TRAINING CAMP
Central New Jersey
I was draftedas a second-round pick to The New York Nighthawks right out of college, and I’ve seen a lot of drama in these last three years, but training camp is the most intense that it’s ever been. There are two players who absolutely despise each other and that makes for a great deal of tension on and off the field. It’s not an ideal situation, especially when one of those players is a star running back who the team paid a lot of money for.
We’ve just had our early morning drills, and it’s time for a mid-morning break. I peel my jersey off and am removing some of my protective gear when I turn around to see what the commotion is.
It’s them.
It started on social media, continued in practice, and now it’s still bubbling over into the locker room. Proctor and Samuels are at it again.
“What’s up?” Proctor (the running back) throws his hands up and starts moving aggressively toward Samuels (an offensive lineman). “You’re supposed to be one of Alabama’s finest, and you can’t even see when the biggest man on the field is coming for your quarterback?”
They’re arguing about a practice session earlier.
“It was your job to run the ball,” Samuels says in defense of himself. “Just worry about that and stop fumbling the damn thing.”
“Just admit that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing out there.”
I drop some of my pads on the locker room floor with a thud. I don’t want to hear all of this bickering. They’re like two little annoying gnats. I just want to swat them away. We’ve got the rest of the day to spend with each other and God knows it can’t go on like this.
“Just admit that this doesn’t have shit to do with how I’m playing,” Samuels challenges.
“Oh, so you want to take it there?”
“Let’s take it all the fuck the way there.”
“What you did was foul,” Proctor spits his words angrily.
“And what you said about me on Twitter was fucked up. My family reads that shit.”
Distinctive low muttering spreads throughout the locker room. I stay off of social media so I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I know it ain’t good. I’ve never seen two players more at odds than these two are with each other. Whatever it is, it isn’t about football, this is personal.
“She’s my mother, you asshole!” Proctor exclaims.
“Dayummmm!” the entire room explodes.
“Ain’t nobody fucking your dusty ass mama,” Samuels retorts dismissively.
“Dayummmm!” the room exclaims again.
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
This is going south really fast. If there’s one thing I learned after being in countless locker rooms is that no man can stomach when you talk about their mother, especially in this situation. Evidently Proctor thinks Samuels slept with his mom and that shit is never going to fly. You don’t sleep with any of your teammate’s women, especially the women who gave birth to them. That’s like fucking with Saint Theresa.
“Fuck you, man!”
Proctor swings on Samuels and basically sucker punches him. Samuels reactively holds his jaw for a moment, but then quickly reacts. He tosses his heaviest pads to the ground and then the two of them go blow for blow. Samuels may have mistakingly hit one of the defensive backs during the scuffle because the next thing I know most of the team is in a full-blown brawl.
An entire locker room of grown men fighting because Samuels may or may not have boinked Proctor’s mom (who for the record is a hot ass MILF) doesn’t make any sense at all to me, so the only way I can explain it is that there is too much testosterone floating through their veins after a rigorous practice this morning.
I am the biggest man on the offense, maybe even the team, as far as height goes. I don’t want to get involved in this shit show, but I can’t allow this to fly. This isn’t how a room full of grown men should be behaving.
I step in the middle of the melee to try and get some control, but get punched in the jaw by a new player named Carter for all of my efforts. Once the coaching staff hears the skirmish, they come charging back into the room.
“What the hell?”
