Free Juice by Eric Walters Page B

yet.
    â€œCould I have your attention!”
    It was Coach. He was standing on a chair, waving his arms above his head. Slowly the noise and activity faded until all eyes were on him and the room was silent.
    â€œThis is all unbelievable,” Coach Reeves said. “Unbelievable, but in another way, totally believable. How could we not win with this amazing group of individuals?”
    Everybody cheered and clapped until he raised his hands. The noise died away.
    â€œFirst things first. I need to award a ball. Where is the ball?”
    I stood up and held it out.
    â€œToss it here, Michael,” he said.
    Coach was pretty well the only person besides my mother who called me Michael. I pitched him the ball.
    â€œWhat I should do is cut this ball up into thirty-two pieces because everybody was the player of the game.”
    Part of me agreed, but another part felt disappointed. I thought that maybe he was going to give the ball to me. I had made the sack and recovered the ball. I’d saved the game, but that was okay. Whatever Coach said was okay. If he wanted to give the ball to somebody else, if he wanted me to eat the ball, I would have done it. It was only fair considering all that he’d done for us, what he’d done for me.
    â€œBut I’m not going to cut this ball up,” Coach Reeves said. “It’s too special. I am going to give it away. I’m going to give it away to the player who most represented what made this team so special, who brought us all the way to the championship game and then won that game. Before the game I met with my co-captains, and we all agreed that that honor should go to one player.” He paused. It felt like everyone in the room was holding his breath. “Michael, could you please come forward.”
    My heart leaped into my throat. Had I heard him wrong?
    â€œWay to go, Moose!” somebody yelled. Everybody started to cheer.
    I jumped to my feet and stumbled forward. My teammates patted me on the back and cheered and continued to scream out my name.
    Coach gave me a big hug. “Congratulations, Michael. You deserve this,” he whispered in my ear. He handed me the ball.
    â€œI really don’t need to explain this decision to anybody in this room, but I am going to anyway. In my twenty-seven years of coaching, this is the first time that the most valuable player on the team wasn’t a graduating senior. Michael, you are a player who improved with every game, who played with heart, who never quit and never let anybody else quit. You are why this team is a champion!”
    Everybody started cheering again and the coach gave me another hug. I had to bite down on the inside of my mouth to keep myself from crying. I didn’t want them to see me cry. I was Michael the Moose, football star, not blubbering baby.
    â€œI have one more announcement to make,” Coach said, silencing the crowd. I movedaway, grateful that the attention was off me again.
    â€œI’ve been coaching football at our school for twenty-seven years.”
    â€œDon’t you mean one hundred and twenty-seven years?” somebody yelled out to a round of laughter.
    Coach Reeves laughed too. “Sometimes it feels like that long. Twenty-seven years ago, in my first year as coach, our team captured the Division Two championship. I was young and just figured that we’d win every year. Now, twenty-seven years later, it seems fitting that we should win again—in my last year of coaching.”
    There was a gasp. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard him say. It couldn’t be right.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about this all year. I didn’t want to say anything until after the game because I didn’t want to have anything interfere with your focus.” He reached up and brushed away some tears. “I qualify for my pension in June. I’ve been coaching, and teaching, for a long time. There’s probably never a good time