76
“Coach, I’d love to go out for the football team, but I can’t.”
Mark knew that the words sounded false as they passed through his lips. Coach Crawford’s eyes locked him in place.
“I want you to listen to me, son. I would never talk to you like this if I hadn’t already had a discussion with your parents. Your father told me he had encouraged you to try out for the football team. I’m sure you know that he was an all-state defensive end when he went to high school in Albuquerque.”
Mark nodded. Oh crap, here it comes, he thought.
“Now I know that you see a future for yourself in college basketball, and I understand why Coach Dickey doesn’t want you to risk injury playing football, but the truth of the matter is that high school is what makes a young man. If you look at the great athletes, the greatest among them excelled in multiple sports. They never let fear make their decisions for them. Not fear of failure. Not fear of injury. Hell, not even fear of a tough coach.
“They believed in themselves. It’s that kind of belief that makes a winner. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mark?”
Mark swallowed hard. “Yes, Coach. I believe so.”
Coach Crawford slapped his shoulder firmly enough to be heard across the hallway. “Good. I’m not going to ask you to make a decision right now. You made your initial choice when you didn’t come out for summer tryouts and two-a-day practices. Your muscle definition says you have a great work ethic and self-motivation. If you give it a chance, football will give you the confidence and belief in yourself it takes to be a real winner.”
Coach Crawford patted him on the shoulder once again. “Think about what I said.”
Before Mark could respond, the coach turned and walked down the hall toward the gymnasium. Mark stood by his locker, watching the coach disappear into the crowd of students hurrying on their next class.
Great. He was being spied on by some Rho Project anomaly. He had made Heather so angry that she wasn’t even looking at him, much less speaking. Now the high school football coach had implied he was a coward for not trying out for the football team. Could the first day back at school get any better?
The real pisser was that Mark wanted to play football, wanted it more than he wanted to play basketball. He wasn’t the least bit worried about getting hurt. What worried him was that he couldn’t control his adrenaline. In the rush of excitement, he might hurt someone horribly.
A year ago, he would have gone for it, figuring that his enhanced reflexes would allow him to keep from hitting anyone too hard. That was even truer now. What scared the crap out of him was that, in the heat of the moment, he might want to hurt someone. Shit. All it took to send him into an adrenaline stoked rage was for Heather to smile at some boy down the hall. And it didn’t seem too likely that the referees would let him call time-out after every play so he could meditate.
“Mark Smythe!”
The authoritative tone spun his head in the direction of the sound.
Principal Zumwalt stood three feet away, his gaze locked on Mark’s face. “Come with me, young man.”
Without waiting for a response, the principal strode away down the hall toward his office with Mark in his wake, the students parting around them like the Red Sea for Moses. As they stepped into his office, Principal Zumwalt motioned for Mark to take a seat and then closed the door behind him.
The principal moved around his desk, seating himself so that he stared at Mark across steepled fingers. As the silence dragged on, Mark began to wonder if he was expected to be the first to start talking. However, since he had no idea why he was even sitting here, he resisted the impulse to speak.
“Mark, I know that Coach Crawford spoke to you about trying out for the football team. I want you to know that his approach was out of line and I will be speaking to him about it.”
“Sir, I appreciate it, but that’s not really necessary.”
“In my mind it is. And I wish that was the reason that I called you to my office.”
Principal Zumwalt paused again, and with each passing second the oppressive atmosphere of the closed office deepened.
“There are times when being a high school principal is unpleasant in the extreme. Although what I am about to tell you affects your sister and Heather McFarland as well, I called you in first since you are the most deeply impacted.
“The Los Alamos school board met last night to discuss proposed sanctions for the alleged plagiarism that led to your team’s disqualification from the National Science Competition.”
Mark inhaled deeply. Oh Jesus, not that again.
“Even though no formal finding was issued by the judges, the school board felt obliged to reexamine the facts of the incident to see if you violated school standards in a way that brought dishonor to this institution and to the community as a whole.
“Mark, I want you to know that the board was split down the middle on this one and that many people, including myself, came forward in support of you three. However, in the end, a couple of key votes on the board were influenced by the strong statement provided by Dr. Donald Stephenson, who argued that failure to harshly punish all three of you impugned the intellectual integrity of this school. He also emphasized that star athletes across the country are granted immunity from academic standards all too often and that such a thing has no place in the elite boundaries of Los Alamos.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the board has decided that all three of the members of your science team will be banned from all extracurricular activities for the entire school year.”
Mark was too stunned to speak.
“That means you are banned from participation in high school clubs, band, or high school athletic teams. For you that means no basketball.”
Mark swallowed hard to clear his throat. “But, sir, surely there is something we can do, some appeal we can make.”
“I’m afraid not. The school board is the final authority in this matter, and they have spoken. I’m sorry.”
Unable to remain sitting, Mark rose to his feet. For several seconds he stood there staring at Principal Zumwalt, feeling as sick as if he had just been kicked in the groin. Unable to find anything else to say, he merely nodded, then turned and walked out of the office into a suddenly alien hallway.
Rage at the injustice of it all rose up within him until he found himself shaking. Desperate to get outside before he did something he would regret, Mark stumbled through the front doorway and began running along the highway toward home.
If they didn’t want him playing basketball, fine. He didn’t want to play for that God damn intellectual snob high school anyway. As the ground swept past beneath his feet, a single thought hammered the inside of his skull.
Screw them. Screw them all.