She smiles when she reaches me, extending her hand. “I’m Sutton. Sorry you had to wait. Trade discussions.”
“I thought it must be something like that when I saw an army of Armadillos leaving the conference room, upset.”
“Yeah. Trades can be tricky. Trade the wrong person for another wrong person and everything can go to hell quickly.”
Sutton’s beautiful, classy, and from my first impression, she’s intelligent, determined and does her homework. Like how she knew for sure that I was Anna, when I hadn't met her yet.
Parker’s her brother-in-law, so I imagine she wants him to be great. The pressure is on her as well as him or the fans will scream nepotism. She juggles family and football—a dangerous combination.
“You want the tape on Parker?” she asks
“Yes, please.”
She motions for me to follow her into a glass walledconference room overlooking the facility. Even from up here the energy hums.
Sutton hands me the tablet. “I had the video department pull practice tapes, game cutups and tracking reports from the last four games,” she pauses. “When the drops became a trend not an anomaly. Follow me.”
“Thank you. Every tidbit of information will help,” I say as I step in stride with her. She’s a busy woman judging by how fast she walks.
Old logos, uniforms and a wall-sized timeline of the franchise history adorn the walls to wherever we’re going. Then I see the media room. We walk in and she says, “There’s no media today until the afternoon when the guys will do their pre-game press conference. I didn’t want anyone here in case you want to work with Parker on the field.”
When we turn down another hallway to the coach’s office, a large photo of Sutton and her husband Greyson O’Ryan, Armadillo star quarterback’s wedding picture. Then one with the team around her in her wedding dress.
“These photos are beautiful. You really do love football,” I murmur.
“When my dad bought the team, he just threw me into it. Then, it swallowed me whole. I understand now how playing a team sport is so much more fun than individual ones.”
I nod my head. I’ve done a little research of my own and found that she was a professional tennis player and some clips of her saying it’s a lonely sport.
She pushes through a heavy glass door that somehow has zero fingerprints on it. This place gleams from top to bottom.It’s a viewing room with a small table, a television and laptop set up. The view stops me for half a beat.
This one looks onto the practice facility, not the stadium. Floodlights shine down from the rafters, bright green turf with razor straight white yard lines, and the Armadillo logo makes everything feel new. Massive fans overhead keep the air flowing. Music bursts through the speakers. Whistles blow in short bursts. Coaches and players move in organized clusters.
There’s a beauty in the way things work. Which is why I love the brain. It makes everything go. Football is a system. Just like the brain. Every piece has to work together.
Bodies.
Timing.
Trust.
Reaction.
And the players must do it in sync with each other to make it work flawlessly.
The players are warming up. Quarterbacks throwing to assistant coaches. Wide receivers and running backs are stretching and doing knee lifts.
It feels familiar in a way I don’t let myself dwell on. Not football but the cohesion and rhythm of being on a team. Bodies moving with the same repetitive pulse. Like hockey was for me. Different sounds. Speed on razor blades instead of spikes.
But the same pressure.
I grip the tablet a little tighter.
Sutton asks, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I don’t see Parker. I thought I saw him in the stadium with the head coach.”
“J.D. wanted to go over a few things with him. They’ll be in soon, I’m sure.”
