Girl Football

Six

I approached the huddle and gave the team the first play coach had given me.

The clock wasn't going to start until I snapped the ball so I patiently made my way to the line, observing the defense closely.

I ran what kind of defense they were running in my head and came to the conclusion that our play would work and no adjustments were needed to get us a first down.

I got in my stance under center and hiked the ball. Jones was wide open off the edge and I threw a perfect pass. He caught it, evaded his defender and made it up the sideline for about another four or five yards before being tackled out of bounds. The clock stopped and we were on our own 45 yard line on second down with two yards to go.

I trotted to the sideline and coach gave me a running play.

"I thought I was gonna get another passing play?" I asked.

"No, no. I changed my mind, I just wanna run the clock out."

I shook my head and ran to the huddle. I gave the team a different play and before I broke the huddle a senior offensive lineman stopped me.

"Woah, woah. We all know that isn't the play coach gave you," he said. I don't know how but he knew.

"No, that's right." I lied, looking at him.

"I see what you're doing," another lineman chimed in.

"Yeah, me too," Jones said. "I like it, too. Let's go win this one."

"Wait a second," the original lineman who had spoken up stopped us from breaking the huddle. "Coach gave us a play that we should be running."

"We know, Jared. But I don't know about you but I'm kind of tired of losing. And we finally have a quarterback here that has the balls to put her neck out for us so we can try to win this one and I don't know about you, but I think we can do this," Jones turned to me and winked.

I could here Coach yelling at us from the sideline to hurry up because the play clock was down to 10 seconds.

Jared looked at me, "You're one crazy girl."

I broke the huddle and everyone hustled out to their spots. I snapped the ball, dropped back and threw Gould a pass that gave him room to evade defenders and get a few extra yards.

I could hear Coach yelling in anger from the sideline as I hurried everyone up to the line. We had gotten the first down but the clock was still running. I quickly called a short passing play and hit our third wide receiver, Hines, for a four yard play that pushed him out of bounds and over the 50 yard line.

We were in our territory now with 3:32 left on the clock.

I ran to the sideline and Coach grabbed me by the face mask, pulling me as close to his face as he could.

"What do you think you're doing?!" He fumed.

"Coach, I -- we all -- wanna win this game. We can do it."

"I don't care if you can do it or not, I'm the coach and I want to run out the clock. Whether you like it or not, I'm going to give you a play and you're going to run it or you'll spend the rest of the season on the bench, if you're lucky. Am I clear?"

I realized it was probably a good idea to listen. I nodded and Coach gave me another running play.

I ran out to the huddle and repeated it to the team.

"What are you doing?" Hines asked.

"Trying to keep my spot on this team."

"No, we're winning this," Jones spoke up. "We'll all take the hit if that's what it takes but we're gonna do this."

I looked at all of them. This was the first time I think this team ever had a chance of winning a game since three seasons ago, even if it was pre season. If a win was the last thing I did for them, then that's what it was going to be.