The Walk On by John Feinstein Read Free Book Online Page B

three—behind Gordon and Bilney—but he harbored a small hope that he had shown enough the first couple days of practice to find himself second when he looked at the chart.
    “I already looked,” Jonas said, apparently reading his mind. “You’re third.”
    Alex opened his locker, hoping to make it harder for Jonas to read his disappointment.
    “What about you?” he asked.
    “Second at both wide receiver spots,” he said. “The starters are both seniors. I get it. I’m not worried.”
    Alex knew he didn’t need to worry. He’d thrown to all the receivers the previous week, and while the two seniors in question were both good, they couldn’t come close to matching Jonas’s speed or his hands. His hands were what set Jonas apart.
    Jonas would play from the first game and he would play a lot because the coaches would understand he gave them abetter chance to win. The same wouldn’t be true, he knew, at the quarterback position.
    “You better hustle and get dressed,” Jonas said. “They’re taping the sophomores now.”
    Dress now, sulk later, Alex told himself.

    Being the third-string quarterback wasn’t too bad for Alex. During drills, he got as many reps as Gordon and Bilney. Practice was more intense than what he was used to from middle school. There were more coaches and everything was scripted: there was no fooling around going from one drill to the next. Even water breaks were managed closely: two minutes and they were done. No lingering.
    Even so, it was football practice and Alex felt at home. It was a good way to end an awkward first day at a new school.
    Day two was easier—or at least practice seemed to come sooner. Matt Gordon continued to be both friendly and encouraging. At one point, when Alex hit Jonas perfectly in stride on a deep fly pattern, he patted Alex on the shoulder and said, “Great throw, Goldie.”
    Alex looked at him and said, “Goldie?”
    Gordon grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “Goldie with the golden arm.”
    It was tough not to like Gordon. He was clearly the team’s leader, and there was no doubt that the respect the other players had for him came from his ability and his personality and had nothing to do with the fact that he was the coach’s son. If anything, everyone liked him despite the fact that he was the coach’s son.
    Alex’s comfort level took a nosedive when the team began scrimmaging. By his count, the team ran fifty plays during the last hour of Tuesday’s practice. The ones got about thirty plays, the twos around fifteen. Alex didn’t know the exact number. He did know the exact number of snaps he took: five. On three of them he was told to hand the ball off.
    On one, Alex took the snap and started to run right. The slotback came from the right side of the formation, and Alex faked a handoff to him as he ran by. Keeping the ball on his hip, Alex got around the corner and ran about ten yards before pulling up.
    Quarterbacks weren’t tackled during scrimmages so no one really bothered to chase him down.
    “Good job,” Coach Hillier, who was calling the plays, said as Alex jogged back to the huddle. “Okay, let’s end on a high note: X left, Z right, and go.”
    He looked at Alex. “You got that?” he asked.
    Alex nodded. He’d taken his playbook home to study and they had spent time before practice going over the basic plays. The two wide receivers were designated as X and Z. In this case, they were Tim Cummings and Freddy Watts, the third-stringers at those positions. “Go” simply meant that both would run deep and Alex would try to hit one of them. In a game, the slotback would be the “check-down” receiver, meaning if no one could get open deep, the quarterback would look for him over the middle on a short route. In a scrimmage, Alex would throw the ball deep, no matter what—especially since this was his one chance to show the whole team what he could do.
    What was apparent, as Alex dropped back, was that thedefensive coaches hadn’t