Chapter 9

Sometimes, some of the Jeremiah juniors visited the locker room, where they clung to various players like barnacles to a boat, for Jeremiah was an affectionate if understandably distracted daddy. Quinn felt sorry for the Jere juniors and tried to be patient with them and their endless questions, their touching of things that didn’t belong to them and general interference. Perhaps they reminded him of himself. They certainly reminded him of his long-cherished dream and the reason he tolerated everything the NFL had thrown at him—to build a new, state-of-the-art orphanage and school in Jakarta.

“Get these bastards out of here,” Smalley would yell at the risk of offending Jeremiah, who was one of his best players.

No worries: The actual Jeremiah Junior, the oldest of the litter at age ten, gave as good as he got.

“You’re kind of fat,” he said to Smalley, who turned beet-red.