Room 401 and 402 in RidgeChester High School were a riot. Nearly 30 boys in each room were forced after school on this Thursday afternoon to serve detention. It wasn't? unusual for the detention rooms to be full. In fact, RidgeChester had a regular changing of all sorts of different students spending their weekdays and weekends in detention.
However, on this particular day, the detention rooms were full of the same kind of kids, and those kids all happened to be football players.
It all started innocently enough. One of the better players was asked to spend time in detention for having an excessive amount of tardies. The boy did as he was supposed to, he got his mother, teacher, and coach to sign the slip, notifying them of the situation and that he'd miss practice and have to come home late.
Of course, boys will be boys, and not too long after, a good friend of his discovered detention was prohibiting him from going to practice.
"Awww man." His friend commented when he found out. "Practice is never fun when you're not there. If you're not going, neither am I."
This particular child, who tended to have a much bigger attraction to mischief than his friend, knew that he couldn't skip practice without a good excuse or Coach would skin him. So, being the brilliant teenager he is, he decided to give himself detention as well, that way he'd be able to join his friend.
Unfortunately, a chain reaction ensued. The boy's friend purposely got caught with a cell phone in his 3rd period, earning detention. Later three of his friends, angry that two of their teammates weren't going to make it to practice, raided the teachers desk to steal back the phone and got caught red-handed, earning them each a day suspension and week detention. The next day, some more teammates thought it unfair that their friends would be suspended, so they started a food fight in the cafeteria as protest, which somehow, lead to a real fight between them and the lacrosse team.
In the end, more than half the team was in rooms 401 and 402 after school rather than being at practice the day before a game.
The team made it known they were unhappy. Instead of sitting quietly and doing as they were told, they spent the entire time bragging about what landed them in detention and cursing about the people who sent them there.
It wasn't long before Miss. Jenny, the detention teacher, decided she had enough and stomped out of the room. She exited room 402 and retrieved Mrs. Sharpe, her co-worker from room 401. The same problem ensued here. Despite Mrs. Sharpe's yelling and demands, the boys simply ignored her and chatted and texted. Some loudly complained about having to serve detention and others were telling inappropriate stories in the back.
"I've had enough." Miss. Jenny said.
"I know how to handle this." Mrs. Sharpe answered, and she disappeared down the hall, instructing Miss Jenny to put all the football players in one room and the other detention kids in the other.
Miss. Jenny did as she was told and prayed that Sharpe wasn't leaving her. As expected, the football boys made a loud ruckus while retrieving their things and entering room 402.
They slapped hands and hooted when they realized they were all being put together, and their laughs and stories were louder as they talked amongst each other.
At least it's somewhat civilized, Miss Jenny thought bitterly, as the boys took it upon themselves to make a game of standing in the front of the classroom and re-enacting the huge fight from yesterday.
Little did they know, Coach was standing right outside the door, listening in on chatter. It didn't take long for him to reach the limit of his anger. He couldn't believe his kids were acting this way. He'd taught them better, or at least, he'd warned them enough times to behave with other teachers or else he'd make em regret it.
Coach stomped into the room, eyes blazing. He knew he couldn't really kick them all off the team; most of them depended on this sport to stay out of trouble and have a chance at being respectable men in the world. But maybe he hadn't worked them hard enough to get the desired effect yet.
The chatter in the room quickly subsided once Coach entered. His vein was nearly ready to pop out of his head and he had to restrain himself from yelling at them so loudly he'd burst their ear drums.
The team took a moment to reconstruct themselves once they noticed Coach had invaded the detention room. They knew sooner or later he'd come to save them, so they had already planned to sit down in their chairs and stand quietly against the wall when he entered. When his students were in detention, he normally took them out halfway through and exchanged the rest of their time with hard practice. Sure the extra practice hurt, but these kids lived off football. They'd rather spend harder time training than sitting around doing nothing.
Apparently, the thought entered all their young minds at once, because suddenly, the room was filled with relived cheers at seeing their coach. The boys were past ready to get on with practice, and a little extra work wouldn't hurt.
Coach couldn't believe his ears when he heard them cheer. His blood pressure spiked as he watched his Varsity team shout and cheer him on. Oh so they thought they were getting off easy did they?
"TRAP IT!" Coach yelled. The room instantly became silent again, the guys watching Coach with wide eyes.
"All of you have managed to piss me off. Not to mention disappoint me immensely." Coach quickly turned to Miss Jenny, who was standing at the door, unsure if she should abandon her post.
