Dinged, page 2
We huddle up. It takes me a few seconds to focus. I wait for someone to bring in the play from the sidelines. Everyone is looking at me, waiting for me to say something.
“You sure you’re okay?” Ron asks. “That dude clocked you for real.”
I’m not sure if Ron saw me wobble, but I know this much: There’s no way I’m telling the captain of the team I’m not okay. You don’t do that in football. I give Ron a quick nod. He gladly decides to believe me. The new play comes in. I bark it out to the team. We clap our hands and break the huddle.
Four plays later, we score.
Meadow Ridge sags.
We end up winning, 46–6.
2
As soon as the coach finishes his postgame speech, I head off to find my parents.
It’s been that way since the first game I ever played.
When I get to my mom, she grabs my head with her hands. “Thank God you’re okay.” She’s been around football ever since college, when she met my dad, and she loves it, or she’s learned to love it, and she loves the life it’s given our family.
My dad is where he always is—leaning against the bleachers, waiting. Most of the dads stick together during the games, screaming and hollering, smacking each other on the back after wins, congratulating each other, trying not to brag about their own sons but bragging anyway, finding their sons afterward and high-fiving them, taking group pictures, and stuff like that. My dad doesn’t do any of that. He prefers to watch the games quietly, off to the side, with my mom. He waits for people to come to him. He’s always waited for people to come to him—even his own son.
When I reach him, he gives me a hug—he’s still the strongest person I’ve ever met, so his hugs hurt—and a big smile. Then he sticks out his hand and I shake it—a formal handshake, like always.
“Way to bring it, Cae,” he says, calling me by my nickname.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You looked really sharp out there. Really sharp! Freshman QB, I mean, come on!” He tries not to show it, but I can tell how proud he is of me, and how happy he is that his son is a good football player. That’s another reason why I love the game so much.
I try to keep my voice even and cool. “Yeah, it was fun.”
My dad bellows out a loud laugh. “Fun? FUN? Dude, you rocked it!” Then he takes a step back and gives me a once-over. “You get rung up a little bit, though?”
My mom frowns. “Rung up?”
My dad immediately makes light of it. “Rung up, honey. You know, like getting your bell rung. Just a little knock, that’s all.”
She grabs my hand and twirls me toward her. “What happened, Caleb?”
“Nothing, Ma. I’m fine.”
“Was it that sack in the second quarter? Did something happen there?” My mom’s eyes search the field, which is always crowded right after games. I know who she’s looking for—Coach Toffler.
But my dad grabs her hand, lowering his voice, because he knows a lot of people are watching him. He’s used to it. People have been watching him since he was in high school. Kind of like the way they’re starting to watch me. “Honey, we’re good,” he tells my mom. “Caleb is fine. You think I would let anything happen to our boy? He’s fine. It was one play. All good. Trust me.”
My mom nods. “I do trust you, hon.” She knows there are some arguments she can’t win.
“Caleb,” my dad says, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”
He nods at another man, talking to a few Walthorne fans. I’d noticed him during the game. He’s hard not to notice. The guy is huge. Like, medium-sized-building huge.
“This is Brandon Williams,” my dad says. “We played pro ball together.”
I can feel other people listening to us while pretending not to. I’m used to it because of my dad, but now, with another ex-NFL player added to the mix, it becomes even more obvious.
Brandon Williams sticks out his massive hand, and I shake it nervously. He laughs. “Don’t worry, kid, I’m not gonna mess with that hand of yours. It’s attached to a million-dollar arm.”
My dad grins. “Brandon was a hell of a D-lineman back in the day, and now he’s on the coaching staff up at State. His job is to evaluate and recruit talent, and he likes what he sees.”
I’m not sure what my dad is talking about.
Brandon sees my confusion and laughs. “Easy, Dinger, you’re freaking the kid out.” Dinger is my dad’s nickname from his playing days, I guess because it rhymes with Springer. “No one’s talking about recruiting a fourteen-year-old kid. But your boy has some serious talent, that’s for sure.”
Brandon bends down to about half his height so he can whisper something in my mom’s ear. Then he looks back to me.
“Hey, kid,” he says, “you want to join me at a game up at State in a few weeks? We got Auburn coming in, should be a dogfight. You can watch the game from the coaches’ booth, then I’ll take you down to the locker room after the game and show you around. You can meet the guys and get a feel for what it’s like to play big-time college football. What do you say?”
I look at my dad, who nods and grins. I tell Brandon, “That sounds amazing, thank you.”
Some part of me knows that what’s happening right now is important. My heart races. I’m trying to understand everything that’s going on, which is hard, because people are pounding me on the back and saying good game, and I don’t want to admit it but my head is still hurting a little bit, it’s been hurting ever since number 72 clocked me, and everything feels really loud even though it probably isn’t, and this gigantic guy who played with my dad is basically telling me that he wants me to start thinking about playing football at the college where he coaches, and it’s all a lot to process, which might be why I don’t think anything of it when my dad starts laughing.
After a few seconds, though, I realize it’s not his typical laugh, the one that makes everyone feel good.
This laugh sounds a little off.
