Chapter One
DEREK
“Alright men, huddle up!”
Blowing the whistle, I watch my team crowd around me. “We’re looking good so far. Friday’s game will be tough, but I know we’ll be able to beat Oceanside. Grab some water, stretch, and then we’re going to start running some drills.”
“Let’s go, Tigers!” one of the players shouts as everyone breaks apart.
“Team’s looking good, Derek,” my assistant coach, Ace, says to me. “Think we’ll head to state?”
“Don’t jinx us,” I chide him.
“What have I told you about that?”
Ace is older than I am by at least twenty years. He’s been coaching almost as long as I’ve been alive. He used to coach up in Washington, but took a step back to move down here to be closer to his family.
I roll my eyes at him. This is nothing he hasn’t told me before. “You can’t jinx it by saying you’ll make it there.”
“Exactly.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Nothing exciting like making the Super Bowl.”
The laugh that escapes me is awkward. “Not quite.”
Sure, I made it to the Super Bowl, but Vegas never won one. Whenever anyone brings up my playing days, I always get jittery. I don’t have a lot to be proud of from those days.
Except Troy. He’s about the only good thing I have to show from playing.
I want him to have a better man as a father than I was a player. And that’s what I’m trying to teach my guys.
The same ones who are huddled around the water cooler, shooting the shit.
“I’m going to ask Marcy out,” one of them says.
“Where are you taking her?”
I can’t help but smile to myself. Oh the days of when the hardest thing to worry about was asking a girl out. Some days, I wish I could go back to those times. When everything was simpler and I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
“I was going to take her out for shakes.”
“That’s so gay, dude. Milkshakes? No way she’s going to put out.”
A groan leaves me. “Isaacs. Five laps.”
His eyes snap to mine, a look of shock there. Isaacs didn’t know I was standing nearby.
Tough shit.
“Aww, c’mon, Coach. I didn’t mean it,” he whines.
“What is my policy?”
“No slurs of any kind.”
I nod. “That’s right. You should be thankful I don’t tack on another five for being disrespectful to women.”
He makes no further comment as he takes off toward the track.
Is this the best way to handle this kind of thing? I don’t know. But when I became the head coach of the Del Mar Tigers, I made a decision. I wasn’t going to put up withanything—anything—that I did when I played for Vegas. It was a bad situation for me there, and I don’t want anything to do with that mentality.
