I returned upstairs at ten. Through our room’s door I could hear Reshawn still talking to the man I’d seen step off the elevator. I sat on the carpet and leaned my back against the wall to the right of our door—and if you’d asked if I was eavesdropping, I would have insisted no, I just was nervous about missing the shuttle. But of course I could have just as easily taken a walk instead. And if I had done that, I wouldn’t have heard Reshawn raise his voice to say, “Ten thousand,” and heard the man respond with “We already said five.”
Now: I had been devouring sports journalism for nearly as long as I could read, and I knew perfectly well that parts of the football world were corrupt—but that fact had registered as deeply as the civil war in a place called Yugoslavia, or that you took off your shoes before entering a house in Thailand, which is to say that while I believed such things were possible, I didn’t think they were possible in my life; they happened, just not anywhere in proximity to me. That willed obliviousness alone would have made me resist the idea that I was listening to something untoward, but on top of it I was still basking in the glow of my offer, still marveling at the generosity and goodness of the program that had granted my life’s greatest wish. I didn’t want to compromise that feeling.
And yet I heard them repeat those numbers, and now heard Reshawn say, “Do you know how much more I could—?” It was useless to deny what I was hearing. The voices petered out, and I heard shuffles, prompting me to scramble upright and hurry in the opposite direction from the elevator bay. I heard our door open and close, and a few seconds later the elevator bell dinged. I turned to find the hallway empty.
Reshawn sat at the desk and didn’t move his eyes from his calculus textbook as I went about packing. I wasn’t intimidated by him anymore, in fact felt something close to superiority—but it was a hollow sort, knowing I was attached to the program that he had just successfully extorted. But that was something, wasn’t it. Reshawn had been in the position to extort King, while my program, which was doing its best to climb out of the gutter, had been taken advantage of by this haughty, aloof, spoiled star.
And there, with that neat little trick, I forgave what my program had done.
National Signing Day was a few weeks later, and when Reshawn donned his King hat at the press conference, his shocking choice was carried live on ESPN. Over the next days prep recruiting gurus and spittle-lipped pundits dissected why he had chosen King. The most generous said he wanted a great education for free, since King was at that time ranked the third-best university in the richest country on earth. But to this the more skeptical observers replied that he had received offers from several top-notch schools that also had top-flight football, that that combination had been the common denominator linking the programs people believed he was selecting from. King wasn’t merely mediocre, it wasn’t just bad—it was D1 pond scum and, lest anyone forget, hadn’t won a single game last season. This disconnect led the least generous to wonder whether Reshawn hadn’t experienced a medical event the moment he was choosing his school, a fugue state that caused him to place that purple cap on his head—or maybe he wasn’t as smart as his high GPA and SAT scores led people to believe. But the theory I didn’t come across, not once, was that some kind of corruption was involved. Nobody wanted to believe that the kid celebrated as the future of the game might have been compromised. Nor could I blame them. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I had gone for a walk when I’d heard Reshawn and the man still talking.
Back at Sillitoe High, the only official recognition I received on National Signing Day was a schoolwide PA announcement I didn’t even hear because the loudspeaker in our homeroom was busted. I received attaboys from teammates, but these were tepid gestures from people who’d never known what to do with a team captain who actively prevented anyone from getting close to him. Really the only passionate responses at school were negative ones, dirty looks from fellow gifted-and-talented students who’d watched me sink into academic indifference only to now be enjoying acceptance—not to mention free tuition, room, board, and food—at a university many of them would have murdered their siblings to attend.
At least the people who loved me were happy, and the Saturday after Signing Day we had Coach Johannsen over for dinner. Mom, already nostalgic about me leaving for college, served dishes I would miss when I was away—beef stroganoff, potato and mushroom casserole seasoned with French onion soup powder, bread pudding with golden raisins. Dad talked nonstop about Reshawn, who I’d recently learned would be my roommate during the school year. When Coach Hightower had called to inform me of the assignment, my first impulse was to ask to room with somebody else; but I knew I’d have to explain why I didn’t want to room with Reshawn, and it didn’t seem a good idea to hint that I knew something unsavory about our star signee. So I’d be stuck with Reshawn for
