Start of Redemption

Ty arrived at the practice field, having walked straight there from his final class. From the looks of it, both JJ and Rabbit had done the same.

Rabbit looked over at Ty and then his eyes darted to the ground. He gave Ty a wide berth, having learnt his lesson last week about trying to console him after a loss. Ty said nothing.

Even JJ was in a dour mood, though he at least said: 'Let's give it our all and train hard today, hermanos.'

Rabbit responded with a chipper "Mm!" while Ty only nodded his head.

They moved over and began stretching before their warm-up. Ty kept his distance from the others as they paired up.

However, unlike last week, as the boys went through their extra warm-up and early practice, they noticed that they were the only players to arrive before the coaches. No other players even came meaningfully early.

When the coaches did start to arrive, Bella made her way over to Ty. He stopped beside her, frowning in her direction. 'Yes?'

'Oh, no, don't mind me. I'm just standing here, wondering how long it'll take for you to freak out again and throw another tantrum.'

He clicked his tongue and turned away from her. 'I don't throw tantrums.'

She laughed loudly. 'Oh really? Then what do you call what you did last game, and the game before?'

Ty was quiet for a moment. 'Stress relief.'

Bella narrowed her eyes. 'Uh-huh, well I hate to imagine how far your methods of "stress relief" will go. What's next? You punch somebody? A player on the other team? One of your teammates? A ref? My dad or one of the other coaches?'

He looked at her coldly. 'Are you done yet? Or are you just here to piss me off?'

'Hmph.' She whipped around and walked away.

Ty sighed heavily and shook his head.

Five minutes after practice was scheduled to begin, Coach Long called the team together. Deshaun was nowhere to be seen, but they weren't going to wait for him any longer as everyone else—even Chris—had arrived.

The senior players looked around, worried about Deshaun's absence. None of them had any clue why he wasn't there.

Coach Long cleared his throat, grabbing everyone's attention again before he began his speech. 'Now, I know we might be down in the dumps because of the last game, especially after losing two in a row, but we can't worry about the past. What's done is done and we need to put those two weeks behind us and focus on the road ahead. Those losses are nothing more than a good learning experience.'

Ty dug his cleats into the turf, teeth grinding together angrily. "Why are you so calm!? You should be kicking our asses for losing … AGAIN!"

'Some of you,' Coach Long's gaze fell upon Stephen, and then Ty, 'might have more to learn from last weekend's game than others. But we're all going to train hard today and use this session to work out all our grievances so we can look forward to the next opponents.'

The cut on Stephen's lip had scabbed over, the giant looked ahead sternly but showed no reaction to being called out.

'Also, while Chris is here, he won't be joining in with today's practice. As it stands, he won't be participating in the upcoming game either.' Coach Long looked around. 'And at this rate, Deshaun might be sitting that out as well.'

A murmur that spread throughout the crowd of boys.

'Alright! Let's get to work!' Coach Long silenced them and the boys moved away to get warmed up and do their laps together before the teams split apart into their offensive and defensive groups, then followed their respective coaches and coordinators to begin the day's drills.

Chris made his way over to Coach Long, trying to plead his case that even if he didn't do any of the contact drills that day, he could at least run around with the others, but Coach Long wasn't having any of it, so Chris was stuck on the bleachers, only allowed to watch.

Ty and Stephen were both worked extra hard throughout the day, singled out for their outbursts in the previous game.

Coach Hoang smiled down at Ty and Stephen as the boys were forced to hold a plank position while the rest of the team was moving on to other drills.

'Heh, Coach Long thinks you aren't being worked hard enough. Obviously, if you've got enough energy to fight and throw a fit, then you could be working harder in practice and during the game.'

'I was … standing up for … Chris,' Stephen muttered.

Coach Hoang frowned. His stopwatch beeped, signalling that their time was up. 'Don't stop. I think you can both handle another thirty seconds.'

'Fuck you…' Ty strained to say.

Coach Hoang chuckled and moved away.

The rest of practice would continue similarly for Ty and Stephen. They were always asked to do more, push harder, or redo the drills over and over with greater intensity, even when they had already been giving their all.

Ty was loving it.

However, his focus was constantly being disturbed as he'd hear JJ asking around if anyone knew where Deshaun was.

'Have you seen him? Did he say anything before?'

No one had even seen him at school that day, nor had anyone received any kind of message from him. They had no idea where he was. Whenever JJ had time to sit down and get a drink, he would text Deshaun, but he never got an answer.

When Ty got the rare chance to sit down and catch his breath, he looked around the field. Everyone was working hard, but there was a depressing air about them today. There wasn't any fire like there had been last week after their first loss. Instead of being angry and wanting to redeem themselves, it looked like most people had given up.

It sickened him.

He spat his water out onto the grass and then found JJ. 'Hey, are we gonna hit up the gym today when we finish here?'

A distracted JJ spun around to him. 'Huh? Oh, uhh… shit, I don't think so tonight, man. I'm sorry but I'm worried about Dee. I need to figure out what's going on with him first.'

Ty's brow furrowed. 'What? Fuck him. If he doesn't want to show up and work hard, fuck him. I'm sure he's fine, he's just ran off somewhere, scared because he knows he's a fuck up.'

'Hey.' JJ stepped closer to Ty, forcing the smaller boy to crane his neck back just to look him in the eye. 'You're a freshman so you wouldn't get it. But Dee's been my hermano for four years now. We've shed our blood, sweat, and tears for this team, together. You wouldn't understand. Go to the gym on your own today.'

