Rebuilt.

Prologue.

It was a cool Saturday morning. Ryan Howard walked past the gated entrance of Carroll Traylor stadium, listening to the the faint sound of the rustle from the distant field. Standing there before the relic of his past reminded him of his days as a Marshall County Marshal.

Ryan Howard had been a three year starter at quarterback for the Marshals, leading the team to the playoffs all three years. His best season was the team's best in school history. The team went an impressive 9-1 in the regular season off of Howard's 37 touchdown passes and 4,000 passing yards. He received the state's award for Mr. Football but the team came up short in the semifinals to St. Xavier 31-27.

For the next year afterwards Howard couldn't let go of coming up short after such a stellar campaign until his coach sat him down for a talk. His coach told him that no one lived in the past and to stop pretending to be doing so. Sure, the coach wasn't very kind but he told Howard what he needed to hear.

The stadium, at least from the outside, didn't look different at all. The concessions had been repainted obviously but the colors all the way down to the counters were the same. Then there were the steps into the stadium and they had definitely aged but they had aged well. Howard walked up those stairs and had flashbacks of when he was in middle school attending a high school game. There wasn't a whole lot of people back then, only enough to fill up one of the four sections of the stadium. That didn't bother Ryan, though, he loved watching the team play. The Marshals lost much more then they won but that only motivated Ryan to raise his play.

Unlike most of the people of this area football had always been something that he admired. He couldn't explain his love for the game, for he's loved the sport all his life. His mother could be quoted saying that Ryan would sit in his diaper in front of the television watching the game. Ryan could remember his first game of pee-wee, or at least he liked to think he did.

After making his way up the stairs Howard took a seat on the bleachers that were familiar as well, but as he took his seat he realized that the bleachers weren't in very good shape at all. From a few quick glances he could tell that some of the bleachers were barely being held together at all, that was something he would have to take care of.

Finally he took a look at the team practicing on the worn field, which was normal for a grass field at the end of a season. Ryan could remember tripping on the turf as a freshman when he played on Junior Varsity.

If Howard's research was right the team had one game to go, with rival Graves County. The season had been a poor one with the team only managing one win. He could hardly believe how far the team had fallen since he had graduated from the program. In the twelve years since Howard's departure the team has posted a mere 28-90. There were likely many different reasons for why the team had done so poorly but for Howard he wanted to focus on the here and now.

The team was running wind sprints from endzone to endzone. Well, half the team was running, a fourth were walking, and the other fourth were on the sideline drinking water. "Nothing wrong with taking it easy... I guess." Howard reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small folded up piece of paper and unfolded it. He glanced up at the few players still running and tracked down number 24, Lance Addison. He was hard to find since he was in the middle of the pack which wasn't what the scouting reports had to say. Apparently the junior was the lone star on the team. He had the build of a prototypical power back, 5'10 and 225 pounds. He was extremely pale skinned and somewhat toned but Howard was sure that 20 of the 225 pounds on his frame was pure lard. When a star player doesn't push himself how can you expect the team to do any different.

Howard looked at some other names, "Number 10... wide receiver... Deron Blackmon." It only took Howard a second to locate Blackmon, who stood above the rest of the small build players at 6'5. He was an African American and weighed somewhere around 235, really he appeared to be more of a quarterback than a receiver but when you possess the athletic ability that he likely did you would play receiver.

Ryan Howard could tell from this short time alone that the following year was going to be a real struggle for him if he was to accomplish his dream of taking his old team to new heights.