Two-Minute Drill by Mike Lupica

dad put down his knife and fork and in a soft voice said to him, “Hey, what happened to my Rudy?”
    Rudy was one of their favorite sports movies to watch together. No, that wasn’t right. It was one of their favorite movies, period. The story of the Notre Dame guy, a little guy who wasn’t supposed to make the team and then, once he was on the team, wasn’t ever supposed to get in a game. But he finally got in for one play and made a tackle and got carried off the field by his teammates at the end.
    It said on the screen at the end of the movie that it was the only time in the whole history of Notre Dame football that any player had ever been carried off the field.
    “You just gotta be ready for your Rudy moment,” his dad said.
    “But what difference does it make if I’m ready if I can’t even make a tackle in practice?” Scott said. “If the only person I can bring down most of the time is myself?”
    “Yet,” his dad said. “You haven’t made a tackle yet. ”
    Scott said, “The only big play I’m gonna make this season is in your dreams.”
    “Let me worry about my dreams,” his dad said. “You just worry about your own.”
     
    He called into the den and told his parents he was going to take Casey for a walk.
    “With the leash,” his dad said.
    “Case won’t go anywhere,” Scott said.
    “Case goes everywhere,” his dad called back, “especially at night. And, besides, you know the rules.”
    “At night he’s on the leash.”
    “And don’t—”
    “—leave the neighborhood.”
    Casey had never liked being on a leash, from the time he was a pup. But he knew the leash was a signal he was going outside, and he loved going outside. So he’d get almost as excited when he saw Scott with the leash in his hands as he did when Scott came walking down stairs with a ball.
    “Let’s go, pal,” Scott said.
    Casey’s answer was to come sliding right into Scott on their slippery kitchen floor.
    As soon as they were out the door, Casey was pulling him down the front walk. It was completely dark by now, and the old-fashioned streetlights were lit. When they got to the sidewalk, Scott saw a woman he recognized from up the block walking at them from the other direction, power-walking the way his mom did sometimes, earphones in her ears.
    As she passed them, she said to Scott, “Very cool dog.”
    Scott smiled and said, “I know,” wondering if she even heard him over whatever it was she was listening to.
    When the sound of her footsteps was gone, there was just the panting Casey the dog, straining against the leash the way he always did once they got going, wanting Scott to go faster.
    Alone on the street, Scott began to announce an imaginary game.
    “Welcome to Bloomfield North Field,” he said. “It’s a perfect morning for football as the Eagles prepare to open their season against their cross-town rival, the Jets.”
    Not a great voice, he thought.
    But not bad.
    “The Eagles have won the toss and elected to receive,” he said.
    On the quiet street, his voice sounding loud, Scott said, “Scott Parry to kick off. . . .”

TWELVE
    Chris’s big day in class was the Thursday before their first game.
    Mr. Dykes, their English teacher, was going to give them a passage from a book, ask them to read it in an allotted period of time, then quiz them on it right after they finished reading.
    Quiz them and grade them.
    “It will be like a homework assignment, just in class,” Mr. Dykes had told them on Monday. “And it will give me a good read, early in the semester, on your ability to not just read, but understand what you’re reading.”
    On the bus home on Monday, Chris had said, “If I have to read a chapter fast, I’m done like dinner. You know how slow I read.”
    “So you pick up a step by Thursday,” Scott had said.
    “You sound pretty confident.”
    “I am.”
    Actually, he wasn’t.
    That afternoon they figured out that it took Chris about two minutes to read a page. The book