“What time?”
“Does nine work?”
“I’ll check with her assistant. If I don’t hit you up with a different time, I’ll see you tomorrow at nine.”
“Bet.”
The call ended, and after a few basic stretches, I started the mile run that Nyomi’s presence had delayed before starting the rest of my day.
About an hour later, Knox entered the main area of the football office right behind me and followed me to my office. I sat behind my desk, and he sat in front of it.
“Ward will be here tonight. The rest of the coaching staff has already started trickling in. I felt bad because we’re working that realtor to death, but she said she doesn’t mind.”
“It’ll be worth it once she gets all that damn commission. Did the Kurrie kid call you?”
“Yeah. He’s in.”
“Nigga! Why didn’t you lead with that? We’re about to make history!” he shouted, then clapped a few times with excitement.
“You damn right. I can’t wait to officially get started.”
Now that we’d hired all our position coaches, coordinators, strength and conditioning coaches, and selected our graduateassistants, I could breathe a bit. I’d been hustling since I was hired as head coach, and I felt a little more at ease now that my full staff had been hired.
“The weight room has been busier than I thought it would be for this time of year. Not as many of them went home as I thought,” Knox said.
“Yeah. I noticed that. I’ve been watching from afar, and I like what I see. The commitment they're showing without having to be told speaks volumes.”
“Yeah. We’ll lay out the summer practice schedule at the meeting on Wednesday. We only got eight hours a week for eight weeks, and one of those has to be optional for the players. I want to maximize the time we have until camp starts.”
We talked a little more about what we wanted to accomplish at the first official coach’s meeting before I shared my exciting news.
“I talked to Nyomi,” I told him as he prepared to stand.
Instead of leaving, he made himself comfortable again.
“How’d that happen, and how’d it go?”
“I went to the track to run a mile, and she was sitting in one of the end zones stretching.”
“Oh. Does she work on campus?”
I shrugged. “I wondered the same thing, but I would assume so since she has access to the facilities.”
“Shit, nigga. You know her first and last name. Look her up in the school faculty directory.”
I opened my laptop and logged in. I typed her last name into the faculty page search engine on the university website, and sure enough, it popped up.
“Nyomi Kurrie, Director of Library Services,” I read aloud, but more to myself than Knox.
“Damn. She runs the whole library? That’s dope. I don’t think I’ve ever met an actual librarian as an adult.”
“I’m pretty sure I haven’t.”
I clicked on the link that led me to her BEU profile. I’d read it after Knox left my office.
“So, did you get a chance to talk to her this time?”
“Yeah. We went back and forth about me setting her up, we kissed, Nyeem called?—”
