to do.
What Park City should do, DeSean knew, was squib the kick. Keep it low. Get it rolling on the ground. Get someone, anyone, else to pick the ball up and run with it.
Squibbing the kick would take time off the clock. Just as importantly, it would make someone other than DeSean try to beat them.
If he were the coach of the other team, he’d want to keep the ball as far away from him as possible. After all, DeSean was the fastest player at William H. The best player. The best player in the clutch.
Everywhere DeSean looked, he saw teammates who had given up. DeSean didn’t blame them. That last touchdown had felt like a punch to the gut.
Park City Middle was their archrival, and for most of the game it had looked like William H. was going to beat them. If they did, they would also win the league.
But then, on fourth and forever, Park City’s quarterback had heaved up a prayer—and the prayer had been answered.
His pass was tipped by three or four players and ended up in the tight end’s hands as he raced to the end zone.
And now Park City’s kicker raised his arm, letting the refs know he was ready. If he did the right thing, in a few seconds some random Tigers player would pick up the bouncing ball. He would stumble a few yards and then get tackled. And the Tigers would still be sixty yards from the end zone with only a few seconds left on the clock.
The refs blew their whistles. The kicker trotted up to the ball on the tee. And then, he did the exact wrong thing.
He reached his leg back and sent it forward, kicking the ball as far as he could. The ball flew past most of William H.’s team, but it didn’t fly past DeSean.
As he stood there, waiting for the ball to fall from the sky and into his arms, DeSean thought, Make them pay for this mistake.
He trapped the ball against his chest, moved it to the crook of his right elbow, and took off.
Maybe his teammates hadn’t given up after all. They were just eighth graders like him, but they’d turned themselves into a wall of blockers. DeSean hurried along the wall until he got almost to the sideline. Then he turned upfield.
There was no one in front of him. No teammates, but no Park City players either.
DeSean turned on the jets. In the spring he was a track star. A sprinter.
And that’s what he did now. Sprint.
Down the sideline, past the fifty-yard line, the forty, the thirty.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement.
The kicker.
The last line of Park City’s defense.
Make them pay for this mistake, DeSean thought again.
For a split second, he slowed up just a little. It was just enough for the kicker to assume he was going to step out-of-bounds and stop the clock.
The kicker slowed a little too. He had held his hands out so he could push DeSean out-of-bounds, but now he dropped them just slightly.
DeSean planted his left foot and cut across the field. The kicker could only flail at him as he ran by.
He was at the fifteen-yard line now.
The ten.
There was no stopping him. The end zone was right in front of him, and he was about to deliver a game-winning touchdown. It was such an impressive run, the whole school would be talking about it for weeks, maybe even months.
The only thing left to do was celebrate.
At the five-yard line he began high-stepping. Legs straight out, kicking the air.
He thought about how cool he must look as he casually set the ball down while crossing the goal line, still high-stepping.
When he got to the back of the end zone, he tilted his helmet, put his hand next to the ear hole. He was signalling to the crowd and waiting for the cheers to pour through it into his ear.
But there was no cheering. Just shouting.
“The ball! The ball! Get the ball!”
Huh?
DeSean turned around and saw the ball. It was tottering on the grass, where he had left it.
Just outside the goal line.
Had he … ? No. He couldn’t have. But … maybe.
He couldn’t believe it.
Yes. He had.
The players running toward him, from both teams, confirmed it. He had let go of the ball too early, before he crossed the goal line.
How stupid could I be? DeSean thought.
He sprinted back and dove at the ball. He recovered it just outside the end zone.
Now others were screaming something else: “Time-out!”
DeSean and his teammates were in a huddle. DeSean kept his eyes aimed at the ground, but he could feel his teammates’ glares. He didn’t blame them for their anger.
With one second left on the clock, there was just enough time to run one more play.
A play that they shouldn’t have needed to run.
“Couldn’t you have waited to celebrate until after you scored, DeSean?” one of his teammates asked. “Where was your head, man?”
DeSean didn’t have a chance to answer before Coach Drummer arrived.
“Can it,” Coach told the other player. “We don’t have time for that kind of comment right now. We need to play now, and we need to play hard. But Mitchell?”
