Whistleblower ✓

24 | field report

Gordon finally put Bodie in the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

He took the field like a thunderstorm.

His first few passing attempts sailed clear over the grasping hands of his receivers and into the sidelines. He was too hopped up on adrenaline to reign in his arm. Fourth down came and went. While Stanford worked on scoring another touchdown on us, I saw Gordon grab Andre by the shoulder-pad on our sideline.

I didn't realize what he was up to until we were back on offense.

After the hike, Andre took off like a shot. Bodie's pass was just as much of an overshoot as the ones before it—but this time, Andre was there.

He caught it and carried it home to the endzone. It was his first touchdown in a regular season game. I made a strangled noise at the back of my throat that I tried to disguise as a cough.

Unfortunately, despite the heroics, it was too late.

The game was practically over.

Even with Andre's touchdown, Garland was still down by more than 30 points. I heard a broadcaster from ESPN say to his colleague that, if the score held, it would be the biggest margin of a loss our team had experienced in over seven years.

Joey tapped me on the shoulder.

"C'mon," he said, rising from his seat beside me. "Let's head down so we're first at the gate when they let the media on the field."

Ellison had given me two sheets of post-game questions, one entitled if we win and the other if we lose. She'd further divided up the questions into a few categories—offense-specific, defense-specific, and for the coaches.

I quietly shuffled to the if we lose document.

Joey and I packed into the elevator with a few other journalists, including a female broadcaster with Stanford-red lipstick and a Sports Illustrated badge around her neck. She kept staring at me and my media pass in the reflection of the doors, like she couldn't quite place where she'd heard my name before.

I ducked my head and tried to hide behind Joey.

"So, I just, like, walk up to them?" I asked him in a low whisper. "And what do I say? Hey, I'm Laurel for the Daily?"

"I think they'll know who you are," Joey replied with a snort.

I let out a distressed whine.

"What do I do if they won't talk to me?" I asked.

I wasn't a beat reporter, so I hadn't built up a rapport with any of the players the same way Joey and the other sports writers had. Even if one of them managed not to recognize that I was the same girl who'd helped author the article that toppled Vaughn's career, it wasn't like they'd be comfortable enough giving me great sound bites.

Joey seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

"Vaughn's got the whole team trained to be tight-lipped," he said. "They're all really rehearsed, when you ask them about what's going on behind the scenes—they've got this mentality, like, what happens on the team stays on the team. But you're controversial. Yeah, okay, some of the guys probably won't look at you twice—but maybe you'll crack one of them."

I snorted. That seemed unlikely.

"You cracked St. James," Joey pointed out. "He gave you more in that Vaughn interview than anybody else has managed to get out of him."

I blushed. I don't know why I blushed.

"Here's your tape recorder," Joey said, handing me a rectangular hunk of plastic that looked straight out of the nineties. "For the interviews. You'll want audio clips of the players just in case you need to transcribe something later."