Yrogergj24's Dynasty Blog
| From Friday Nights to Sunday Afternoons - Travis Buchanon's Football Odyssey | 2
Posted on August 27, 2011 at 10:14 AM.
“Quit slacking! Only another half mile!” he heard one of the coaches yell behind him. Travis made a mental note to himself: never take a swimming pool for granted again.
When the team had finally finished, most of them were bent down and gasping for air. He glanced over at Taylor, who was completely out of breath.
“Holy ****, I can’t do that every day,” he choked out.
After a few more hours of drills, Travis felt like going home. Middle school conditioning never surpassed anything more grueling than a one mile run. Luckily they were given an hour for lunch, otherwise he might not have made it much longer. He and his friends found a table and began destroying their provided food.
“That was brutal,” Kevin said, chowing down a sandwich. “I’m nowhere near in as good of shape as I thought I was.”
“I heard it’s over ninety out now,” Sean added.
“Feels like 100 to me.”
“Wait until we get pads…”
A collective groan rose from the table.
“Not everyone looked dead out there,” Derek said. “You guys see Reggie Blount?”
“Yeah, man.”
“Kid’s a freak.”
“Who’s Reggie Blount?” Travis hadn’t been paying attention to anyone else; he had been concerned with just making it out of the morning drills. Parker answered him.
“Starting tailback. Been starter since his sophomore year. You’ll know him when you see him, dude’s 6’2’’, 200. That’s what his rivals page says.”
“Yeah man, I saw that,” Kevin said. “He’s five stars, it’s crazy. I heard he has offers from Ohio State and Oklahoma already.”
“I’m gonna be five stars in a few years, too,” Sean said, finishing his sandwich.
“How about you find a position first, *******.”
Travis laughed with the others, but tuned out the recruiting talk to think about quarterback drills. He wondered how many people he was behind talent wise right now. He wasn’t delusional enough to think he could start freshman year, but he hoped there weren’t too many people ahead on the depth chart so he could start for more than just a year or two.
After lunch, Travis and the other quarterbacks were shepherded away to a corner of the field by what he assumed was his new QB coach. He looked pretty young to be an instructor though; the guy couldn’t be any older than 25.
“Hey. My name is Luke Heron, and for some of you, this will be your first time throwing a ball as a Paul Laurence Dunbar Bulldog. I started here for three years, and won state my senior year in 2001. Won Mr. Kentucky, and played my college ball for Clemson. Supposed to be a day one draft pick according to the experts, and we were winning bowl games, so I thought nothing could touch me. That was until my senior year, when I got hit by a blindside and landed hard on my throwing elbow. Out for the season, didn’t get drafted, and barely graduated because I thought my future was set playing ball before that. Now I’m here teaching teenagers. So my first bit of advice: don’t ignore school. Football can be taken from you in a second; all it takes is a bad break.”
Heron let that sink in for a second, especially for the players who might have a future with the sport.
“But don’t worry about all that **** right now, and especially don’t feel bad for me. I still got more *** at this school than any of you will ever dream of.”
The players laughed, and Heron picked up a football.
“Good, nice to see some life from you all. Now pair up, we’re going to start with some long toss to wake up your arms.”
Travis checked out his competition. There were five other quarterbacks besides him, most of them looking pretty young. Heron appeared at his side.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Travis Buchanon, sir.”
“Just call me Coach, Travis. Here, pair up with Neal over there.”
Travis looked over to see a kid already with a football. He knew who he was: Neal Koski. He was a senior and started most of the games for the Bulldogs last year. He had flowing black hair and deeply tanned skin, and was a little shorter than Travis despite being three years older.
“What’re you waiting for, rookie? Warm up my arm,” Neal called out, lobbing the ball to Travis.
They were about thirty yards apart, and the other pairs had already started throwing. Travis threw the ball, trying to make as nice of an arc as he could while putting some touch on it to make it easily catch-able.
Neal smirked, and fired a pass right at Travis’ chest. He barely caught it, sharp pain cracking in his fingers and the pads of his hands.
Neal was chuckling, aware of the freshman’s struggle to handle his pass. Travis was irked, but decided to take the higher road and ignore it, firing back another arcing pass like they were supposed to be doing. No point in pissing off the senior at the top of the depth chart.
But Neal threw another bullet as hard as he had before. Travis was ready this time, and caught it deftly.
“What’s your problem, man?” Travis yelled. Neal laughed.
“Just throw the ball, rookie.”
Travis glared, looking his elder straight in the eyes. He reared back and put all of his power behind a throw aimed right at the senior’s stomach. Neal didn’t expect it coming, and took a blow that knocked the wind out of him before he could figure out what was happening.
Neal crumpled to the ground, on all fours and clutching his stomach. The other quarterbacks stopped throwing to see what had transpired, and stared at the fallen senior. Neal slowly got up, and began walking over to Travis.
“Think you’re funny, *******? Huh? Do you?”
Heron looked up from his clipboard at was causing the commotion, and quickly stepped in front of Neal.
“What the hell are you doing, Koski? Get back over to your spot!”
“He tried to injure me, Coach! Someone needs to put the kid in his place!”
Heron gave him a shove back to where he had come from. “Quit messing with freshmen and get back to your spot, Koski. That, or you can run some damn laps.”
