Out of Texas. Connie was more layered than most people knew … She followed all the Southern conventions and was always the perfect wife and mother … But deep down, she was a dreamer. A head-in-the-clouds dreamer … She chose Coach over all of that and never looked back. But …” My mother paused, as if to fight a wave of emotion.
“But what?” I said gently, feeling so sorry for her, unable to imagine losing my own best friend.
“But I think she was waiting for her turn. Someday. There was so much that she wanted to do when Clive retired … See the world. Live abroad. She talked about Vienna a lot. She loved Vienna.”
“Why Vienna?” I asked.
“She lived there for a few years growing up, when her father was in the service …” My mother’s frown turned to a faint smile. “Can you imagine Coach in Vienna?”
“Do they get ESPN there?” I said, smiling back at her.
“Exactly,” she said.
My phone buzzed, and I looked down to see a text from Coach: Shea, Don’t sweat this story. Stay the course. Onward.
“What is it?” my mom said as I stared down at my phone.
“Nothing,” I said. “But I do have to go pack now. I have an early flight to Baton Rouge.”
“What’s in Baton Rouge?” my mom said, looking confused.
“Um. LSU,” I said. “We have a football game to play. Remember?”
Then, as I shooed my mother out of my apartment, I wrote back: Thanks, Coach. Onward.
The next day we hit LSU right in the gut. Three yards and a cloud of dust all day long. But the 27–3 victory in the blazing hot sun seemed only to add fuel to the media fire, and I could sense that every major paper, sports website, and blog was poised to run some variation of my story, rather than the highlights of our domination over the Tigers. Still, the win felt good, better than most, and I could see in Coach’s eyes a renewed determination to make this our year. Despite the investigation, and maybe because of the investigation, this really could be our season to remember. After all, winning was the ultimate fuck you—everyone in sports knew that much.
“Onward,” I whispered to Coach as he was heading into the press conference with Rhodes and Everclear.
He gave me a quick wink in return, then said, “You got it, girl.”
A few minutes later, the Q & A began, the first question predictably directed at Reggie about the investigation. Reggie, whose performance was nothing short of outstanding, leaned into the microphone with complete poise as he said, “Um. Yeah. I’m just gonna talk about football today.”
Undeterred, the reporter pressed, “Do you know Raymond Matthews?”
I knew from my investigative digging that this was the name of the Cincy booster in question, and could tell by the look on Reggie’s face that he knew the name, too.
Coach barked into his mic, rushing to Reggie’s aid. “You heard Mr. Rhodes. Now we’re gonna end this thing real quickly if y’all don’t keep your questions on the game today.”
I bit my lip and looked down at my laptop, typing up the quote, and thinking that there was pretty much nothing sexier in the world than a fired-up Coach Carr.
Twenty-two
The following week, Smiley finally ran my piece on Rhodes, which only threw fuel on the NCAA-investigation fire, bringing out all the haters who couldn’t stand how good we were, now ranked fifth in the country. At 7–0, we were just past the midway point of our schedule. It was something of a surprise every year, to find ourselves with more games played than remaining, perhaps because fall has a way of sneaking up on you in Texas, deceiving you with its balmy weather. The Saturdays roll along at a steady clip until you’re astounded to realize that November is just around the corner. This season was passing especially quickly, with no losses to break up our forward momentum.
Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys were looking strong, too, which put Ryan in a mood as upbeat as mine, and the two of us fell into a comfortable, cozy rhythm with several sleepovers a week. I still hadn’t attended any of his games, which he had pointed out more than once, but I couldn’t help feeling paranoid that Smiley would somehow find fault with our relationship and hold it up as another example of my unbreakable bias. Ryan was a Cowboy, but he’d always be a Bronco, too.