The food at dinner was the same boiled/broiled fare we ate at Training Table, except now it was being scarfed under the high coffered ceilings of the Marriott’s grand ballroom, lending the activity a new gravity, making the food inexplicably taste better. Following dinner we had one last round of film in a conference room, and now the coaches transformed into different men. Sunday to Thursday they used film to name and shame players who didn’t know their assignments, but tonight they were engaged in a conspiracy of optimism, and as we watched film of VMI, they only asked easy questions, directed to players who they knew knew the answers. The meeting felt less like a tutorial than a catechism.
We were in the locker room by ten the next morning. Players stood before body-length mirrors and meticulously drew eye black beneath each eye, or tied on durags so their helmets didn’t muss the cornrows they’d gotten special for today. Fade wore sound-canceling headphones and paced around the carpet as he rapped along to a 50 Cent song, while Cornelius used a permanent marker to draw names, numbers, and symbols on the white athletic tape on his wrists. I had the option of wearing pads, too, but I decided to save that for when I’d actually put the pads to use. I slid my purple home jersey over a plain white T-shirt and tucked the jersey’s long tails into my best pair of jeans.
We formed a half circle in the middle of the locker room, which was beginning to resemble church in the moments before mass. You had your notable parishioners, the ones and the captains, who enjoyed the best places at the front. Twos and vets—your dutiful, every-Sunday churchgoers—knelt behind the ones. Bottom feeders stood at the back of the group like the family that doesn’t arrive in time to get seats, while bustling around the room’s edges were mass’s supporting cast, the scripture readers and altar boys and deacons (trainers, student trainers, assistant coaches) who made their final, hushed preparations.
Here came the celebrant. Coach Zeller’s vestments were a purple polo shirt, pressed white khakis, and unscuffed tennis shoes he reserved for games. He took his place at the head of the half circle, and once the last people squeezed inside and the doors closed he began his first pregame speech as King’s head coach.
—You don’t stay the same in this game, fellas. Every down—every play—you got two directions. Either you rise, or you slide. You get better, or you get worse. You gotta choose which direction, every single time.
Devonté was kneeling in front of Zeller. Zeller paused and fondly rested his hands atop Devonté’s shoulder pads.
—And those choices build, men. They accumulate. You elevate one play, it’s just the littlest bit easier to improve the next. You get a first down, you’re that much closer to a score. Each one of you starters is gonna play dozens of reps today. And on every goddamn one, I want you to choose to get better. Want you to play a little harder’n you did the play before. Run a little faster. Tackle a little cleaner. We do that, I guarantee VMI won’t have a fuckin’ prayer.
He popped his palms against Devonté’s shoulder pads and stepped aside, creating a hole into which players rushed like whitewater, leaping to feet, raising arms, overlaying hands. Devonté stood in the center and screamed the team’s twist on the King College fight song:
One one two three
Who the fuck you came to see?!
and the rest of us responded:
King King motherfucker!
We paired up and held hands, forming a long line that lockstepped down into the dark tunnel. The frontmost players, Fade and Devonté, stopped at the tunnel’s bottom, fidgeting as they waited for the announcer’s call, while the rest of us bunched up behind them, rocking in place, waiting (unbearably), needing (excruciatingly) to be released, to be shot out into …
A void of poured concrete, smattered by a crowd of maybe 2,000 people in a 35,000-capacity arena. What fans were here weren’t exactly rabid: somnolent good ol’ boys who dribbled tobacco slime into empty beer cups; King students who’d used the game as an excuse to flirt with alcohol poisoning before 1 p.m.; cheery VMI family and friends and live-in-the-area fans who sat behind the visitor’s bench; and the pleasantly bustling parents, siblings, and girlfriends behind ours.
But I was still overjoyed to be running onto my first game-time D1 field, and as the starters readied themselves to play, I paced up and down the sideline carrying out the two jobs I had today—staying out of the way and cheering my lungs bloody:
—Let’s go!
—Atta boy!
—WoooooOOOOooo!
My palms stung as I slapped helmets and shoulder pads, my voice rang with the name of every starter I passed. We won the coin toss and elected to receive, and I hurried over to where the kickoff return team huddled so I could lean in to listen to the call.
Clap, break, our kickoff return jogged to their positions on the field while VMI’s kickoff squad fanned into formation. There wasn’t enough of a crowd to create that otherworldly buzz of anticipation you hear in elite stadiums, and to try and compensate for that our PA system blared a Guns N’ Roses guitar solo while the teams settled into