"Excuse us Miss Jenny, I've got it from here." He said respectably. He wanted to teach these boys to be gentlemen, and cussing in front of a lady was not a great example to set.
Miss Jenny quickly exited the room, giving Mrs. Sharpe a 'thank you' look. Mrs. Sharpe simply smiled; she knew Coach would get to them.
"Who the HELL do you all think you are!? I couldn't believe my ears when I heard you all talking the way you were a few moments ago!! And you!" He shot a glare at the Captain, Collin. "I didn't see you discouraging this behavior either; in fact, it seemed like you were a leader in that fight that went on yesterday!" Collin had the decency to look embarrassed.
"And the rest of you! If I were to call your mamas today and tell them what you were saying, they'd beat your narrow behinds straight out of the house! Now, I want you to call your parents and tell em' you're staying late today for mandatory practice! Right after each and every one of you apologizes to Miss. Jenny and Mrs. Sharpe for your behavior. And later on, after practice EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU will write them a 5 paragraph letter apologizing on what you've done and explaining your plan on improving yourselves. And I'll be proof reading it! If any of those letters comes from anywhere beside the center of your hearts I'll break my foot of up your ass! Now, be down at the field in 5 minutes, starting from when I walked into this room!"
The team scrambled, hurriedly collecting their things and rushing out the door. Coach smiled slightly. At least now they were taking it seriously. He watched as the kids gave rushed apologies to the two detention teachers as they ran past the room and toward the field. Some still looked excited to be excused from detention, and some even had the audacity to horse-play as they jogged down the hall.
"You're all gonna regret this!" He called after them. Some of the boys exchanged weary glances; Coach never went back on a promise.
-----------------------------
The Varsity Team at RidgeChester High School was regretting it.
"Again!" Coach yelled, and all at once, the boys sprinted across the entire length of the football field full speed. They made it across a few seconds later and each dropped down on all fours, doing 10 push-ups. Coach took his time stopping his timer.
He made it a show to shake his head slowly, and glanced tauntingly at the huffing young-men.
"Sorry boys, not fast enough. Again!" The boys would have groaned if they had the breath, but instead they sprinted across the field as fast as they could, then, upon reaching the other side, they all dropped down and did 10 more push-ups.
They'd been out there for 4 hours, with only 6 water breaks. The team couldn't remember a time Coach had ran them so hard. Or a time that he'd been madder. Not even when they messed up the winning play during last year's play-offs for fighting the other team.
"You need to move faster! Again!" One boy, a kid who hadn't really done anything too wrong, leaned over and threw up in the grass, emptying his cafeteria lunch and the snacks his girlfriend gave him earlier.
"Whose that down the field!? You think spraying your guts is gonna get you out of this! You just earned the team 10 extra laps, and afterwards, you can clean that up! Now move!"
About 30 laps later, the team was granted another water break.
"I think we have another hour on us to spare." Coach said, looking at his watch musingly. The reaction was instant. The team groaned loudly and some even looked like they wanted to tackle Coach.
"Huh! It looks like you guys aren't tired enough! I was going to allow you to finish your detention, but from your obvious enthusiasm, I think you want to run a few more drills."
The team groaned again, one at having to run more drill and two at remembering they had to write a 5 paragraph letter afterward.
"Oh yea, and I want all of you right after school tomorrow! We have some more issues to work out." he demanded.
Collin, the team Captain, finally decided to do his job properly and raised his hand. "But Coach, we never practice on game day." It was true. RidgeChester had strict rules on practices outside of warm-ups on game day.
"Well you don't have to worry about that. After the fight yesterday, Principle James decided we should forfeit the game. He says we're not mature enough to be seen by other schools yet." A loud gasp came from the team. They looked at Coach shocked, and soon, they each wore guilty faces.
"But Coach..."
"No buts!" Coach yelled. He wasn't the one mostly affected by this, although he could feel the guilt running off of them in waves. Coach hadn't had anything but a win in 20 years, and rumor had it, if he managed to make it 21 years he'd get a new car, and possibly a much needed raise. It wasn't fair that his one loss in years was because of his un-subordinate students.
"Coach....really. We..."
"What did I just say?!" Coach yelled, interrupting the apology.
"Still haven't learned your lessons huh? Break over! If you have energy to talk and complain, you have energy to run! Now move it! Move it! If I catch any slowing down, or any shortcuttin, you'll all restart from the beginning. And bring in your books tomorrow! Cause' we're doing homework. C'mon boys, get your asses moving! Go! Go! GO!"
Needless to say, Coach's rules became significantly stricter since then. And from then on, the football team was generally well behaved.