“Let’s go ahead and get right to it. Rico, there are some questions that I’m getting ready to ask you, and before you answer anything from me, I really want to put a lot ofemphasis on how serious these questions are. You have some serious allegations against you, with heavy proof, verification, and footage of the way we’ve watched you play. This is in the process of getting leaked to the public, and soon, your life is getting ready to change, once these allegations that are being made against you gets out there. Before it becomes public, we are giving you the platform right now to defend yourself and let us know if there is any truth to it,” Mr. Jones started.
I kept quiet. I didn’t say a fuckin thing. I was still shaking and sweating though. I didn’t know what they had on me. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to come at me for the murder of Tobias, or the shit that I was doing with Toby.
There were folders that were sitting in front of Mr. Jones. He quickly went for the folder that was in the middle, and he started pulling things out. Everything that he pulled out, he pushed it over my way, so that I was able to see it clearly. It was about ten different papers. I started with the one that was furthest to my left, and when my eyes saw what was printed out, it felt like I was going to slump over in the seat, and just fuckin die.
There were printed out screenshots of conversations between Toby and I. Toby didn’t have my number saved, so my number was right there, clear as day at the top of the message thread. In those screen shots, you could see everything from our conversations about the spreads that he was going to put in, points totals, and me actively engaging with the conversations, telling him what I would, and wouldn’t do.
After reading through the text messages, I then went over to the next sheet of paper, and those were our call logs. You could see all my incoming calls to him, the duration of time that we were on the phone, and everything was a pattern. Most times, we would talk on the phone at night because that’s usually when he would tell me about his party, and how we were going to play it. These conversations were always about 5- 10 minutes long. Wewould have other conversations in the mornings, on the day of my games, just going over whatever we had gone over the night before.
There were images in the next print out, and those images were screen shots of Toby’s wagers, and I was in each one, showing the pattern. It got to a point where I had to stop looking. I couldn’t bear to see any more of this shit, so out of anger, I picked my hand up, and slapped all that shit off the table, watching as the paperwork flew across the table.
“This is what has come to our attention, Rico. We have all the proof, but I still want to hear your side. At any point in your football journey here at the university, have you ever participated in sports betting or any other gambling activities that violate NCAA rules or our university’s policy?” instead of Mr. Jones being the one to ask the question, it was the man sitting there from the NCAA.
Sitting there, with my leg bouncing up and down, I could feel my eyes get misty. In this moment, I knew that everything that I’d worked so hard for, since I was a little boy, when my dad brought me to my first football practice, was now over. These crackas had this look in their eyes like they were just waiting for the moment to tell me to get my black ass out of here.
Because I was so angry, the angry tears ended up falling from my eyes, and sitting with my arms crossed, I didn’t even bother wiping them away.
“It’s no use in me sitting here lying to ya’ll. The proof is right here,” I spat, voice cracking, angry with my myself.
I had a moment a couple of weeks ago, where I could have killed Toby, but I talked myself out of it because I saw him there with a kid. I couldn’t do that shit in front of that little boy. I knew that Toby was a green ass nigga, but I never thought that he would rat me out like this. At the most, I thought that he wouldtry and kill me, but to go out like a bitch, snitch on me, and ruin my fuckin career, this was even a new low for him.
“Rico, why? You going to have to give me more, man. I need some kind of answers from you because this shit is crazy to me, man. Look where you’re sitting. As a black man, you’re at one of the top universities. A university where it’s hard for black kids to get accepted into, unless they are good in sports, or unless they are crazy smart. We go to them schools, so that you can talk to the youth, and every little kid wants to be the next Rico Briggs. It’s so many kids across the world that would trade places with you and wouldn’t have to think twice about it. You are the best wide receiver in the league right now. You were going to make history in a few months with signing day coming up. NFL programs were going to be fighting to get you on their team. You gotta make this make sense to me,” Coach Tim said, and as he was speaking to me, his eyes were teary, and you could hear the sadness with each word that released from his lips.
