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  “Hey, Coach, do you mind if we go over that last set of downs again, just the backs and the ends?” Shane asked Coach Z. “We can sacrifice hot pizza for a chance to learn.”

  “Fine,” Coach Z said. “The rest of you, make a note. That’s leadership.”

  As soon as the coaching staff and the other players left the Big Five in the library, Orlando shut the door.

  “Are we seriously going to watch more game films?” I asked. My stomach growled.

  Orlando started giggling. Shane reached into his Troy High football sweatshirt and pulled out something. He walked over to the DVD player, ejected the game disc, and put in another disc. “Mute the volume just in case.”

  It was good advice. As they watched video Shane had shot of Amber dancing, the other guys bit their lips to stop laughing; I stuffed my right hand in my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

  16 / THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6—LAST PRACTICE BEFORE SECOND GAME

  “How could you?”

  I asked myself that a hundred times, but in my own voice. This was Amber’s. I’d be late for practice, which meant staying late afterward— and running the steps—but I deserved all of that and worse.

  Since I had PE last hour, Mr. Colby said sure when I asked to leave early to hit the weight room. Not the weight room at school, which was lousy, but the football facility’s room. And I didn’t exactly lie to him. I was going to lift weights: the weight of shame off my shoulders.

  I started to explain, but my words tangled like a rookie hitting the tires. I start, stopped, stumbled, and said nothing. Anything I would’ve said, Amber was crying too much to hear. I wanted to comfort her, but I knew she thought of me not as a person but as a disease. As we stood in a secluded spot by the unmowed baseball field, I finally found some words.

  “Amber, I didn’t know,” I started. “They didn’t tell me everything they’d do with—”

  “I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “It doesn’t matter. Everybody knows now. I can tell from how people look at me,” she said. “I’m switching schools, and it’s your fault. You and your stupid football friends, who think they’re so special.”

  “Amber, it was a stupid bet.” I took out my wallet. “I still have some of the money if—”

  “If I just shut up? You’re making it worse, which I didn’t think possible.”

  More tears from her, more helpless standing a yard away and feeling worthless from me.

  “I always thought you were a nice guy,” Amber sniffed. “And your mom. Does she know?” I felt sweat break out even in the mid-autumn warmth.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well, she deserves to. Maybe I’ll tell her. You, your dad, all of you with your stupid football traditions. Don’t you realize none of it matters? None of it! It’s just a stupid game with little boys banging their heads together trying to act like men.”

  I couldn’t defend my actions, but I’d stand up for football. “Amber, look, you don’t—”

  “Shut up, just shut up!” she screamed.

  And I knew what I had to do. “Make me!” I said.

  When her palm slapped my face, I felt some sense finally sink back into me.

  “Where have you been?” Dad asked, more angry than concerned it seemed. “Coach Z said you missed practice without an excuse. You’re in big trouble. Big trouble.”

  I laughed. “But he’s not benching me, is he?”

  Dad shook his head.

  “And you know why? Because I’m Big Six, just like he was. Just like you were.”

  Dad flinched, as if unsure if “just like you” was an insult or a compliment, so I made it clear. “All of these traditions are so screwed up. They don’t amount to anything. They’re not about teamwork or sportsmanship or any of that stuff the coaches say. They’re the opposite of it.”

  Dad pointed a finger at me. “How would you know?”

  I told him. Everything about what traditions had turned into. Every last detail.

  He didn’t react much when I told him about the parties—just held a dumb “boys will be boys” expression on his face. He didn’t react when I told him about how the coaches treated us differently. Instead, he nodded in approval of the coaches, even the cops, who had let us get away with stuff because we were Big Six.

  “That’s it?” Dad seemed amused until I told him about Shane’s new version of the Tunnel of Love bet and about what happened to Amber. He seemed to age a year in front of me. “Does Coach Z know about this?”

  I shrugged. “He’s dropped hints but said nothing directly.”

  “What are you going to do, Son?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know. What should I do?”

  He did the hand-on-shoulder thing. “I just hope you don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  I swatted his hand away. “Didn’t you hear me? I regret all of it.”

  “I mean like quitting football. That would be a mistake.”

  “This isn’t about football anymore,” I said. “This is about everything. This is about who I am.”

  “You’re my son, Brian. That’s who you are.” He inched closer.

  “No, I’m not,” I said, “because I’m not Big Six. I’m not one of those guys.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Dad asked again, softer this time.

  “I don’t know yet,” I answered. “I guess tell Dylan he was right about all of this.”

  “Whatever you do, let’s keep it in the family,” Dad whispered. “Trojan Football family.”

  “That is one messed-up family.”

  Dad’s hand landed back on my shoulder. “Most families are. Even the best ones.”

  “Even the undefeated state champion ones?”

  Dad smiled for the first time.

  17 / FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7—BUS RIDE TO AWAY GAME

  “Are you sure you want to do this, Brian?” Coach Z asked with Coach Whitson behind his shoulder. Everybody else was on the bus, but I stayed outside. I didn’t like being an insider anymore.

  “Yes, I don’t want to be on the offense. It’s not the right place for me. I want to start again at outside linebacker.”

  “But you’re doing so well!” Coach Whitson shouted. Hadn’t they figured it out? It wasn’t the offense I wanted to leave; it was the Big Six. I knew I didn’t have Dylan’s willpower, so escape was my only option.

  “Why do you think that I’ll start you at linebacker?” Coach Z asked and then started his players-don’t-pick-the-team speech again.

  While he rambled on, I thought about my choices. Maybe I could blackmail him. I could say “You let me start or else I’ll tell everything, and you’ll lose five of your best players, your winning season, your reputation, maybe your job.”

  But that wasn’t the person I wanted to be either. I just wanted to play football, plain and simple. I could never make it up to Amber, and I wasn’t man enough to walk away from football. I just couldn’t. But I could walk away from the Big Six. I could end that part of the legacy. I had no idea if it meant anything, but it was what I could do. My mind replayed those hundreds of linebacker hits again. Maybe after a few hundred high-speed collisions—a few hundred chances to say no!—things would be clearer.

  “It’s your team, Coach,” I said sharply. “But I’m not playing tight end anymore. If that means I sit on the bench, fine. But if you want to win, you’ll give me a chance to prove myself.”

  “Coach Colby would want him to play,” Coach Whitson said. Coach Z shook his head.

  “Why?” Coach Z asked. “Maybe if I knew why, then I could—”

  “You know why,” I hissed. “You all know what is going on, and you let it happen. All to win football games that nobody but a few people will remember in a few years. But what I did, what they made me do, well, some of us will live with that for the rest of our lives.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, 75,” Coach Z said, acting like he hadn’t heard a word I said. And maybe he really hadn’t. Maybe he was as blind as I h
ad been. But at least, I felt like I was coming out of the tunnel and into the light.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Patrick Jones is the author of more than twenty books for teen readers, including works with a focus on contact sports such as mixed martial arts (The Dojo series), boxing (The Gamble), and football (Out of the Tunnel). A former librarian for teenagers, Jones won lifetime achievement awards in 2006 from the American Library Association and Catholic Library Association. As a Michigan native and current resident of Minnesota, he’s locked into the power battles of the NFC Central, but for him, pro football hasn’t been the same since the original Cleveland Browns left Ohio in 1995.