seriously hurt, but well-timed minor injuries are another story, and I’m not-so-secretly grateful for the sprained wrist and hip contusion within the Alabama ranks. I’m even more grateful that I’m not up in the press box right now, pretending that this is just another day at the office.
“Did you bet on the game?” my mom asks Miller.
With a mouthful of hot dog, Miller says, “Hell, yeah, I bet on the game. Five hundred bucks. Easy money!”
My mother says, “Is it too late for me?”
“Nope.” Miller pulls his phone out of his pocket and says, “I can call my guy!”
I can’t keep myself from shouting, “Enough! Both of you! Would you please shut up?”
“Jeezy-peasy, sorry!” my mom says. “Forgot who we’re dealing with. Miss Doom and Gloom.”
I roll my eyes and stare straight ahead, bracing myself for a painful few hours of college football. And that’s if the game goes well.
But the first half goes anything but well. We come out flat and totally unprepared for Alabama’s physical play, quickly trailing by ten. Obviously it’s not an insurmountable deficit, but a hard gap to close against a team as good as Bama. While my mother and Lucy resort to Walker chants and cheers, and Miller and Lawton opt for cursing a blue streak at the refs, I pray and barter and promise, appealing to the football gods—and even God Himself. If we can pull off a comeback, I will settle for a dozen utterly forgettable, lackluster seasons. I’ll even take a few losing seasons, including humiliating losses to the Longhorns. I will never text Coach again. I will take a job in New York, leave Texas, and never look back.
None of our strategies work, and as the sun begins to set over the hills of Pasadena, we head to the locker room down 23–7. Halftime is unbearable with the endless chants of Roll, Tide, Roll, giddy performances by both marching bands, and more optimistic banter among my mom, Lucy, Lawton, and Miller. Meanwhile, I try to stay calm and put all my faith in Coach. I remind myself that he does his best work on the ropes, and is back there now, regrouping, reconfiguring, and reinvigorating our troops. Telling them that it’s now or never.
And then the second and final half of the college football season begins under a vibrant teal sky that I can’t resist pointing out to Lucy. “I know!” she says, staring up at it, her hand over her heart and the gold pin we are all wearing in memory of her mother. “I was just thinking the same thing. It’s amazing … I’ve never seen a sky like this before.”
One beat later, we nail a thirty-one-yard pass to the Bama forty-nine-yard line.
“Yeah! Fuck, yeah! That’s more like it!” Miller yells, pumping his fist in the air, then high-fiving Lawton.
I clap for the first time all night, as we go deep once again, covering another twenty-five yards to our backup wide receiver. Coach definitely has the Tide off balance with his hurry-up offense, and I watch with satisfaction as they begin shuffling personnel to try to contain the sudden explosion. On the next play, they focus on our deep threat, but we mix things up, rushing to the line and calling an audible before Everclear takes the ball sixteen yards on a bootleg.
I turn and shout, “Your dad’s a friggin’ genius!” at Lucy and Lawton.
On second down, Everclear fakes to Rhodes and connects with our tight end in the back of the end zone. There it is. Touchdown! In one minute and twelve seconds of flawless execution, we are back in the hunt. As Mike Green, our kicker, nails the extra point, I crack a small smile and high-five Miller.
On the ensuing possession, we load the box and blitz, looking much more confident on defense, too. Alabama is still able to convert a couple first downs, but the drive proves ultimately unfruitful as they punt from midfield, pinning us deep in our own territory. Coach plays it more conservatively from there, and the remainder of the third quarter becomes a battle for field position with an exchange of field goals.
“All right! All right, boys!” Miller shouts as we begin the fourth quarter with the ball on our twelve. “We’ll take it!”
I stare at the scoreboard, even though I have the 26–17 score emblazoned in my mind, telling myself it is entirely possible to erase a nine-point deficit in the final quarter of play. Over the next six and