Coaches had to keep him away from the press and charity events.
Not Gideon. It didn’t escape his attention that as quarterback, he’d become the face of the team. The press ate up his boy-next-door look, as one magazine described him.
He could care less about his appearance or what the female fans thought of him. He had a job to do, a game to play, a chance to be taken seriously as an athlete.
“To win, we’re going to have to remember our training.” Gideon didn’t raise his voice, a trait he’d learned from his mother. If spoken with conviction, people will listen. “We’re going to remember how we got here. We’re going to play like this could be the very last time we will ever play this sport we love again.” Gideon peered over his teammates’ heads when he saw the locker-room door opening. He focused on his team. “Play hard, men. Play with integrity. Win for Virginia.”
“Do it for the Gipper, man?” Dennis asked and then laughed.
Gideon smiled. “I don’t know what your girl’s name is now.”
The group of men around them laughed.
Dennis put his hand on Gideon’s shoulder and pulled him back. “I got this.”
“Got what?” Gideon felt his eyebrows knit together as he watched his friend move to the center of the room.
“We are Wolves!” Dennis shouted the encouraging words in the middle of the crowded locker room. He illustrated his exclamation by howling like a wolf, something their fans did on a regular basis for the team.
Gideon shook his head. He should have known Dennis would kick up the guys into a frenzy. He would have to be that calming voice of reason, even if his insides screamed along with Dennis.
The team, dressed in their standard red-black-and-gold uniforms, cheered while pumping their fists in the air.
“Fuck ‘Sharknado’! We all know a shark can’t beat a wolf, am I right?”
The team laughed and cheered at the same time.
“The Maui Sharks are going down!” Dennis raised his fists in the air.
Gideon put his hand on Dennis’s chest and faced him. “That’s enough.” As the quarterback, he had to be the leader. He had to set the mood for how the team played during this important game.
“Okay, guys. Huddle up.” Coach Brick, who must have walked into the locker-room area, waved his hands in the air signal the men to come together. “Christ, I can’t wait until this game is done so that you can take a damn bath, Thumper.”
The team laughed again.
“I bathe. It’s my jock that’s fragrant.” The big man cupped his crotch and grinned through his big, bushy red beard.
“Serious time, guys. Don’t think about this being the Super Bowl. Think about this as the game of your lives. Like Gid said, you’ve all trained for this. Stay smart. Stay sharp. Think two steps ahead of the other team. We can win this together. All in.” Brick put his hand palm down in the center of the circle.
The team put their hands on top of his.
Without prompting, the team shouted in unison, “Wolves rule!” Then they howled, leaning their heads back to project to the ceiling.
“Line up in the tunnel.” Brick pointed to the doorway.
The team all filtered out in a line with Gideon bringing up the rear. He picked up his shoulder pads and secured them onto his shoulders. One more thing he had to carry. He grabbed the collar portion of the weighted plastic protection to occupy his hands until he got onto the field.
“Uh, hold on, Gid.” Brick put a hand on Gideon’s chest.
Gideon peered down at his coach’s hand and took a step back as the rest of his team filed out of the room.
His coach epitomized his name. The former Hall of Famer stood about a foot shorter than Gideon’s six-foot-three height. His width nearly matched his height, and looking at the man from behind, it didn’t look like he had a neck. Topped off with his crew-cut hair, his coach looked like a pale brick.
Seeing the coach accelerated Gideon’s heartbeat. Gideon already had a hard time corralling his feelings about living out his dream at such a young age. Too bad he knew why he had arrived. His left knee throbbed as though it wanted to give its two cents about his situation.
“How are you feeling? You know all the plays?” Brick’s expression became somber.
Gideon tapped his temple. “Got them all. And I studied the Sharks’ previous games. They rely on their size to steamroll over their competition. It won’t happen to us.”
“And you’re doing okay?” His coach scanned Gideon from head to toe, purposefully stopping at Gideon’s knee area.
To refute his coach’s assumption, Gideon paced in his spot as he kept his gaze on Brick’s eyes. He couldn’t be seen as weak. No way could he miss this game.
“I’ve got a lot of pent-up energy. I can’t wait to get on the field.” Gideon pointed to the door to give his coach a hint to end this conversation.
“Okay. You got it.” Brick pointed to Gideon. “You know if you have any problems, you can tell me. We have Joshua waiting in the wings to fill in as quarterback. Push comes to shove, we can use Dennis.”
Gideon shook his head. “Why are you talking to me about contingency plans like I’m not going to play?”
Determination filled Gideon’s head and heart. He wouldn’t get himself to this point without seeing this game to the end.
Brick held up his hand to Gideon. “You’re right. If there’s nothing for anyone to worry about, I won’t press the issue.”
“Good.” He tried walking by Brick when the coach put his hand on Gideon’s shoulder.
“Did you get the shot?”
Gideon didn’t know what bothered him more, the fact that his coach knew Gideon had problems with his knee or the fact that he wanted him to push his body until he broke. He couldn’t put all the blame on Brick’s nonplussed reaction. Gideon had made it clear he would need to be dragged off the field for him to miss this game.
Gideon dropped his gaze and shook his head. “I don’t need it.” He wanted to do this win on his own head of steam, without chemical assistance.
Brick held up his electronic tablet. “The team doctor said—”
“He said they didn’t find anything wrong with my knee, not on the X-rays, not in the physical exam. Nothing.” He stared into his coach’s eyes when he spoke. “But I’m sure the doctor wrote down I mentioned my knee had been bothering me. I took a hard hit the last game.”
“That was two weeks ago.” Brick scratched his head under his Wolves baseball cap.
Gideon didn’t need a reminder. He’d worked his knee out harder, trying to strengthen it for the game. His big mouth had gotten him in trouble. “I’m
