The Redshirt by Corey Sobel

Author:Corey Sobel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

FIVE

King College transformed into an immaculate husk. Sumptuous buildings went dark and manicured quads emptied as students departed for internships, jobs, and family vacations; professors and administrators migrated to conferences, field research, and retreats; clerical and maintenance staff were dismissed to work even worse-paying gigs until they were needed again in the fall. You would see the occasional grad student emerge from the stacks looking as stunned and pale as a surfaced deep-sea creature, or a group of ulcerous premeds worrying flash cards in advance of an Organic Chemistry quiz, but by and large what life there was on campus was athletes—football players staying in Blenheim all summer, taking classes and training for August’s camp.

The only school housing available was on Central, and on a Sunday far hotter than a late-May day had any right to be, Reshawn and I lugged our stuff up three flights of an outdoor staircase and moved into a dim, spider-haunted, two-bedroom apartment. I was perfectly content to be here instead of Sillitoe, but Reshawn was sullen as he sweated up and down the stairs, clearly missing his newly ex-girlfriend. After final exams he had lived in the Carsonville house with Jamie until graduation, the idea being that without the stresses of football or class they could enjoy a sweet valediction. But they bickered most of the time, Jamie unwilling to drop the idea of Reshawn transferring to Stanford and Reshawn just as stubbornly insisting he had no interest in doing so.

I was surprised that he continued to keep the secret. Jamie was leaving King, after all, and telling her didn’t seem to risk the secret spreading to the wrong people. But when I said as much to Reshawn, he just shrugged and asked what difference it would have made.

As it happened, the next morning we saw both of the men responsible for Reshawn’s stubborn silence. We had finished our first team workout and were undressing in the locker room when Mr. McGerrin and Coach Zeller walked in with the fifteen members of King Football’s newest class in tow. It was a historic group, universally considered our best-ever recruiting class. Each kid was at minimum a first-team All-State honoree, and several were All-Americans, their bodies so much bigger and brawnier than, say, those in my own freshman class that were it not for their baby fat and overcompensating coolness you would have thought they were seniors rather than pre-frosh. My teammates saw the recruiting coup as the latest sign of our program’s steady ascent, not to mention yet another confirmation that our head coach was as talented a recruiter as he was a strategist. Though both things were undeniably true, I also knew Mr. McGerrin had played his own quiet, crucial role—some, if not most, of these players must have received extra enticements to commit to King.

Ironically, though, the best player among them was also the one recruit I knew for certain hadn’t been bribed. He was the white kid standing at the head of

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