Under the Lights

Chapter 3: Football Practice

Chapter 3

"Boys! Boys quiet down!" Coach Samuels announced, standing up in front of the locker room. "I'm sure you've already noticed, but we've got two new players on our team today."
Everyone turned to look at us.

"And we've finally solved our problem of a quarterback. We've got ourselves the best quarterback in the state of Texas." Coach Samuels said, gesturing to me.

"Why are they here, then?" A scrawny looking kid asked from the other side of the locker room.

"Cause we heard ya'll sucked and needed some real football taught to ya." I laughed, leaning back against the locker room.

"So boys, we'll see how you fit in today. Let's go full pads for practice. On the field in 7 minutes warming up." Coach Samuels said before walking back into the small office connected to the locker room.

Brian and I had gotten our uniforms and stuff yesterday when we met with the coach and dad, so we changed with everyone else.

"This ain't right man, this just ain't right." Brian muttered, looking down at the red and white practice jersey.

"Suck it up." I replied softly. Although I was just as uncomfortable without our normal fancy orange and blue practice jerseys.

Hank was joking around with his friends on the way to the field, so Brian and I were completely left on our own while we followed the rest of the team.

"This is smaller than our practice field." Brian said in shock, receiving weird looks from other guys on the team.

"Suck it up." I repeated, shoving his shoulder.

Brian just glared at me.

"Alright, I'm Nolan, one of the captains." Some guy said, walking up to us. "For warm ups, we just do two laps around the field and then a few sprints. Try and keep up, okay?"

Brian and I exchanged looked as we started jogging with the rest of the team.

"Your lungs better keep their shit together today." I told him as we pulled slightly ahead of the rest of the group.

"I'm all good man." Brian assured me, giving me a grin.

"You better be." I muttered, staying a step in front of him for the rest of the two laps.

"That was nothing." Brian said quietly while a severely out of shape team slowly got on the goal line.

"Sprinting form, jogging speed." Nolan called. "Go!"

Brian and I did our best to follow along during the sprints. Even while having no clue what we were doing, we still managed to go faster than everyone.

"That was the warm up?" Brian muttered to me as everyone stopped to get water.

"Oh boy." I sighed, shaking my head. "This team is going to be tough to work with..."

"Charleston." Coach Samuels called, causing Brian and I to quickly turn to look at him.

"How comfortable would the two of you be running a few plays with this team? Just so I can see what your potential is and how you guys fit in?" Coach Samuels asked.

"Yea for sure." Brian and I agreed.

The team definitely had potential, I'd give them that. But they were all over the place. They didn't understand basic plays, they fumbled the ball a lot, they weren't fast enough, and it was an overall mess.

Even Hank had slipped from his old ways a bit.
I felt bad always throwing to Brian, I didn't want to act like I was playing favorites, but he was the only one I could definitely rely on.