The One & Only: A Novel (24 page)

“When I’m tired?” he said. “Because that’s the real question. Not your personal best, but how fast you can go when you’re tired. Down and out.”

“Are you tired now?” I gasped.

Coach shook his head. “Nope. But I
am
down and out,” he said. I caught him smiling again, and it occurred to me that I was making him feel better, at least a little. I felt emboldened by that notion, enough to increase my speed, hang in there with him.

We fell silent after that, as I lost track of our laps. But somewhere around the three-mile mark, he turned to me and, breathing hard, asked, “So how’s Ryan?”

Ryan was the last thing I wanted to think about now, and I was too winded for a long answer anyway, so I just panted, “He’s fine. Rams tomorrow.”

“Heard about the earrings,” he said, glancing at my ears, although I wasn’t wearing them now.

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my left side where a cramp was beginning to form. “I tried to give them back … but—”

“I’m sure that didn’t go over,” Coach said, slowing a bit.

“No. He acted like they were a little something out of a gumball machine.”

Coach laughed, then stopped running altogether, leaning down to grab on to his knees. “Yeah,” he panted. “That boy’s so rich he buys a new boat when he gets the other one wet.”

I laughed, making my cramp worse. I felt a little guilty, talking
about Ryan behind his back, but told myself that it wasn’t disloyal given that Coach cared about him as much as I did.

“Please tell me we’re done,” I said, wincing.

“Yeah. We’re done,” he said.

After walking another half a lap in silence, we walked through the gate, then up the staircase to the parking lot.

Only when we reached our cars did he finally speak. “Well, thank you, Shea. I feel better now.”

“Thank
you
, Coach,” I said, feeling light-headed even before I met his gaze. “That was … nice.”

“Yes. It was,” he said, our eyes still locked. He gave me a slow smile, and I could tell he was talking about my company as much as the running.

I hesitated, overcoming another small wave of guilt over Ryan, telling myself that my attraction to Coach would never be reciprocated. It was safe, feeling this way about something that was never going to happen. Frustrating, and a little sad, but also very safe. I looked back down at the ground and said, “I hope we can do it again.”

“Didn’t I tell you I only come out here and run when we play like shit?” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Well, then I hope we
never
do it again.”

“Me, too,” Coach said. “And you’ll be happy to know …”

“What?”

“That I eat chocolate cake after we play well.” He gave me a little wink.

“Excellent,” I said. “Because I’m not much of a runner. But I’m
really
good at eating cake.”

T
he week leading up to the LSU game, Smiley gave me my first feature assignment: a three-thousand-word piece on Reggie Rhodes. He gave me very little guidance, just told me he wanted “a lot of flavor on the guy.” His background. His adjustment to the college game. All the hype and whether or not he was living up to it. I breathed a sigh of relief when he ended the meeting abruptly, with no mention of any recruiting violation rumors. I was starting to think that Walker might be out of the woods and I, as a reporter, off the hook. Of course, I’d subscribed to the don’t-ask, don’t-tell philosophy, intentionally avoiding the subject with anyone at Walker.

When I called J.J. to ask for access to Reggie, the two of us danced around the obvious, focusing only on one fact: that I was the first reporter to get the plum interview, the only one Coach trusted to interview his young star in anything other than a postgame press conference.

For two days, I prepared for my conversation with Reggie, reaching
out to various people from his life. I talked to his high school coach and principal, his parents, and, of course, Coach. Everyone said variations of the same thing. That Reggie was a rarity. A superstar without Twitter. Tim Tebow without all the ostentatious religion. A good kid. The real deal.

On Tuesday night, I met Reggie at the plush academic counseling center as his tutor wrapped up an American lit session.

“Hey, Miss Rigsby,” he said, standing to shake my hand. He had a soft voice and a friendly gap between his front teeth.

“Hi, Reggie,” I said, surprised that he remembered me, although we’d talked a few times during my old job. “What are you working on?” I pointed down at his notebook.

“Huckleberry Finn,”
he said, smiling as he shut his books and slid them into a nylon messenger bag at his feet.

“You like it?” I said.

“The CliffsNotes are real good,” he said, nodding seriously before breaking into a big grin. “Nah. I’m just playin’. I do like it. We were just discussing that scene where Huck plays the trick on Jim with the leaves on the raft. You know, making him think he was dreaming everything?”

I nodded although I only vaguely recalled the scene.

“And then Jim says that part about how trash is what people are who put dirt on the heads of their friends and make them feel ashamed?” Reggie shook his head. “And then Huck works himself up to go apologize, humble himself to a … excuse my language … nigger?”

I flinched, hearing the vile word spoken aloud, but was able to maintain eye contact, transfixed by Reggie’s take on the scene and impressed by his ability to engage an adult, talk about literature instead of himself. I nodded, waiting for him to continue.

He whistled and said, “
Man.
That’s some powerful stuff right there. Powerful. You can see how Twain humanizes Jim. It’s
so
good.”

I smiled, thinking that we were just a few minutes in and I could
understand why everyone liked Reggie. He was so easy to talk to—and so humble.

“So,” I said. “Can we talk about you for a bit? Your experience so far at Walker?”

He nodded and said sure.

“Let’s start with why you chose to come to college here. You had a lot of choices … So why Walker?”

His face became somber as he gave me the answer that I wanted. “I came to Walker for a lot of reasons. The education. How nice everyone was to me. How pretty the campus is. All that stuff … But I ain’t gonna lie, I mostly came to Walker so I could play for Coach Carr. He’s the
man.
Always keeps it a hundred percent real. For me, it really came down to that, ya know?”

“Yes,” I said. “I know.”