“Yeah, Coach?” DeSean said.
“He’s right. Get to the end zone first. Then celebrate,” Coach said. “Got it?”
“Yes, Coach,” DeSean said softly as he looked down at his feet.
They broke the huddle. Coach jogged back to the sideline.
Mostly, DeSean felt relieved. And determined. He was going to get another chance—a chance to redeem himself. And he was going to do just that.
As DeSean waited for Nick, the Tigers quarterback, to take the snap and hand him the ball, he noticed for the first time that it was cold outside. A chilly breeze swept across the field. There were goose bumps on his arms.
He wondered how long they’d been there. He had been so locked in that he hadn’t noticed the weather. He’d always been able to focus during games. In big moments, he could ignore the weather, the fans. He could focus on what he needed to do.
But now he was noticing other things. The wind wasn’t the only thing that was cold. The drop of sweat trickling down his bicep felt icy. His hands felt slippery.
He made them into fists, blew warm breath into them
“Hut!” Nick called, taking the snap.
Nick pivoted to his left and faked the handoff to the fullback. The fake worked. Park City was in their goal-line defense. They had loaded the box to stop a quarterback sneak or a run up the gut.
Nick pitched the ball to DeSean. With the defense collapsed in the middle, all DeSean had to do was run toward the sideline and then cut to the pylon. It should be easy.
When he made it to the edge of his blockers, he saw that once again he had a clear path to the end zone. Without even thinking about it, his legs straightened. He was going to high-step his way across the goal line.
But then he did think about it. He thought about what had happened last time. He thought about his mistake. He thought about what his teammate and Coach had said.
Don’t screw this up again, he told himself. Don’t screw it up.
As he thought this, he saw a Park City linebacker streaking toward him.
The linebacker shouldn’t have mattered. He was still a full five yards away, and DeSean was too fast to let him catch him.
But DeSean couldn’t run into the end zone because he was currently bobbling the football. Worrying about screwing up—and then seeing that linebacker—broke his focus. DeSean bent his leg again and somehow knocked the ball out of his own hand with his knee.
The bobble didn’t last long. But it lasted long enough for the linebacker to close the distance. His helmet and shoulder smacked into DeSean’s legs.
DeSean fell to the ground.
He never wanted to get up again.
CHAPTER 2
CHEAP SHOT
The refs blew their whistles and waved their hands. The game was over.
The guy who had tackled DeSean got up. But DeSean didn’t. He couldn’t.
He couldn’t face his teammates.
And that’s when he saw one of his teammates leaning over him and peering down.
“You okay?” Nick asked.
“No.” DeSean gave an honest answer. He wasn’t okay. He’d let his team down—twice. And he didn’t think he could ever forgive himself.
“Hey!” Nick shouted, looking up and toward the sideline. “DeSean is hurt! I need some help over here!”
“No …” DeSean started to tell his teammate that he wasn’t hurt.
But he didn’t get to finish the sentence because someone else yelled, “Did you hear that? You injured him!”
As Nick and another teammate pulled him up, DeSean saw two other teammates stomping toward a Park City player. They grabbed his shoulder, spun him around.
It’s the linebacker, DeSean realized. The one who tackled me.
“That was a totally cheap shot!” his teammate said.
“You speared him!” said the other.
“You led with your helmet!”
“You were trying to injure him!”
They were chest-to-chest with the linebacker. As they screamed at him, their fingers pointed through his face mask.
The refs blew their whistles again. They rushed in and pulled DeSean’s teammates away from the linebacker.
DeSean took a step toward these teammates. He needed to tell them it was okay; he was fine. But before he could take another step, Nick said, “Take it easy, man. You don’t want to put any weight on your leg.”
Nick draped DeSean’s arm over his shoulder. Another teammate did the same thing with DeSean’s other arm.
DeSean tried one more time to explain that he wasn’t injured. But just as he did, everyone started cheering. Fans and players stood and clapped.
DeSean had cost his team the game twice, but everyone was cheering for him.
DeSean closed his mouth. The whistles, the yelling, the cheering—they were too loud for anyone to hear him. Besides, did he want to walk off the field getting booed? Or did he want to limp off the field getting cheered?
