The sun was sinking behind the library’s white marble dome by the time we arrived at the quad that ran between the Georgian buildings. I was unimpressed by the carnival. A student rock band fumbled its way through a cover song on a makeshift stage; two perky upperclassmen stood in a tent handing out free T-shirts commemorating move-in day; a cafeteria employee in a chef’s uniform tried not to get too much of his sweat on the appetizers he was reheating on a propane grill. The one genuinely carnivalesque touch was a row of glittering rent-a-fun structures, but few people were playing the games of skill—we were too close to being children to want to be seen doing childish things like shooting water into a clown’s mouth.
Michelle stood with a motley group, girls and boys, white and Asian, some in stylish outfits and others in mishmashes that made it clear they were at sea without their mothers here to dress them. The girls were instantly taken with Reshawn, this statuesque boy asking them informed questions about AP credits, majors, and double majors who barely gave them time to respond before asking the next question. Yet there was none of his usual abrupt haughtiness, only ingenuous, slightly gawky enthusiasm.
I had no opinion on double majors myself, and stood off to the side with a shy boy who wore an Afro to rival Jimbo’s and a gold necklace with Hebrew characters. A girl named Josephine belatedly noticed the King Football insignia on my clothing.
—I knew I knew you from somewhere! she said, playfully pushing Reshawn. My dad is the biggest Michigan fan.
—That right? he asked, trying to pretend like this was a happy turn in the conversation.
—Oh yeah. When you visited Ann Arbor, he acted like the pope had come to town.
—We have a football team? another girl asked.
—I think they’re intermural.
—We’re on full scholarships, I broke in, too annoyed to remain quiet.
The girls paused to look at me, but no one thought my comment worth responding to. Josephine continued to Reshawn:
—You’d have thought the pope died when my dad found out you were coming here. I said, “Dad, you remember that’s the school I’m going to, right?” He said I didn’t get it—you coming to King was like me going to community college.
Reshawn smirked.
—Tell him I wanted to use my brain cells before I killed them all off.
The girls looked at each other to confirm this kid had mocked himself in a way they’d have only done behind our backs. Reshawn was emboldened to shock them again.
—Don’t get me wrong, he continued. I love wearing spandex. Almost as much as I love watching linemen piss their pants because they’re too afraid to ask coaches for a bathroom break.
—They do not.
—Sure do. And I don’t blame them. The coaches command absolute respect. Brilliant men. Geniuses. You know why coaches use Xs and Os to draw plays? ‘Cause those are the only two letters they know.
It was repellent, our best player abasing his team for the sake of amusing some girls. Yet Reshawn wasn’t only mocking our team, was he? He was mocking the entire enterprise of football, and it was now I realized I’d been wrong about something. His aloofness didn’t stem from the disdain he had for playing for a losing team. He hated the game itself. But was that really possible? Could you be the football miracle he was and despise the game?
The girls wanted their free T-shirts at the tent, but Reshawn begged off. He was riding high from his first conversation with regular King students and wanted to find another group to charm. I stayed with him, and once we were alone I mustered the courage to say:
—My parents went to community college.
He pretended not to hear me. This made me even angrier.
—Why would you say that shit about the team?
He sighed, turning to me.
—What shit?
—Oh, I forgot. I’m a football player. I must be a moron, too. He was angry now.
—Anyone forcing you to be out here, Miles?
—I—
—And if you’re going to keep walking with me, go change out of those fucking clothes. I don’t need these people knowing I’m a football player.
—You think my clothes are the only way people are gonna know you play?
Before he could respond, I added:
—Fuck you.
I headed back to the dorm.
I was asleep by the time Reshawn returned to our room, and when I woke the next morning he was already gone, off to a seminar on African American folktales—which, like all the classes he’d be taking this semester, was so abstruse none of the veteran players had even heard of it, let alone enrolled in it. My classes, on the other hand, were golden King Football oldies chock-full of teammates: a biology course about dinosaurs with one graded assignment the whole semester; the aforementioned computer science survey, which satisfied the undergrad math requirement without requiring me to do any actual math; a sports marketing course taught by an athletic department official who had allegedly never given out anything below an A+; and an intro-level public policy seminar taught by a Methuselah known to doze off in the middle of his lectures.
Easy as my classes were, they still took up half of my day, while football consumed the other half, and before I knew it Friday afternoon had arrived and I was standing on our game field’s freshly painted sideline, watching the starters walk through their assignments one last time before tomorrow’s game against Virginia Military Institute.
Everybody traveled for home games, and following the walkthrough we returned to the locker room to change into purple windbreakers and