Neal kept glaring, but eventually walked back to his spot. Heron looked Travis up and down, and went back to his clipboard. Travis was surprised at himself; he was never one to look for conflict and attention, but he wasn’t about to get punked on the first day of practice, even if it was coming from the seniors.
Neal arced his next pass like he should have from the beginning, and they were able to start their first real game of toss all morning.
“Trying to show me up, rookie?” Neal grunted.
Travis caught the ball, and tossed it back. He looked the senior right in the eyes, not backing down.
“Catch the ball next time.”
Neither of them said anything beyond that. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Heron finally put them to a new drill: one that allowed their coach to grade their arm strength. The players got into a line, and each were going to be given a turn the throw the ball as far as they could down the field.
“You get one step, gentlemen,” Heron said, tossing the ball to a sophomore at the front of the line. “Impress me.”
The first couple attempts didn’t get past the fifty yard line. Travis was confident he could outdo that, at the very least, but he had no idea how far he could actually throw a football. Middle school had been a joke, and rarely involved any deep routes.
After Neal had far surpassed the other with a throw that traveled almost sixty yards, Travis the last one to go. The freshman stepped behind the line of the endzone, brought his arm back and let it fly, hoping he could at least come close to Neal’s.
The ball soared, and soared…and kept soaring. It crossed the PLD logo on the middle of the field where most of the others’ attempts had landed, but it was still going strong. The ball finally landed around the opposite side’s thirty.
“Holy ****!” he heard one of the players quietly exclaim behind him. Murmurs and whispers soon followed; a freshman had just thrown the ball seventy yards. Travis made his way to the back of the line and glanced at Neal, who was standing with a blank expression on his face, not daring to acknowledge his freshman competitor.
Heron tried not to show any emotion, looking down at his clipboard and marking a “70” next to the slot belonging to “Buchanon, T”. That was the best throw he had ever seen from a high school arm, and that included his own. Heron might have been able to throw seventy by his junior year at Clemson, if that.
“Good throw Buchanon, good throw. Alright, this next drill…”
Practice was much of the same for the rest of the day, with Travis standing out ahead of the pack on every drill, whether it tested throwing accuracy or arm strength. It was about as good of a first impression as he hoped he could have made.
He met up with his friends outside the gates after practice. “Hey guys, what’s up?”
Travis was surprised to see the look they were giving, almost as if they didn’t know him. Parker smiled and thumped him on the shoulder.
“Well if it isn’t the golden boy himself.”
“What?”
“We heard about you throwing the ball seventy yards,” Derek said. “It landed by some of the receivers and it was all they could talk about. They didn’t believe me when I told them you were a freshman.”
Taylor threw an arm around Travis’ shoulder. “I can see it now, bro...twenty bucks says you’ll have a Rivals page by the end of the week.”
The others laughed, and exchanged stories about how practice went.
“You guys need to see this one kid, JaMarius Ferguson,” Kevin said. “He’s our age, and he's faster than Reggie Blount, no ****ing joke. And they clocked Reggie somewhere around 4.4 at some camp a few months ago. This Ferguson dude’s a freak.”
“Yeah, offense isn’t going to be the problem,” Derek added. “There’s a ton of good receivers, I was like the only white guy. Devon Crown’s a ****ing beast and still has two years left here. What about the QBs, Trav? You gonna start freshman year?”
Travis laughed, shaking his head. “Probably not, man. I outplayed everyone all day, but Neal Koski started last year so I don’t think they’ll demote him. Not his senior year. He’s a lot more mobile than me, too. It just sucks that he’s such a douchebag, or I probably wouldn’t have a problem waiting a year.”
More stories of the first practice were recounted, and eventually their parents arrived to pick them up. Travis didn’t think he could wait two more years to drive, but there he was nothing he could do about it until he was sixteen. He was way too tired to go out for the night, and instead turned on the radio while relaxing in his room.
“Dan Forker here, and the first day of practice is in the bag for our Bulldogs. Let me tell you, it was an absolute killer at 92 degrees for much of the morning. The staff seems comfortable with the returning talent, but they’re supposedly really excited about the incoming freshmen. One name I want all of you to remember is JaMarius Ferguson. He’s a fifteen year old tailback who recently moved from Mobile, Alabama, and boy can this kid run the football. He has blazing speed, and could be the perfect change of pace back for Mr. Kentucky hopeful Reggie Blount.”
Travis smiled; this town was obsessed with football. One practice in, and they were already writing the depth chart.
“…but the real story of the day came from the quarterback position. One of the spectators in the stadium today said that one of the freshmen threw the ball over seventy yards during a drill. We don’t know the kid’s name yet, but let me tell you, I’ll have to see that with my own eyes for me to believe it. That’s just incredible.”
Travis was dumbstruck. His name (well, kind of) was already on the radio, and someone had seen that throw. He still couldn’t believe he was capable of airing it out like that.
He put in his iPod earbuds, grabbed a football, and went outside, ignoring his aching joints and ligaments. Listening to his favorite band, Blink – 182, Travis rifled a pass through the tire swing, right on target. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Brett Favre. The best quarterbacks in the NFL and his boyhood idols, and he wanted to be better than all of them. He wanted to be the very best to ever step foot on a god damn football field.
First step to fame: beating Neal Koski.
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