Hometown Legend by Jerry B. Jenkins Read Free Book Online

the one renting me a room.”
    “He’s making his own brother pay?”
    “I told you. They need the money. I’d just as soon pay.” I was drowsy and rubbed my eyes, then looked at him. The flickering
     images reflected off his eyes as they darted about the screen. “Give me some speed and teachable kids,” he said. “That’s all
     I ask.”
    “It’s a caretaking job, Coach,” I said. “I’d be a liar if I said different. It’s about putting one last team on the field
     and seeing one more kid get the scholarship.”
    I had finally got his attention. “How do you turn this blamed thing off?” he said.
    “Just crank that to the left.”
    The room went dark. I turned on a light and we squinted till we got used to it. “You know I’m no caretaker, Calvin. If I’m
     gonna do this thing, I’m gonna do it with all my might. We’re going out there with one objective. We’re gonna win and keep
     on winning until we’re state champs.”
    I couldn’t muster a look that said I believed him, and you know he was searching my face for one. “I’m with you, Coach,” I
     said lamely.
    “You’ll come around,” he said. “You coach the way you played and you’ll see.”
    “Well, I gotta admit, there are a couple of interesting things going for us. First four games are at home, and I guess somebody
     pities us for the end of our school, cause we get to host the state title game.”
    “Let’s be rude hosts, what do you say, Sawyer?”
    I just nodded and smiled. He wouldn’t have wanted to hear what I had to say.
    • • •
    By Monday the whole town knew what was going on, and Coach Schuler liked to have drove me nuts. He was given a couple of hours
     of health to teach and allowed to putz around the field house and start planning for the next season. Fred Kennedy thanked
     me for my work and the school board let me off the hook on teaching geography till the next fall.
    A few days after
The Athens City Courier
ran the headline “Coach Schuler’s Back!” the national sports magazines picked it up. We’d never been so popular, and I worried
     that people would have so long to get excited about it that Coach Schuler would never be able to satisfy em. Course he thought
     we were gonna win one more state championship and wouldn’t settle for less himself, so it was like I was the only one feeling
     the pressure.
    Before you know it, he’d dolled up a new playbook he wasn’t allowed to show any players till the next summer, but I got to
     read it every night, give him feedback on every idea, and work with him on the field, the stadium, everything cept the field
     house, which, as he said, needed to stay just like it was.
    Rachel asked me one day, “Is he the miracle we need, Dad?”
    I could never bring myself to tell her anything but the truth. “Sweetheart,” I said, “this may do more for Coach than it does
     for us. The only thing that’ll save this town is business improving, and I don’t see it.”

8
    B uster sat with me in church that Sunday cause I probably looked lonelier than a skunk at a picnic. Rachel always either had
     choir or her class of girls to teach or her own friends to sit with, so I was glad for the company and of course a little
     proud to be seen with him. I asked him was he excited and could he hardly wait till next summer, but before he could answer
     I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Bev sitting behind us with her friend Kim.
    “Am I gonna have to separate you two?” Bev said. “Now hush!” We chuckled, but we also obeyed.
    I’m usually pretty good about paying attention in church, cause I need it. But something was bothering me and when I finally
     got it surrounded in my brain, I realized it was Kim. She’s a kind of a severe-looking woman, dark-haired and usually serious.
     She had a reason. She’s in her late fifties and had raised a couple of boys by herself cause her husband left her years ago.
     And I know the church had prayed for her dad,