I watched him closely. His posture was clean. Breath steady. He pivoted hard on the next rep, cut at the cone with a sharp turn, and planted clean. His shoulders didn’t twitch, and his eyes stayed forward. I made a note:Jordan Mann – posture neutral, emotional control solid. Breath rhythm matches reps. Grief not impacting field processing at present.
A flicker of pride ran through me, watching him be present and not let his grief affect him right now. The game tomorrow might be different, and I already set up a time with him in the morning to chat about possible ways to overcome grief if it hit mid-game.
I adjusted my bun and played with my necklace, emotion catching in my throat that this was real. I was here, doing this.
Ivy jogged past me, her voice raised slightly as she spoke into her radio with an air of authority. “Tell Jenkins to ice his ankle between reps. And flag me if we lose a shoulder wrap again. I swear, these guys are allergic to tape labels.”
This was where I saw the cracks before they widened.
Jordan looked steady today. His footwork was sharp, and he kept in sync with the callouts. But his shoulders carried tension that wasn’t there before the funeral. His recovery breath after drills was shallow. Not out of shape—just holding something tight.
I noted it:Jordan Mann – movement light, breath restricted, emotional control high.
Ivy passed behind me and murmured about Quinn’s quad again. I adjusted his log to flag another torque imbalance. She worked on the physical end, and I tracked the mental. It was a system that worked, and neither one was more important thanthe other. That was what people didn’t get. If we caught the signs beforehand, we could save careers.
God. My brother would’ve killed to be here on this field.
He used to pace the sidelines with me in high school, him in his uniform, me on the sports medicine team. He’d shout stats at me like a one-man analytics department, making sure I was watching the team and learning. I could still hear him yelling, “Control what you can, Sloaney!”whenever I started overthinking.
Back then, control was our shared language. Now it was what kept us apart.
He would’ve stood in this heat without flinching. Run these drills until his legs gave out. Hit cones, take hits, do it all again for one shot.
He didn’t get one.
Two ACL tears by twenty-one, lots of medicine. A backup role in a program that used him for depth. No combine invite. No draft day call. When the rejection came, he didn’t throw anything. He closed his bedroom door and stayed there for three days.
I called. I knocked. I emailed him articles about overseas leagues and off-season contracts. I gave him bullet points and mindset strategies and reminders to drink water. I told myself I was helping.
I wasn’t.
He came out on day four, didn’t look at me, packed a bag, and drove to Arizona. Left his school, his apartment, his team. He left himself. That version of him never came back.
Now he lived in my parents’ guesthouse in LA. He didn’t work. Didn’t train. Said he was “figuring things out,” but it’d been six years, and all he figured out was how to duck accountability and weaponize silence and pain meds. He didn’tspeak to me unless it was to remind me that I “studied all this shit and still missed it.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I was halfway through my clinical rotations. I had the scores. The credentials. The DSM memorized, but I didn’t help him. I didn’t help him see past the physical and emotional pain, and I couldn’t help but agree with blaming me.
My parents never said it directly, but they didn’t have to. They also blamed me. I was the smart one. The one with a solution for everything—except him. Every time we talked, I could still hear it in the pauses. It wasn’t right thatI made it to the NFLbut my brother didn’t.
I couldn’t fail them, this team, the coaches, myself.
That was why I watched these men like they were tethered to me. I wanted to belong here, wanted to prove myself to them, and not let any of these kids spiral into the life my brother had. Because one bad day, one bad injury was all it took to go from potential to destruction.
And as I lifted my gaze across the field again, my breath caught. Oliver.
Oliver lined up in the backfield, two steps behind the quarterback, eyes fixed on the defense. His stance looked textbook. No wasted movement. Shoulders tight, knees bent, arms loose but ready. To anyone else, it was clean. But something was off.
He shifted his weight twice before the snap, enough that he broke rhythm. His left hand flexed after the motion fake, and he tapped it quickly against his thigh. He didn’t wince. He didn’t pause. He realigned like nothing happened. It was subtle, but I saw it.
Ivy caught it too. Her eyes flicked to mine, and I nodded once, making a quick note on my tablet.
“James!” Coach Booth barked across the field. “You’re staying in! Red zone tempo install. Full mental reps, ten in a row. I want to see you handle pressure. Make it look clean.”
Oliver didn’t hesitate. He jogged back to the huddle without saying a word, adjusting his gloves at the wrist and bouncing twice on the balls of his feet. His face didn’t move. No expression. No tell.
But that bounce wasn’t part of his warm-up routine. I’d studied the tapes, watched film of the guys Mac told me to analyze. Oliver’s routine shifted without being told to.
