Bishop
Everyone wanted to beat the champions.
If you ever wanted to have a target on your back, be the number 1 team for the past two years and all of a sudden, your opponents are hitting you harder, playing you harder than any other competitors they’ve had.
“You ready, Captain?” Ian’s composure was relaxed, but I knew that he was restraining himself from being overly excited. First games always held that feeling of high anticipation. Every game had it but tonight was different – we both knew it.
Tonight was the first game of our last year in college.
There would be no more “let’s try again next year.” Tonight was the next year and we wanted to put a dent in college rugby history.
I nodded my head. I was ready. Always ready.
From the time I could kick a ball, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. My father trained me for the ice and even though I was a master at it, I lived for the grass.
Coach Masterson was giving his pre-game speech and though I was listening, I was already pumped up enough, I’d been mentally prepping for this game for weeks. I was eager to get out there.
Looking down at my taped right hand, the bandage going over my thumb, I smiled at the crooked letters I’d written over them, “Never.” I’d written those words hundreds of times in calligraphy even when I had a lot of time before games.
Never lose.
Never be afraid.
Never be second place.
It stood for all the nevers in my life.
Tonight it just meant never get beat up. By that Samoan giant. Because that would hurt as fuck.
“You ready?” Coach Masterson said, his eyes on all of us then stopping at me.
I tilted my head in the affirmative.
Then joining my teammates in a semi-circle, I asked, “Who are we?”
All of my teammates answered, “Number one!”
I asked louder, “Who are WE?”
Their voices became ten times louder, “Number ONE!”
I inhaled a breath and looked at each one of my teammates, meeting their determined gazes and again, “WHO ARE WE?”
If the walls could vibrate and the lights shatter, they would.
To the twenty players screaming at the top of their lungs, “NUMBER ONE!”
This was not how I envisioned the game going. The first half fucking sucked.
I was getting tackled left and right. We were careless with the ball and the points were stacking up against us. Penalty points were being awarded to the other team.
On our 10-minute break, I guzzled the bottled water handed to me and I listened to the plays that Coach Masterson was giving me.
I knew the plays by heart.
“You have to move the ball.” Coach was saying and I breathed in, “Yeah.”
“I’m not getting a lot of space.” From what I’ve seen so far, Arkansas’ #13 was a mind reader. He breached our defense, tackled us effortlessly, and directed counterattacks without any problems.
I needed to do something to throw off his game because obviously, he’d been studying us. Really well.
Coach Masterson was rounding off the plays, “Hit them up to breach the line. Give it to Julian so he can run the ball himself.” Julian was # 7, acting half-back and scrum, they would not expect that move from us.
The ref was now signaling end of break so we started towards the field.
I raised my pointer finger to my teammates, “Number One.”
The fact was we were still Number One and in the next forty minutes, we would remain number one if we all worked together and powered through it.
The ball was loose.
It was fucking loose.
I fired off the ball to Ian and he passed it to Jose, who then handed it off to Julian and the giant motherfucker ran to the goal line, grounding it in to score.
I raised my fists in the air, feeling my chest pumped up with adrenaline. My teammates yelled and screamed, but the game wasn’t over.
We weren’t celebrating yet.
We weren’t going to celebrate until we were blowing out the scores, until the time had run out.
Cons received the ball from the line-out and removed it from the pack, passing it to me.
Giving myself two seconds to run through the plays in my mind, I gave the ball a good kick from up and under when I felt a boulder crash into my side.
I slumped down on the ground and my teammates swarmed over me.
“Fuck you!” Ian.
“Hijo de puta!” Jose.
“Stinkin’ asshole!” Ryan shouted. “That was a fucking dirty play!”
I was still on the ground, trying to regain my concentration and from a few feet away, I saw my teammates piling on the other team.
The referee blew out his whistle and a yellow card was raised up in the air.
I stood up, wiping the small amount of blood from my lip. My teeth had gnashed down on my jaw, causing it to bleed. Judging from the hit that I felt, this was minor compared to what it could have been if he had tackled me at a different angle.
The refs conglomerated on the field and I gave a thumbs up to my coach and my team on the sideline that I was okay.
I got the wind knocked out of my body, but that was nothing new.
My teammates ran over to me, patting me on the back. I could hear Ian mutter, “Illegal tackle.”
I wiped the sweat off my face and answered, “Believe me, I felt it.”
The play stoppage would cost Arkansas and now we had the advantage to kick for a goal with the game under a minute.
The ball was now set on the kicking tee, I eyed the seam of the ball as my target.
The noise around me was deafening, but I blocked it all out.
Nothing else mattered in that moment but me and the white and black ellipsoidal ball I’d been chasing for many years now.
One.
I took three long steps backward, another two steps to the right then a small step the left.
Two.
I swung my arms together, pushing all of my energy on my right leg.
Three.
I ran up to the ball, planting my left foot as close to the tee as I could.
Four.
Shifting my weight to my left foot, I allowed my right foot to swing and strike through the sweet spot, about a third from the inseam and-
BOOM.
I eyed the ball as it flew through space and with the angle that I kicked it, it passed through the goal post, without hitting the sides.
I opened up my arms and for a second, I embraced the screams that breached through my ear drums.
That right there.
That was why I did it.
