Cover-up by John Feinstein Page B

field, not off it,” he added.
    Stevie asked if he had a favorite memory. “Oh yeah, that’s easy,” Kerns said. “It was in the state championship game against Newark Catholic. We were down 10–6 in a pouring rain with four seconds left, and Eddie threw me a perfect ball in the corner of the end zone—to this day I swear I don’t know how he gripped it to throw it that well—and I couldn’t hold on. It was like trying to catch a seal. So we had time for one last play from the four-yard line. Everyone knew we would throw, we had no running game, but how was anyone going to catch the ball?
    â€œWe called time-out, and our coach was talking about running some kind of double reverse. He thought we’d surprise them, but I’m thinking there’s no way we’re going to be able to make two handoffs
and
get our footing
and
get around the corner. So, going back to the huddle, I said to Eddie, ‘Let’s run E-D Special.’ He looked at me like I was nuts.”
    â€œWhat was ‘E-D Special’?” Stevie asked.
    Kerns smiled. “Eddie-Darin Special,” he said, grinning. “It was a play he and I first came up with in peewee football when we were ten. Absolute trick play. You don’t even tell the other nine guys! You call a pass play in the huddle. Everyone—I mean everyone—thinks it’s a pass. Quarterback goes back and everyone is blocking to keep the pass rushers to the outside. One receiver—me—takes a step as if to go out in the pattern, then turns and goes straight to the middle of the field because
you know
there’s going to be one blitzer coming straight up the middle to try to get to the quarterback. He blocks the blitzer just as the quarterback fakes a pass, pulls the ball down, and runs straight up the middle with the ball. Quarterback-draw play.”
    â€œDid it work?”
    â€œYup. I got the blitzer, and Eddie walked into the end zone completely untouched. We’re all jumping up and down and celebrating, and our coach is out there screaming, ‘What the hell was that? What are you guys doing running some school-yard play with the state championship at stake?!’ And Eddie just said, ‘Yup—and that school-yard play just won you the state championship, Coach.’”
    Stevie could see that the memory was still pretty vivid for Kerns—even eight years later. “One thing you have to understand about Eddie,” he added. “He’s never afraid on a football field. People miss that sometimes because he went to Harvard and uses SAT words when he talks. But there’s no one more fearless than Eddie Brennan.”
    That quote, Stevie realized, would need to go very high in his story.
    Kerns was telling Stevie that he and Brennan had bet dinner on the outcome of the game, when his phone rang. “Gotcha,” Kerns said to whoever was on the other end.
    â€œThey’re wrapping up out there,” he said. “Have you got enough?”
    â€œTo start a book,” Stevie said, thanking him.
    Kerns laughed and gave Stevie his cell phone number. “Anything I can help you with during the week, give me a call. I’d give you some Ravens gear, but I doubt you want to be seen with it around here.”
    Stevie laughed. “Imagine what Li’l Donny would say. He’d think there was a media conspiracy to get the Dreams.”
    Kerns nodded. “You really are sharp for fourteen,” he said. “USTV will be sorry they went for the pretty boy over the smart kid.”
    They were walking out of the locker room at that point. “Thanks,” Stevie said. “But the pretty girl is very,
very
smart. She can probably cover for the pretty boy.”
    â€œWon’t be the same,” Kerns said, shaking hands as he prepared to duck into another room. “She’ll miss you. The show will miss you.”
    Stevie could only hope he was right.