dak
The stadium turfsmells especially pungent under the falling rain, and the air is thick with a raw energy you only feel when you’re playing a longtime division rival and the crowd despises you.
“Do you hear those people out there?” Our defensive captain, Dutch Williams (fondly known as Cap), says in his usual animated tone, spit flying out of his mouth, pacing angrily alongside the bench. “They may call you every name in the book and they may say shit about your mama, but we’re going to use that spiteful energy to crush those scrubs!”
We’re playing our division rivals on their home field in Philadelphia. A few players from their team have been talking crap about us in the media all week, and even though Coach advises us to ignore trash talk in the media, Cap is super pissed about it.
We all are.
But we’re also nervous or maybe the word is anxious.
Because we hate playing here.
“They called us soft! They say we’re only good on paper and not on the actual football field. Our families read all that shit they said about us. Are they right?” he asks our entire defensive line as we circle around him.
“No, Cap,” we all answer in unison, with my teammate Reynolds sounding the loudest.
“Are. We. Fucking. Soft.” Cap looks every one of us in the eyes, waiting for a better response.
“Hell no, Cap!” we say again, my heart thumping loudly inside my chest, ready to declare war on our opponents.
“Then let’s do what we do best. I want a sack and I want it fast. Who’s going to give me one in the first quarter? Will you?” Cap points to each of us, asking the simple question over and over. “Or you?”
Our defensive captain stops directly in front of me with clear intent. His eyes searching for the same sort of competitive hunger from mine. There’s a method to his madness in singling me out. Cap is probably the only man on the team who knows my terrible secret.
I’m one of the top ten defensive players in the entire league and last year’s defensive player of the year.
But by ball player standards, I’m broke.
You’ve heard the story before. Like many young ballplayers who aren’t accustomed to managing large amounts of money, I trusted my finances with an unscrupulous accountant who invested most of my money into the harebrained schemes of some of his other clients and lost it all.
Am I homeless?
No.
Do I have more money than the average American?
Yes.
But I have a lot of bills, people I’m responsible for, and my savings account balance is slowly dwindling.
Football is not a forever career. If you’re lucky, you might squeeze out a ten good years and then you retire. You move onto something else. But hopefully, you’ve amassed enough cash and invested it well, so you’ll never have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to. Unfortunately, at least as of right now, that’s not the trajectory I’m on.
But if I have a good season and hit all of my personal incentive goals, I should be in a good position to renegotiate my contract for a huge payday and ensure that I have a nice multi-million dollar nest egg, not just for me, but for my entire reason for breathing.
My daughter Bella.
“What about you, Dirty Dak?” Cap questions fiercely. “Are you going out there to sack the quarterback, or are you feeling buttery soft today?”
“I’ve never been soft a day in my life!” I respond with a scowl on my face. “I’ve been nothing but muscle, grit, and attitude since the moment I left my mama’s belly.”
“Hell, yeah!” Our veteran captain applauds my answer. “Then let’s give the great City of New York the win they deserve in Philly’s own backyard.”
“Yeah!” The mood has shifted and we all clap louder than we were.
“One, two, three–” Cap leads us in the simple two-word chant we always say before and after every game.
“Go Hawks!”
