The One & Only(45)

This practice began early in his career when he couldn’t sleep one night before a big game, blaming it on a big, noisy cricket outside his bedroom window—which he promptly got up and captured in a Mason jar. The next day Walker won, thus cementing the superstition for the duration of his coaching career.

“Oh, right! I forgot about the ritualistic capturing of the cricket! You got him yet, Daddy? Jailed in some jar in the garage?”

“Not yet,” I heard Coach say. “That comes after the milk shake.”

I smiled, as Lucy argued that anything that involved more than thirty minutes of your time, lots of cursing, and a flashlight was more than a ritual. “Right, Shea?” Lucy asked me.

“Yeah. Think I agree with you on this one,” I said. “Tell Coach I said …”

I hesitated as Lucy finished my sentence, “Good luck … I will.”

“No. Not good luck,” I said, knowing he didn’t like to be told “good luck” before a game and wondering how Lucy could have missed that nuance.

“Tell him what, then?” she said. And then—“Oh. Just tell him yourself.”

She handed him the phone, and suddenly he was there, in my ear. “Hey, girl.”

“Hey, Coach,” I said, my hand tightly gripping the phone.

“What do you got for me?” he said.

“Catch a big cricket,” I said, my heart skipping a beat.

“I’ll do my best,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling. “See you tomorrow, Shea.”

“See you tomorrow, Coach,” I said.


The following night I got to Bronco Stadium early, long before the gates opened or before I really had to be there, along with the equipment managers, security guards, and groundskeepers. It had been my routine for years, and the first glimpse of the empty, still stadium always thrilled me. Ours wasn’t the biggest, newest, or prettiest in college football (although plans were in the works for a major renovation), but, like Coach, it was still my favorite place in the world. The setting itself was picturesque enough. Horseshoe-shaped, the red-brick façade rose out of acres of grass fields with a scenic view of the Brazos River at its open end. Once you walked inside, it was a different story—the view stark and ugly—but the stadium’s aesthetic shortcomings only made me love it more. I loved the dank underbelly with its cinder-block tunnels leading to the locker rooms, the mammoth steel girders covered in layer upon layer of industrial gray paint, and the faded interior signage that dated back to the fifties. I knew every square inch of it, and it all felt like sacred ground.

Maybe it was sacrilegious to admit that I felt closer to God inside that stadium than in church on Christmas Eve, but it was the truth, and I told myself it was no different from people who find their deepest spirituality in the woods or by the sea. Yes, God made those trees and that water, unlike the steel eyesore erected in 1938 and haphazardly added on to over the decades, but I still felt Him there—especially on that night, as I found myself praying for a season to remember. A national championship season.

It was something I had been dreaming about for nearly thirty years, and, although we’d come close many times and won lots of big bowl games, it wasn’t the same as winning a national championship. Being number one. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d thrown a penny in a fountain or blown out candles on a birthday cake without making that singular, simple wish. But it was different now, the stakes even greater. We were now playing for a higher purpose, I thought, as I squinted at the blanched-white sky and thought of Connie and Coach. The sun beat down on the freshly cut field, but as I wiped sweat from my hairline, a merciful wisp of a breeze kicked up, giving the early evening a certain sweet serenity. The calm before the storm.

I walked along the painted white sideline, then crossed back over to the tunnel and headed for the ancient elevator, taking it up to the press box in search of J.J. It was time to get ready for the onslaught of reporters; in other words, it was time to stop dreaming and start working, the best medicine to ward off pregame jitters. I wasn’t that nervous, though. Not like I usually was. Maybe because nobody really questioned that we were going to beat Rice into submission, if not utter humiliation. Maybe because a winning season really did feel preordained.

A short time later, the gates opened, and all the students and fans poured in, the night unfolding exactly the way it always did. Our team took the field for old-school warm-ups. Walker’s flamboyant marching band geared up, playing their big, bold brass notes. The cheerleaders unfurled their enormous teal W banner and built pyramids to the football gods. Meanwhile the minutes and seconds ticked off the scoreboard in a final, dramatic countdown to the fireworks and the national anthem and the coin toss and the kickoff and the season. Like New Year’s Eve in August.