Coach Tim was like another father figure to me. We had a relationship with each other outside of football. I’ve been to this man’s house. I’ve met his wife, and his kids. He’s been to my mom’s house. Sat down at her dining room table and ate a few of her meals. He believed in me. Instilled a lot of life lessons in me, and one of the things that he would always preach to me was staying out of the wrong crowds and making decisions based off what it could do for my future. To see that I’d gotten myself wrapped up in this mess, I knew that it hurt him, and because I knew that, I didn’t even have the balls to look him in his eyes.
“I don’t expect you to understand why I did it. When the world finds out about this, I won’t expect them to understand, either. Just know that I been carrying a monkey on my back for two years straight. I knew what I was doing was illegal, so know that I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to. I simply didn’t have a choice. I know what it feels like to not have much, so I know ya’lldon’t think that I would have been stupid enough to do that shit, and risk my whole life for it. I did it because I had to,” I finished, just ready to get the fuck out of here.
Mr. Jones cleared his throat, and he looked at me. It was hard for me to keep a steady gaze on him, especially since I was sitting in this bitch crying, and I felt less of a man by doing that.
“Based on the material that’s been presented to us, and the things that you’ve said, I’ll go ahead and let you know how we plan to move forward. You are being immediately withheld from all team activities pending review. This is serious Mr. Briggs, and because of that, at this time, we strongly recommend you seek legal counsel. Any further communication must be held through your attorney,” Mr. Jones said it so final, as if he wasn’t giving me any room to say anything else.
I knew that there wasn’t anything that I could say to make it better, so I just wiped my eyes, lifted my head up, and I grabbed my gym bag that was down on the floor.
When I made it to the door, I pulled it open, and these niggas had security out here for me, so that they could escort me off the premises. They didn’t even allow me to cut back through the field. I was taken out through a back door, and they walked me to the parking lot, where my car was. Even with me getting in the car, they didn’t move until I backed out and pulled off.
I didn’t have my crash out moment until I made it out of the parking lot. I got to the light, and I started punching the fuck out of the steering wheel to the point that the horn started blowing.
I knew in this moment that I’d just lost it all. It was over for me. Nothing mattered to me. Because nothing mattered to me, and I didn’t give a fuck what happened next, I was getting ready to go and wreak havoc. Before, I couldn’t kill Toby because I had too much to lose. The very thing that I was afraid of losing, I’d just lost it, so here I was, en route to this green ass nigga, so that I could blow his fuckin brains out.
Chapter 18
Toby Williams
Lights Out
“You really don’t feel good, or you just lied to your mama, so that you could stay home?” I asked Bash, as I walked out front, where his bed was, and I found him lying down on his back, playing on his iPad.
Little nigga put on a show this morning, telling Kalani how bad his stomach was hurting, so she allowed him to stay home. She’d run out for a second, so that she could get some medicine for him, and as soon as she got back, I was going to head out because I had some business to tend to.
“My stomach hurt for real. That food she cooked last night was too spicy,” he told me, and I laughed.
“Man, ya’ll lil niggas too fuckin soft these days. If you were my son, I would have made your lil ass still go to school, shitty, and all,” I told him, and he laughed.
I sat down on the couch, and I kept going to social media, trying to see if niggas were talking about Rico yet. I did some foul shit, simply because I was tired of playing with his ass. I messed up a bag with him, but I wasn’t tripping because as soon as I left here, I was meeting up with Jax, so that we could meet with a possible new supplier and start running our own drug shit. All the money that I was getting off making Rico my sports dummy,I was able to save enough for a supplier to front me some bricks, and that’s all I was really trying to do.
I could have killed Rico, but ruining that nigga’s life would hurt him more, and that’s why I decided that I was going to go that route. I still had plans of getting with Tank though. If that was the last thing that I had to do, I swear to God I was going to get it done.
Social media was still quiet, so I logged off, stuffed my phone in my pocket, so that I could head in the kitchen. When I got up, Bash rose too, telling me that he was going to go in the back, and try and use the bathroom again.