The choice was an easy one.
DeSean felt fine, but no one else had to know that. He hopped on one leg as his teammates carried him off the field.
CHAPTER 3
LIMPING AND LYING
“Everything looks good,” the doctor said. She pointed at several X-rays of DeSean’s knee. “When you described what happened, I was worried you did some serious damage.”
“I’m so relieved,” DeSean’s mom said.
DeSean felt relieved too. But not for the same reason. He was relieved because the doctor hadn’t called him a liar in front of his parents.
Lying was exactly what he had been doing ever since he fake limped off the field.
A few hours ago, when the doctor asked him what had happened, he told her the linebacker smashed directly into his knee. He told her he heard a giant CRACK! When she asked him to rate his pain between one and ten, he told her, “Nine.”
All of these were lies. The linebacker’s helmet might have brushed his knee, but it definitely hadn’t smashed or cracked it. And he wasn’t feeling any pain at all.
DeSean had always been an honest kid. But that first lie—that first limp—had made it easier to tell more lies.
“DeSean,” his dad said, “are you paying attention to what the doctor is saying?”
“Sorry,” he said. He told himself to stop thinking about his lies and focus.
“It’s okay,” the doctor said. “I’ll say it again. Giving good news is the best part of my job.”
She went on to say that she had been worried that he tore the ACL or MCL in his knee. She pointed at the X-rays to show him where his ACL and MCL were located.
“We know a little about the ACL,” DeSean’s dad said.
“Our daughter tore hers a couple of years ago playing soccer,” his mom added.
The doctor nodded. “Well, DeSean’s looks great.
So does the MCL. In fact, I don’t even see much, if any, swelling.”
His parents sighed with relief again.
The doctor turned to DeSean. She tilted her head a little. There was an awkward silence. DeSean was sitting on a hospital bed. His leg, the one he claimed he had injured, rested on top of the blanket. When he arrived at the hospital, they had cut his football pants off with scissors. Now his leg felt exposed.
He felt exposed.
The doctor still hadn’t said anything. Was she waiting for him to confess? To admit he’d wasted everyone’s time? To apologize for being a liar?
She looked at his leg. He looked at it too.
The leg looked normal, of course, and right then DeSean wished it didn’t. He wanted it to suddenly swell up to the size of a grapefruit. He even wanted it to start hurting.
Then the doctor couldn’t accuse him of lying. Even better, he could stop feeling so bad about lying.
The doctor stepped forward, pressed her fingers into his knee. “Does it hurt more or less when I do this?” she asked.
“The same,” he said.
He wasn’t lying—not really. His knee didn’t hurt when she wasn’t doing it, and it didn’t hurt now. Technically, his knee really did hurt the same.
“Huh,” the doctor said. “I’m stumped.”
“Doctor?” his dad asked.
“Usually I wouldn’t trust my X-rays as much as I do because of all the swelling right after a knee injury,” the doctor replied. “But like I said, there isn’t any swelling here, so the pictures are really clear. There’s no structural damage to the knee. I’m surprised he’s feeling this much pain.”
“Any guesses?” DeSean’s mom asked.
“Sometimes the brain can tell us there’s pain even when structurally there shouldn’t be,” the doctor said. “My recommendation is that DeSean takes it easy the next few days. I’m guessing the pain will go away on its own. If not, bring him back.”
“Does that mean he can’t play football?” his mom asked.
“Honestly? It’s up to you,” the doctor said, looking at DeSean. “I don’t like hearing about that pain, so by all means, take a few days off. But you’re not at any greater risk of injuring the leg than anyone else, so it’s up to you when you return to the field.”
CHAPTER 4
MR. CRUTCH
Never.
That’s when DeSean wanted to return to the field.
Not ever again.
How could he go back? His knee may not have been injured, but his confidence was.
He had always thought of himself as Mr. Clutch. The best player for the biggest moment. But now? After screwing everything up—twice? He wasn’t sure he even deserved to play anymore. His belief in himself was as shredded as his football pants.
Speaking of the pants, they were lying in a pile on his bed. DeSean knew he should toss them aside, crawl under the covers, try to get some sleep. But he couldn’t. If he fell asleep, he’d skip right to morning.
