Iona

I wore the wrong bra for this.

I wore a going-away-party bra, not a football-playing bra.

I should have predicted that the girls—the middle school ones I coach, not the ones in my bra cups—would want to play a game of goodbye flag football, and I should have predicted that they’d want me to play with them and that I wouldn’t be able to resist.

I should have foreseen the bouncing, the sweating, and the wire. Ow.

It doesn’t take long, though, before the game makes me forget. They want me to QB one of the impromptu teams, and as soon as I get the football in my hands and am looking out over my little squad, instinct takes over and I stop thinking about my lingerie and equally improper footwear—black boots—and just play.

First and ten. Ish. More like first and seven, actually, because of the necessity of improvising the hash marks. But whatever. I hand off to Neve. She gets about four yards before Marci deflags her. So I feed Neve again. Why not? Because Neve will carry that ball all day long, juking and dodging to evade her teammates. I’m going to miss her like crazy—not just how brilliant and natural an athlete she is, but the totally unruly attitude that makes her stubbornly refuse to use any of the footwork I’ve tried to teach her. She reminds me of myself.

Third and inches. Keisha is way downfield, wide open, because her teammates have once again underestimated her. Love that girl.

For a moment I’m tempted to grab the big play, but then I look over at Neve, and I guess I just identify with her too much. This is hers. So I fake the pass and hand it to her. And she darts and weaves through traffic and then—keeps on going. Running all the way downfield, faster than her large frame makes her look. Right into the end zone. And she turns around and shows me the grip she’s got on the ball. Just like I’ve showed her.

For a moment I’ve forgotten. The boob sweat, the fact that I’ve probably ruined my one pair of decent shoes. The fact that we’re playing a game of flag football for zero stakes in a ratty park fringed with dangerous neighborhoods. It could be the Sunday night game. There could be bright lights and television cameras and the roar of tens of thousands of adoring fans.

You can see it in Neve’s eyes, too. That moment of victory stands in for all the moments in her beautiful, vivid future.

We win the game, even though I try to keep things fair. Afterward, the girls swarm me and hug me and tell me how much they’re going to miss me. And my eyes fill with tears as I clutch their sweaty bodies around me and tell them I’m going to miss them so much. It’s true. I’m going to miss them more than the grown women I coach, even though the grown women in question have risen to the top of their division and probably would have a shot at a championship next year.

I feel a stab of guilt at the thought, but I push it away, because the only way to become a great women’s coach is to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way to work with the best of the best of the best. And that’s exactly what my new job in Seattle is. And when I’m done there, I’ll come back to Baltimore and I’ll have that much more to give the girls and women I work with here.

“Ms. Thomas?”

I don’t know the man standing in front of me, but he’s got the same long lashes and slight hangdog expression as his daughter. It’s Neve’s dad; I’d bet on it. I’ve never met him because he’s been deployed the whole time I’ve been working with Neve. I’ve only met her mom, a slight, quiet woman who doesn’t seem like she could possibly have given birth to her bruiser daughter. Now I know where Neve got her stature, her strength….

And apparently, her stubborn expression. My stomach seizes, anticipating trouble.

“Neve says you want her to try out for the boys’ high school team next year. She says you’ve been running contact drills with the girls and private coaching her for tackle.”

I decide to play this one straight, for now. No point in turning it into a battle before we’ve even gotten started. “Yes, sir,” I say. “Neve is an incredibly talented running back, and I think she has what it takes to get a spot on the high school team.”

“Girls don’t play tackle football.”

He says it so flatly, for a moment the fight goes straight out of me, and I’m suddenly thirteen years old and face-to-face with my own dad, telling me that girls don’t play football.

But this is not my dad and I’m not the one whose fight this is, so I shake off my feelings of childlike helplessness and frustration.

“Why not?” I ask.

“She’s gonna get hurt.”

“Not if she plays smart. The coach at Winfrey is good. Very few player injuries there. They do a lot of fundraisers and the money goes into equipment.”

But he’s got a certain look on his face, pinched and disdainful, and a cynical part of me knows this fight isn’t about safety.

Sure enough, he says, “It’ll ruin her social life. I want her to fit in with the other girls. A girl who plays football—where does she belong?”

He doesn’t say, No boy will ever want to date her, but I hear it. The echo of my father’s warnings. I say, “With due respect, Mr. Keyes, if you’re lucky enough to love something and be as talented at it as Neve is, you don’t just walk away from it because it’s going to make your social life more difficult for a little while.”

(Or for the rest of your life. But I refrain from saying that. I don’t think it’s going to help my argument with Mr. Keyes.)

“She could easily get a full scholarship to college,” I say instead.

“She’s not gonna get a scholarship that way. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

Jesus; he could be my dad. I think those exact words came out of his mouth.

There are a lot of people who would agree with him, but I’m not one of them. I’ve been playing football as long as I can remember, straight through high school, with the boys. And I wasn’t just the place kicker, either, which is where a lot of girls get relegated. I played backup QB, running back, safety, and even linebacker. Then I played in college. Of course things got even more competitive then, and I didn’t get a lot of reps, which was when I started playing pro women’s.

Like me, Neve isn’t content to play the safe girl version of the game. She wants what most male football players want—the satisfaction of a good hit, the physicality of the real game.

And if her dad took the time to ask her about it, and really listen, he’d probably get it, because he’s probably felt the same way about something in his life.

But this man is not listening, not to his daughter, and not to me. “I didn’t work this hard and spend half her childhood overseas to put her in danger, both physically and emotionally. I did it so she can be safe and happy. And there’s no way football’s gonna do that for her.”

I know he’s sure he has her best interests at heart, but all I can think is, Poor Neve. Last week, she’d been over the moon about having her dad back from his deployment, but I’m betting she’s not so happy to see him now. “Sir,” I begin, but he crosses his beefy arms over his chest.

“There’s nothing to discuss here. She’s my daughter. Stay away from her. You got a new job, you go do that job and leave my daughter alone. No emails, no phone calls, no advice.”

The fact is, I’m not going to have time to interfere in Neve’s life. Or do anything to help her out with her dad. At best, I could maybe tell her, Been there, done that. Hang in there, honey, and stand up for yourself. And the guy’s right. He’s her dad; I’m just her coach. Not even her high school or college coach, just a volunteer who plays a couple times a week with this motley crew of girls—some with talent, some who I’ve admitted to the team because I know they’d be getting in trouble somewhere without it.

But I said I identify with Neve, right? With her stubborn streak, her trouble accepting authority. So I can’t let Mr. Keyes have the last word. Just can’t do it.

“That’s right, sir. You’re the parent. So if you take football away from her, you’re the one who’ll have to live with breaking her heart and ruining her prospects.”

And then I walk away, leaving him with his mouth open, and start the messy, tearful business of saying goodbye, one by one, to these girls I’ve come to love.