Victory, Unexpected

December 2022

The Panthers are down eight to the Vikings. Time is slipping away. It is a cool and misty evening on the field at Crossroads School, and it’s the semifinal game in the NFL Flag playoffs.  My son is the Panthers quarterback. 

David drops back to pass and hurls the ball as far as he can down field.  Three boys leap for it, and it falls into the arms of a Viking defender.  The game is over. The season is over too. For my son, it is a bitter end – the entire fall campaign finishing on a desperate, ill-advised throw.

There are many tears on the drive home.

This past Sunday, a new season opened.  (The league is organized and owned by the NFL, which has developed a real commitment to flag football. Flag football for girls has become a varsity sport in California high schools. Many doctors and coaches are recommending that tackle football for boys not start before the ninth grade, and so NFL Flag steps nicely into that gap.)

This year, David plays for the Saints. David didn’t ask to be a quarterback again, but sure enough, that’s where his coaches have put him. My son is tall and going through a stout phase; he is very strong and has quick reflexes – but he does not run fast.  What he can do is take a three-step drop and throw a dart (or as the kids call it now, a “dime”).  He would like to play cornerback, and perhaps someday the speed for that will come, but for now, he is where he is best suited.

Sunday afternoon, David is impressive as his team takes on the Packers. My son hands off cleanly, eludes the rush effectively, slings the ball well.  What the Saints can’t quite do is score. They get a two-point safety, but the Packers have a long run for a touchdown and have added a two-point conversion.  Late in the game, we are down 8-2, and have only enough time for one final drive. 

On the first play of that drive, David forces the ball into the middle of the field.  It is nearly intercepted.  My son shakes his head, smacks his chest with his palm.  “My bad,” he says to his teammates.

A voice from the sidelines.  “Hey, quarterback. You had an open man to the side. Don’t throw into coverage!”

I look, and there’s a middle-aged woman sitting in a folding chair, steps from the end zone. She has a crew cut and a faded Obama ’08 t-shirt. I suspect she isn’t a parent, but perhaps a stray aunt. I also suspect she’s been drinking.

My son’s coach steps onto the field.  “Ma’am, I’m the coach. These are kids. Just cheer, okay? No one needs anything but cheering.” 

Coach Forrester is a Cal alum, sixteen years my junior; he played briefly alongside the likes of Aaron Rodgers and DeSean Jackson at our alma mater. The boys respect him very much, and his voice carries sufficient force to silence the peanut gallery.

I see David look at the heckler, and for a moment, I expect to see him look rattled. I am instantly ashamed of that worry.  As Coach rebukes the woman, David cocks his head to one side, stares at her, chews on his mouthguard, and then – oh wonder! – gives an insouciant shrug.  I get a sudden vision of him in high school – beefy, unflappable, laconic, possessed of the natural charm that eluded his father.  

The heckler is subdued, but the game is very much in doubt. It is second down, the clock is running, and we need a touchdown. We are backed up deep in our own territory. David drops back again, fires over the middle again – complete to midfield!  “Thirty seconds!” The ref yells. The boys run up to the line. There’s a quick handoff to Bryson, the running back, who takes it another five yards.

Coach Forrester steps onto the field, shows David a piece of paper.  My son nods.  A second later, the boy child rolls out to his right, and then throws back across the field, and for a second, it seems sure that the ball will be picked by a Packer. Instead, it goes over the head of the leaping defender, and falls perfectly into the arms of the Saint receiver just as he crosses the goal line.

The Saints’ parents erupt. I raise my fists in the air in glee, but my son isn’t interested in celebrating, not yet; the game is tied at eight and the Saints want the win. There’s no time remaining; the conversion attempt will decide the outcome.  David takes the snap, rolls out to his left this time, eludes the rush, and fires an absolute bolt into the arms of the same boy who caught the touchdown.

The referee raises both hands in the air and blows the whistle: game over.  The Saints prevail, 10-8.

It is a redemption. It is miraculous. It is sublime. It is an utterly stereotypical proud American dad moment, and I soak it up. I never played sports; I was a hopeless athlete until I discovered distance running in my twenties. I never shrugged off a heckler my mother’s age! I never threw the game winning anything!

I think of how prepared I was to comfort David in defeat, of how much I anticipated that my job would be to offer solace to a boy who fell short. I am embarrassingly unready for victory, and I blush in genuine shame at my own inability to believe what my son knew perfectly well was possible.

After the game, we thank Coach Forrester, who slaps me on the back and tells me to take good care of his quarterback. Coach and David trade wide grins, and we walk to the car. “I know it won’t always be like this,” my son says, “But I never knew it could feel this good.” 

It is almost too cinematic a line for an eleven-year-old, and I think of all the sports movies we’ve watched and the interviews with triumphant champions.  Even in moments of high emotion – maybe especially in those moments –kids channel what they’ve heard their heroes say. David is speaking his truth, but he’s also keenly aware that in his own small way, he has just crossed a threshold into somewhere longed for, celebrated, and revered. He has tasted a win that he helped create. He already knows disappointment well, and understands it will come again, but he now knows that a come-from-behind victory is even sweeter to live out than it is to watch. 

“Neither of us will ever forget this,” I tell him.

“I’ll remind you anyway,” David promises.

We celebrate with tacos and horchata, and we practice telling the story of that final drive. There will be others like it, we hope, but for now, the most important thing is to commit that final drive to memory and to agree on how best to tell it.  I resist the urge to give a writer’s advice.  After all, David has already done what his father never did. The least an old man can do is give him the right to tell of the triumph his way.

As this post proves, I could not resist offering my own version.