Blind Ambition | ✓

11 | Friday Night Lights

There were times when I thought I had been put on this earth specifically to play football. Under the heat of Friday night lights, I was dubbed an American God. I conjured storms with a cadence and set fire to the earth beneath my feet. I would crush any mortal that dared to oppose me.

Or so the story goes.

The ground seemed to vibrate underneath me as the damn near entire population of our little town was crammed into the stands behind me, bleachers rattling and crowd noise soaring.

As I stood on the sidelines, I glanced up at the scoreboard, lit up with my first conquest of the season. Home: 42 Visitor: 3. Forty seconds left in the third quarter. The sound of Anthony's voice soared over the crowd noise, diverting my attention back to the field.

Despite the subtle resentment festering between Anthony and I, there was a reason he was captain of the defense. He stood over the other defensive linemen, the white stitching of his number 65 bright against the midnight black of his jersey, pointing at the far receiver stacked up on the left and shouted, "Base! Base 3!"

That meant they had to switch the defensive play they went onto the field with. The guards shifted, and this quarterback didn't have Anthony fooled for a second. The quarterback took the snap and dropped back to pass, quickly dumping it off to the far left receiver, only a yard or two off the line of scrimmage. Sure enough, Anthony was right there to meet him and plowed the poor guy into the turf. Loss of 2 yards.

The stadium erupted into cheers as the other team's offensive dragged themselves off the field. The moment I stepped onto the field, it felt like a bolt of lightning had shot through me, and every pat on the shoulder by a passing teammate in transition was a crackling aftershock. The problem with being made to feel larger than life is when you started to get too big, too excessive, too much of everything that makes you feel out of place in a place that made you. All the lights and all the sounds enveloped me like a shroud, and for a moment I couldn't tell if it was trying to protect me, or suffocate me.

Coach Knox rapped his hand on my helmet, bringing me back down to earth. "There's been holes in the left side of their line all game. You like a 28 sweep?"

I pulled at the mouthguard I had lodged in my facemask and nodded.

"And if you've got a guy getting jammed inside, what do you do?"

"Throw outside."

He paused, and the noise of the stadium swirled around us as he gave me an amused smirk. "No shame in letting the clock run out, son."

I looked back at the scoreboard again, with 20 seconds remaining in the quarter lit up in big glowing letters. I chuckled. "Where's the fun in that?"

I jogged onto the field and was enveloped into the waiting huddle of my offense. "28 sweep, okay? 28 sweep, lets burn these fuckers."

The guys hollered in agreement, and I glanced around the huddle one last time, making eye contact with Chris as he gave me a confident nod.

We broke the huddle and took our places at the line of scrimmage. Chris lined up by himself on the far left side, and we overloaded the right side with two more receivers and a tight end, forcing them to cover Chris one-on-one. It was a mismatch in every sense of the word - Chris would burn this safety before the kid could even blink. The play clock on the scoreboard ticked away as I called the play and took the snap.

People say when you die, you watch your life flash before your eyes. Well, whoever said that was never a quarterback, because the moment you take the snap, the entire world around you falls away and only the football field exists. Space and time were mine to control.