Ty ground his teeth together louder as JJ walked away.

JJ walked past Coach Hoang who was using the break to talk with Ricky. Ricky had arrived just before practice began, but like Rabbit, he was wise enough to avoid Ty this week as the boy looked even more irate than usual.

Coach Hoang appeared heavily invested in the conversation, listening intently as Ricky spoke to him and showed him something on his phone. Soon enough they broke away and Ricky made his way back over to his spot on the bleachers to watch the rest of the practice.

After the break, Coach Hoang called his defenders together. 'Listen up. I don't like the way we've been playing. We're good, you're all fine players, but that's it. I'd have thought after these years of working together, you'd be more of a team, but it seems like you've still got a long way to go before that happens. Does anyone know where Banks is?'

There was a collection of "no's" and various shakings of heads from the group.

'See, this is what I'm talking about—you're not working together, nobody is thinking about the person next to them, you're all just worried about yourselves! We're going to fix that starting today. Line up! Two lines side by side, one staggered a bit behind the other.'

The boys did as they were told. Opposite them, they saw members of the JV team begin to line up. The QBs were in one line, and then the Receivers and RBs were next to them.

'Our next opponents are a team that favours the run, just like the Bears. However, they attack in a style wholly different from the Bears. Their favourite play is Read Option. Today, we're going to work on shutting that down, and bettering our communication, because no one player can put a stop to this, it'll take a team effort.'

Ty shifted on his feet, his expression souring at the thought. Read Option (ran this way), was a run designed for the QB, though he would have usually a RB to support him, running parallel to him and slightly behind, so that when someone came to tackle the QB, he could flip the ball back to the RB and they could continue forward. But on the other hand, if no one stopped the QB and they worried about the RB instead, then the QB would run forward unabated.

Coach Hoang moved to the front line. 'From here, your part in this drill is the most pivotal. I need you to be assertive and act without doubt. Uncertainty will kill us against this play. Whatever choice you make, you have to stick to it and put all your trust into that choice and that your teammate will have your back. Communicate what you're going to do clearly, and then it's up to your teammate to follow your lead and cover the other option.'

Coach Hoang moved away and blew his whistle, each person at the front of a line stepped forward and the drill got underway. The pairs of defenders worked together to varying degrees of success as they repeated the drill over and over, Coach Hoang practically bashing it into their skulls so they'd be able to shut down this play while sleepwalking.

Over on the other side of the field with the varsity offence, their focus for this week was getting the WRs involved with the run game so that they'd still be able to attack the outside without Chris.

They ran Jet Sweeps over and over, having the Receiver of choice move in motion before the snap of the ball, running behind the O-Line and just as they were passing by the QB, they'd snap the ball and whirl around to hand it off to the Receiver who would then sprint away to the outside before turning upfield.

Cole was the most well-suited to the role and had the best results. Meanwhile, Stephen had the worst results.

Coach Long and Coach Norman even flirted with the idea of Cole playing a few snaps at RB in the next game just to try and see how that goes.

After another failed attempt from Stephen where he barely even got two yards, Coach Long called the obviously frustrated boy over.

'Stephen. Keep on trying, it might take some getting used to, but this will help to develop your quickness and agility. But… outside of that, I need to tell you something.'

Stephen was surprised, his frustration evaporating. 'Uh, sure, go ahead, Coach. What is it?'

'I've thought about it for a while. What you did last game was unacceptable, we can't have that behaviour anywhere near our team. We need to set an example that shows it won't fly around here, so you're out of the starting lineup for this next game, and you'll be staying on the bench for the full game.'

'What?!'

'Hey.' Coach Long put a hand on Stephen's shoulder. 'I know you're a good kid, Stephen, and that you were just trying to stand up for Chris. But that's not the way we do things here. You get them back on the field, in the game, without fighting. Hurt them on the scoreboard.'

Stephen gritted his teeth. There was no arguing with the coach, what he said was final. He swallowed his pride and looked aside. 'Fine. Fine, I'll ride the bench.'

''Atta boy.' Coach Long patted him on the shoulder and sent him back to the line.

Stephen went away without further complaint. It was just a regular game. It was fine to miss it.

Coach Norman stepped up beside Coach Long. 'You sure that's the best idea, Coach? I get dropping him from the starters but, benching him entirely? Next week's going to be a pivotal game, and we're already missing Chris, and potentially Deshaun.'

Coach Long watched over the practice sternly. 'I know. It's a breaking point, whether we win or lose next week could change the outcome of our whole season, but that doesn't mean we can let the boys get away with any kind of behaviour just because an important game is coming up. We have to set an example for these boys and curb their issues now before its out of our hands and we send them off into the world thinking they can just smash their way through the things that annoy them in life.'

'It's your call, Coach. We're with you all the way, no matter what.'

Coach Long watched the boys closely. Next week really felt like it was their whole season on the line despite it looking like just any other game of the season. Three losses in a row might be more than they can handle mentally, they could check out after that and that'd make them an easy knockout once Regionals comes round, if they even made it that far.

On the other hand, if they bounce back with a win then they could get back on track and really put those losses behind them as nothing more than a speed bump in the middle of the road. They could still finish strong and recover their momentum to head into Regionals with a rejuvenated fire.

Only time will tell if they can overcome their dire situation, or if they'll falter under the pressure without their usual leaders to hold them up.