“What about me?” he asks.
We all look at him.
“What do you mean?” my mom asks.
My dad blinks a few times. “Aren’t I invited?”
My mom and I look at each other. Ordinarily, we would both think Dad was joking around, but there’s something about the way he’s acting that makes us not sure.
Neither of us speaks.
Brandon does, though. “Dinger? Buddy? You’re kidding, right?”
My dad’s face turns red. Really red. But then, just as suddenly, he takes a deep breath and the redness fades. “HA! Of course I’m kidding! This is going to be spectacular, my boy getting a chance to check out the football program up at State, with my absolute favorite teammate of all time showing him around!” A flash of concern crosses his face. “I can come, though, right? It’s okay if I come?”
Brandon puts his hand on my dad’s shoulder. “You are too much, Dinger. We wouldn’t dream of doing it without you, buddy. Right, Caleb?”
“Of course not!” I say, but I’m completely confused. Is it possible my dad actually thought he wasn’t invited?
“Ready to go, Sammy?” my mom asks.
My dad grabs her hand and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek. “In a minute, Cath. Just going to go congratulate the coach on the game.” As he walks off, the crowd automatically parts for him, creating a path as he walks toward Coach Toffler. The two greet each other with a big hug, like long-lost brothers, and immediately start yapping away.
My mom watches and shakes her head. “Wow, does your dad love football.”
“That’s because it’s the greatest game ever invented,” I tell her.
“I couldn’t agree more, Caleb,” Brandon says. “And that passion you have for the game? You can’t teach that. It’s another thing that’s going to help you become something very special in this game.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Ha! No calling me sir!”
My mom laughs, and as she and Brandon start chatting, more people come up and congratulate me on the game, including my two best friends, Eric Stetler and Jamie Chu.
“Awesome game, dude!” Eric says.
“Amazing how comfortable you looked out there,” Jamie says.
“Thanks, guys,” I say. “It felt pretty sweet, I gotta admit.”
“Hey, someone told me the varsity games are, like, livestreamed now,” Jamie says. “So that means you were shredding it for millions watching at home.”
Eric turns to Jamie. “Wait, so your JV games aren’t livestreamed?”
Jamie responds by punching Eric in the shoulder.
“Next year it’ll be you catching my passes,” I tell Jamie.
“We’ll see,” Jamie mumbles.
“No, for real!”
Eric makes a goofy face. “And I’ll stick my nose in the camera and say, ‘I’ve known those guys since second grade!’”
As we all laugh, I see Nina waving at me from the parking lot. “Yeah, anyway you guys, I gotta roll,” I say.
“Wait, seriously?” Eric turns and sees Nina. “Oh, gotcha,” he adds, looking a little bummed.
I turn to my dad’s college-coach friend. “It was an honor to meet you, Mr. Williams.”
“The pleasure is mine,” he says. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, and we’ll have ourselves a time!”
I start walking up to the parking lot as quickly as I can without running. After a few steps, I no longer care about ditching my best friends, or the fact that I just met a guy who might be recruiting me for college.
A girlfriend can do that to a guy.
3
Nina has a big camera around her neck that is really old, and is wearing a shirt with a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt on it. When I first saw her wearing that shirt about a year ago, I didn’t know who Eleanor Roosevelt was. I do now, though.
She gives me a giant exaggerated smile. “There he is! The superstar! What an amazing game! You ran so fast and threw the ball so far and everything!”
I know she’s being sarcastic, because she wasn’t even at the game. She likes to come after to take pictures, but I’m pretty sure she’s never seen me play. But I don’t care. I take my helmet off and hug her.
She peers down at my hands. “The fact that you named that thing Buck is truly the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you for saying that,” I say, “because I didn’t hear you the first ten thousand times you said it.”
She laughs, then gets up on her tiptoes and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
I can feel people watching.
I whisper something to her that I don’t have the nerve to tell anyone else. “My head hurts.”
Nina frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I got hit pretty good.”
I see clouds pass through her eyes. “This game,” she says, practically spitting. “This freakin’ game. I mean, seriously.”
“It was just one play.”
“I don’t care!” She throws her hands up in the air. “I gotta go.”
“You just got here.”
“I can’t be here right now. Text me later.”
“Nina, wait!”
But she doesn’t wait. She waves goodbye without looking back. I glance around, wondering who noticed that exchange, who saw the star quarterback get dissed by his girlfriend, but all of a sudden no one is paying attention.
People are too smart to get caught.
On the way home, we stop at Dusty’s, which has the best ice cream you’ve ever eaten in your life.
“What did you and Coach talk about?” I ask my dad, between licks of my coffee cone.
“Just wanted to make sure he knew that you’d taken a little shot,” my dad says, meaning the hit I took. Then he winks at my mom. “I let him know that your mother was keeping a close eye on him and was ready to pounce in order to protect her baby boy.”
My mom doesn’t look all that amused, though. “You need to be responsible for yourself, too,” she tells me. “If you ever take a hard hit and don’t feel right, you need to come out of the game. You have to say something. Tell the coach, tell the captain, tell someone. Right away.”