The day after my interview with Rhodes, as I was putting the finishing touches on the story, Smiley called me into his office. I was all jazzed up, on the verge of telling him about all the great stuff I got, when he gave me a long, accusatory look. Then he whipped off his reading glasses, tossed them onto his desk, and said, “Have you heard anything about Walker being in trouble with the NCAA?”

I opened my mouth, choosing my words carefully. “I’ve heard … rumblings.”

“Rumblings?” Smiley demanded, slapping his desk. “Define
rumblings.
”

“You know … rumors.”

“Rumors from rednecks at your local bar or rumors from the inside down there at Walker?”

“Um. Both, I guess,” I hedged.

“And? You didn’t think that was something to discuss with your editor?” Smiley was now shouting, and I could see beads of sweat on his upper lip.

“I guess I should have,” I said, looking down at my lap.

Smiley nodded, now pacing. He was hot. Hotter than I’d ever seen him. “Yes. You should have. Your ass should have been all over that story. And you better hope that we run something on it before anyone else does!”

“Yes, sir,” I said, deflated, and a little worried about my job. “I mean—I have, sort of, stayed on top of it …”

“And? What’s the status?”

“Well … I’m not sure
exactly.
”

“You’re not
sure
?” he said, rolling up one sleeve. “That’s your definition of ‘staying on top of it’?”

“Not ordinarily. No, sir. You’re right—”

Smiley cut me off. “Who have you talked to? What sources have you lined up?”

“Well. I’ve, um,” I stuttered. “I’ve talked to our enforcement guy. Ernie Galli.”

“Our?”
Smiley roared, rolling up his other sleeve.

“Walker’s,” I said, correcting myself. “I meant Walker’s …”

“Look, Shea. We need a story,” he fumed. “Because this
is
a story. You have twenty-four hours to get me something. Got it?”

I nodded briskly and said I’d get right on it, as if it was the easiest thing in the world to report bad news about
my
school. I walked out of his office, remembering something Coach Carr said to me a long time ago. It was in the context of another school, a different set of problems, but I never forgot it. “When the local media turns its guns on you,” he had said, “you’re toast.”

Some of my earliest and most vivid college football memories have nothing to do with loving Walker or hating Texas but with being mesmerized by the scandal of the highest order at SMU, my introduction to the corruption in the sport I loved. I was still in diapers when Eric Dickerson and Craig James, a.k.a. the Pony Express, galloped onto the scene, becoming one of the most prolific backfields in history. And I certainly was too young to remember Ron Meyer, with his long sideburns
and slick suits, in anything other than old footage. But by the time Lucy and I were in the first grade, I was paying attention, and it was absolutely clear to me that the Mustangs were in trouble.
Big
trouble. It was all grown-ups seemed to talk about, whether at neighborhood block parties, or the country club, or church. I didn’t fully grasp the ins and outs of NCAA rules and regulations, but I knew they were big-time cheaters. During one of Coach Carr’s first tutorials on the subject, he likened SMU’s brazen rule breaking to Lawton playing banker in Monopoly and stealing the orange five-hundred-dollar bills, willy-nilly. He explained that there were wealthy boosters involved, the kind who swaggered around in mink cowboy hats, bragging about Saturday’s game as if they had played in it themselves, and giving players loads of cash to play for their school. I heard the outlandish stories about the cars and jewelry, livestock and
houses
, that these men, known as the Naughty Nine, bought for players and their families. Coach shook his head and said things about SMU such as “They’re the best team money can buy” and “They have no shame.”

Then, just three days after my seventh birthday, on February 25, 1987, the hammer fell. I was home sick from school, or at least I was pretending to be sick so I could watch the televised press conference. David Berst, the director of enforcement of the NCAA, announced that SMU was guilty under the “repeat violator” provision and would get the most severe punishment allowed. The
death
penalty. No scholarships, no practice, no games for a whole
year.
The entire program shut down. Even though everyone knew they were guilty as hell, it was still shocking. So shocking that Berst himself fainted right on television.

Later that night, I heard Coach Carr tell my dad, who was in town visiting me, “We shouldn’t be so surprised. Everyone knows … we
do
execute people in this state. If you ask me, it’s a lot easier to follow the rules.” My dad, of course, replied something along the lines of “Yeah. If you’re going to cheat, you better be damn good at it.”

Now fast-forward twenty-six years, and Walker was in possible trouble. Not of the SMU magnitude, but trouble nonetheless. And
in an unsettling twist of fate, I was no longer watching it on television. Rather, it was
my
job to report it. My job to write a story that could, potentially, damage Walker football. I told myself that it would all be fine. Because Coach Carr was still the good man he’d always been.

That evening, after talking to J.J. and Galli, I went over to Ryan’s and told him about the NCAA story Smiley was making me write.

“Do you think there is any truth to it?” I asked him, after filling him in on everything.

“Probably,” Ryan said, hitting a golf ball across a putting green in his basement. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, taken aback by his answer.

“I mean … if you’re consistently winning at this level, you’re probably cheating along the line somewhere,” Ryan said. “And even if you’re losing, and you’re trying to win, you’re probably still cheating. At least on the margins.”

“Coach Carr does
not
cheat,” I said. A statement of absolute fact.

Ryan gave me an infuriating smirk, then knocked the ball into the hole. “Okay, then.”

“He doesn’t,” I said, a little pissed off.

He shrugged, then squared his shoulders for another shot. “I know you think he’s the second coming of Christ, but the man isn’t perfect. He may not be bankrolling his players, but I’m pretty sure he looks the other way now and then. He has to.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Sure he does! He’s the CEO of a major corporation and his employees are a bunch of dumb kids. He
has
to look the other way. It’s a matter of survival.”