The Underdogs by Mike Lupica Page B

coach.”
    â€œYou’ll think of something, you always do,” Joe Tyler said.
    Will said, “You sound like him.” Nodding at Tim.
    Joe Tyler grinned and said, “Watch your mouth.” Paused and said, “Seriously? Look on the bright side. You wouldn’t even be here tonight if you hadn’t come up with the brilliant idea of sending the letter to the sneaker guy.”
    â€œI know, Dad. Believe me, I know. But I was sure that when guys found out that not only were we gonna have a team, that we had a sponsor—”
    â€œA proud sponsor,” Tim added.
    â€œâ€”like New Balance, guys would be willing to run through a wall to play with us.”
    His dad said, “You’ve never had to run through walls because you always found a way to make a hole for yourself, even when the blocking broke down. Or found a hole. So find one now.”
    His dad made it sound so easy. Will wished. The guys helped him clean up. Then they left, too. It was still way earlier than when Will went to bed, especially on a weekend night. But sometimes thinking this hard, on anything, thinking this hard and wanting something this badly, exhausted him in a way that sports never did.
    He washed up, got ready for bed, shut off the lights, found the Pirates station on his small radio, knowing they were getting ready to play the Padres in San Diego. Will liked baseball well enough. But he loved games from the West Coast in the night.
    So now that was his background music, the voices of the Pirates announcers, the sounds of the game coming into his bedroom from all the way across the country.
    But he was still thinking football thoughts, back of his head on the pillow, fingers laced behind it, staring at the ceiling.
    Waiting for another brilliant idea.
    Trying to find his hole.

CHAPTER 10
    T his time he wasn’t going to tell anybody what he planned to do, not even Tim. He was just going to improvise, the way you did with a broken play.
    He had decided in the night that Tim was wrong, that his first priority was to find more bodies, not a coach, even though he was pretty much set on who he thought the coach ought to be. It was actually pretty funny, Will thought. Not Simpsons funny. Just odd. Just by writing a letter and getting a response he never expected, it was like he was now running football for twelve-year-olds in Forbes. Like he was the town council guy for the West River league.
    And all he really wanted to do was have somebody hand him the ball.
    For now, he was keeping his eye on the ball.
    Somehow—whatever it took—he kept repeating that one line to himself, over and over—they were going to have a season.
    Somehow, he had been telling himself all night and all morning and would keep telling himself, he was going to find at least one more guy. Had decided that was job one, as his dad liked to say. If they had to start the season with eleven, so be it, they’d just line up and pray that nobody got hurt. Or quit. Will had come too far to back up or back off now.
    Whatever it took.
    Of course he’d never heard of a team going into a season with just eleven players. Of course he knew enough about football to know how they’d be living on the edge every time the ball was snapped. Oh, sure, he could see it now, some close game where their best guys would never get to come off the field. That part was fine for Will, of course, he never wanted to be off the field for a single play. He even loved playing on the kickoff team and flying downfield as a gunner covering punt returns. But not everybody was like him. They just weren’t. He knew his friends loved football, just not the way he did.
    So it wasn’t too hard to see Tim or Chris or Jeremiah being totally gassed by the end of some games, especially when the weather was still warm in September, hands on knees, too tired to make the tackle or the block or the play that might make the difference between winning and