“She’s absolutely right,” my dad says. “There’s no shame in saying you’re hurt. You’re in this for the long haul. If you’re banged up, you need to let your coaches know.”
“I will, I promise.”
“And they want to know, believe me,” my dad adds. “The coaches will respect you more for telling them you’re hurt.”
“Got it.” I want to believe my dad, I really do, but it’s hard.
“Good.”
We eat our ice cream quietly for a few seconds. Then I say, “What about you, though, Dad? Did you ever take yourself out of a game when you were playing?”
He laughs. “You are definitely the funniest child I have.”
“I’m the only child you have.”
“Well, you’re still the funniest,” he says, winking. “It was a different time, Caleb. A very different time. No one asked to come out of a game, for any reason, unless you wanted to make sure you’d never go back in as long as you lived.” He looks over at my mom. “Thank God that’s all changed now, right, hon?”
As we drive home, I keep thinking about that.
That’s all changed now.
Has it?
YOUTUBE VIDEO
Sammy “Dinger” Springer, Amazing Touchdown Grab vs. Browns, 10.14.2002
ANNCR 1:
. . . It’s third and eight; the Jets have the ball at the Browns’ twenty-two yard line . . . Two tight-end set . . . Evans drops back . . . Lewis picks up the linebacker blitz, giving Evans a chance to throw . . . He lofts it up toward the corner pylon . . . WHAT A CATCH! WHAT A CATCH BY SPRINGER! SAMMY SPRINGER WITH THE TOUCHDOWN GRAB, AND THE JETS GO UP 23–16 WITH ONLY TWO AND A HALF MINUTES LEFT ON THE CLOCK!
ANNCR 2:
I can’t believe he held on to that ball, Vince. The kid they call “Dinger” took one heckuva shot. The safety and the cornerback sandwiched him pretty good, one got him low, one got him high . . . Looked like possible helmet-to-helmet contact, too . . . Man, the refs are really letting ‘em play out there . . . I tell ya, this kid Springer has really impressed me.
ANNCR 1:
He might not be the fastest guy out there, or the quickest, but Sammy Springer has hands of glue, and he’s as tough as they come.
ANNCR 2:
He really is.
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I watch old videos of my dad.
And tonight, I can’t sleep.
When I went upstairs after dinner to do homework, I put music on, like I always do. And that’s when the headache came back. It’s not as bad as before, but it’s still there. A soft pounding behind my eyes, like someone playing drums with a sock.
I don’t want to tell my mom or dad. So I tiptoe to the bathroom and gulp down a few Advil. Then I go back to my room and try to concentrate on my homework, but it’s hard.
The light hurts. I turn it off.
The music is too loud. I turn it down.
I google “concussion aftereffects,” but then close out of that window and shut my laptop before the search results come up.
I don’t want to know.
The Advil starts to work. The throbbing becomes duller. I think maybe I can sleep. I lie down and close my eyes.
Five minutes go by.
Nothing.
I open the laptop back up.
If you search “Sammy Springer” or “Dinger Springer,” a zillion hits come up. You have to narrow them down to get to the good stuff. So I search “Sammy Springer all-time best catches.” I watch a bunch of clips I’ve seen before—from college and the pros. I’m always amazed at what a great pass-catcher my dad was. Anything near him, he caught. The focus, the hand strength, the perfect routes he ran—my dad had all the tools. If his career had lasted just a little longer, maybe he really would have made the Hall of Fame. But we’ll never know.
I close out of “Sammy Springer all-time best catches” and think for a second. My head is still there, knocking softly, telling me it’s not quite right. I think about trying to go to sleep. I decide not to. I search something else.
“Sammy Springer wild card.”
The highlight of my dad’s career was when he played in the 2005 Wild Card game. The Jets were playing the Chargers. He only had two catches for thirty-seven yards, but they were both so sweet. I’ve seen them more times than I can count. The first catch is the best.
YOUTUBE VIDEO
Twelve Yards the Hard Way, Wild Card Playoffs 1.8.2005
ANNCR 1:
. . . Tight game early in the second quarter . . .
ANNCR 2:
Jets are still trying to find their rhythm . . .
ANNCR 1:
Pennington drops back, feeling the pressure . . . slings it out wide. Oh my! Somehow Sammy Springer comes up with that ball! A one-handed fingertip grab . . . Springer dances down the sidelines with two defenders draped all over him, finally gets dragged out of bounds after picking up the first down. What a play by Springer!
ANNCR 2:
Could this be the spark the Jets needed? We’ll see, but one thing is certain: When the team needs an energy play, an effort play, Sammy Springer delivers.
ANNCR 1:
And he always has.
I know every second of this video by heart. I think it might be the video that made me become obsessed with football, and obsessed with playing in the NFL. My dad always says it’s a combination of aggression and grace that makes the sport so mesmerizing, and he’s right.
I watch the video five more times and then I finally fall asleep.
4
Up until two years ago, all I cared about was sports. Football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring. Posters of athletes on my bedroom walls.
Girls were the last thing on my mind.
Then, on the first day of seventh grade, this new girl walked through the door of my homeroom class.