I’d stood at the peak of Mt. Logan.
Spent a week at the mercy of Mt. Fuji’s terrains.
But nothing compared to the lows and highs of winning.
“…I greatly enjoyed the view from the top.”
The locker room was filled with joyous celebration. Everyone was basking in the glory. We made it happen tonight.
We were down by fourteen and yet we pushed through and won by six.
“That was close,” Cons said at my side.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We can’t let it happen again. We were bums early on.”
“Yep.” He played great tonight. He blocked and defended the ball with his masterful skills and one day, the European Union would call him and ask him to play for them.
It was his dream to play for his mother’s country.
“Your foot should have insurance,” he said, as he finished dressing up so we could all leave the stadium.
“Careful asshole,” Ian interjected. He was already slumped on the wooden bench and was now busy checking the messages on his phone. “Your foot fetish is showing.”
“Fuck you.” Constantine ping-ponged back. “You should see the way Katya uses her feet on my cock.”
I shook my head. There was no middle ground with these clowns.
They were either really behaved in front of Coach or downright nasty in the locker room.
“I once dated this girl from Baja. Oh man, the tricks she had, whew!” Jose chimed in, and Ian and Constantine both got roped into the conversation.
I grabbed my phone from my locker and checked my messages.
Hundreds of notifications from Instagram. It was the only social media I had and I only had it for the sake of having it. Bridge had set it up for me and I just stuck with it.
I also had hundreds of people wanting to be my friend but I often ignored them.
I liked to keep my circle small so the radius that I revolved around wasn’t too complicated.
Texts from Bridge piped through. “Congratulations! Saw your game on livestream. Wish I was there.” She had two major projects to prep for so she couldn’t make it. She promised she’d try for the next home game.
Texts from Rikko, Scott, and a few other frat brothers also pushed through, all saying “Congrats.” A few brothers watched the game tonight along with our Kappa sisters. I saw the big banner in the bleachers and I even waved my hand to them during stoppage. Majority of the frat members who lived in the house were football and hockey players and they were at away for games this week so they weren’t there in the stands. We knew the importance of support from each other so we watched live games when our schedules allowed us to.
I could still hear the chatter of my teammates and as I stuck my clothes in my athletic bag, I heard the ping of a text coming through.
“Great game tonight.” It was from her, she was Quantum Hottie on my phone.
I couldn’t help the grin that formed on my face, she’d watched my game.
Scott had a game tonight too. I wonder if she watched it as well.
Jesus, I was a sorry asshole. Pathetic. And deplorable.
I wasn’t going to answer it when another text came in, “Rugby players are hot.”
“Yo! Why you blushing like Cinderella?” Jose’s voice broke through the fog of Kara’s text.
“He’s probably got a hundred ‘sleep with me’ proposals tonight.” Ian cheered and I just shook my head.
“Let’s go.” I walked past the idiots and through the door, “Gotta give Coach a fiver.”
Whenever we won, we always gave Coach a high five before we left. If we lost, we still gave him a nod. Either way, we didn’t leave before seeing the Old Man. We – Ian, Jose, Constantine, and I – started this when we were freshmen and now was not the time to change it.
Coach Masterson was in his office, rummaging through papers, when we came in.
He looked up and raised his hand as we cycled through giving him high-fives.
“Great game,” he said, as he stood behind his desk. His office became extra small especially when all four us were in the room with him. Usually it was one or two at a time, and those times meant you were either playing like shit or you were in trouble.
“We didn’t play our best, but it was good enough to win.” He repeated the words he’d said in front of the team after we won.
We nodded our heads and I said, “We’ll play better next time.”
“Rest up. Tomorrow’s another day,” Coach said, his eyes warm and I noted that his silver streaks had grown in residence on his head.
We all said our byes, and Cons and Jose got in Jose’s Dodge Durango. Those two bickered worse than cat and mouse, but they were really good friends. They even had a carpool schedule even though they both lived less than fifteen miles from campus.
I was looking forward to getting home to a quiet house and resting my sore muscles in bed. The cold bath in the showers in the locker room helped, but I knew warm compresses were going to be my company for the night.
“Hey,” Ian called out before getting in his car. “Why don’t you call one of the girls who are constantly hassling you on Insta? I’m sure one of them would be more than willing and available to soothe your sore muscles.”
I chuckled and shrugged my shoulders, “Nah. Nora was enough for me.”
Nora was actually cool. She and I were still texting each other. There would be nothing but friendship between us, but maybe I could introduce her to a frat brother.
He waved and said, “Aight, later.”
I stepped inside my truck and thought about tonight.
It was a good night. The breeze was gentle from the ocean and the smell of victory hung in the air.
Looking down on my phone, I answered my sister with a thanks and scrolled up to check Kara’s text again.
Without spending another second thinking about it, I fired up with a response, “All rugby players? Or a particular one?”
I saw the dots forming on my phone as I waited for her reply.
She’d texted back with, “Goal kick success rate: 85.7%. Kicked: 8x for over 300 meters gain. Pass: 23 times, ran 4. Tackles: 13 and missed 2.”
I blinked once.
Twice.
And before I could close my eyes for the third time, I sent her an animated, laughing emoji.
She just texted me back my stats for tonight’s game.