Juice - Eric Walters [6]
I couldn’t help but think about Coach Reeves using a blackboard and a piece of chalk.
“This wall will have a gigantic refrigerator that will hold ice and cold drinks. Water, power drinks, protein drinks. You name it and it’ll be there. It will be fully stocked all the time. Not just for games, but always, for any member of the team.”
“That’s amazing,” Caleb said.
“But who’s going to pay for all of this?” another one of the players asked.
“All taken care of. I have contacts, people who are willing to provide sponsorship in exchange for being involved with a winning program. But wait, the best is yet to come.”
Caleb and I exchanged surprised looks. What could be better than all of this?
We trailed Coach Barnes out of the dressing room, down the hall and into the weight room.
“You gentlemen probably spend a lot of time in here,” he said.
“Some of us more than others,” I said, shooting Caleb a dirty look. He was always finding ways to avoid weights.
“All of the equipment in this room will be replaced. Everything.”
“Everything?” I questioned. I’d spent so much time in here that some of the equipment felt like family members.
“Everything. The stuff in here is from a different century. Each station will have its own separate sound system, with headphones, and in all three corners there will be a television set. A forty-two-inch, flat-screen, high-definition television.”
“My set at home isn’t that big,” Robbie exclaimed.
“You may come to think of this as your second home,” Coach Barnes said. “Because if we’re going to be successful, you are going to have to spend a great deal of time in here.”
“You install a bed and I’ll move in here right away,” Caleb joked.
“And you have people who will pay for all of this too?” another one of the players asked.
“Sponsors and the school. One of the conditions of me coming here was that they had to bring everything up to date. To create the best product you have to have the best ingredients and the best tools. Nothing but the best is what they promised me.”
He walked over to the far end of the weight room. He pulled a black marker out of his pocket and began writing on the white block wall! In big numerals he wrote “4” and then “37” and finally “2.” He turned back around to face us.
“Does anybody know what these numbers mean?” Coach Barnes asked.
We all looked at each other and then at him.
“The winning numbers in the lottery?” somebody finally asked.
“You’re half right. They are the winning numbers, but they have nothing to do with the lottery.”
He circled the first number. “That’s the number of championships—Division One championships—that I have coached.”
He circled the second number. “Thirty-seven. The number of kids I have coached who have gone on to full scholarships in college programs.”
Next he circled the final number. “Two. The number of players I’ve coached who have gone on to play professional football.” He paused. We hung on his next words. “One of them was up in the big leagues for just half a season, never was a starter. The other, I think you know. Jessie McCarthy.”
“Of course we know him,” Caleb said. “Everybody in the country knows him.”
Jessie was a defensive lineman—like me—and was a star in the NFL.
“I was talking to Jessie yesterday and —”
“You were talking to him?” Robbie gasped.
Coach Barnes shrugged. “We talk all the time. He calls to ask advice or sometimes just to shoot the breeze. Anyway, he said he’s going to drop in this summer to meet my new players.”
“To meet us?” Caleb sounded like he couldn’t believe his ears.
“And to maybe give some tips to our linemen. Jessie is living large, living the dream,” Coach Barnes said. “A dream that everybody in this room has had at one time in their life. Is there anybody who hasn’t thought about making it, going to college, being that one-in-a-million player who not only makes it to the NFL, but becomes a star? Well…anybody?”
Nobody answered. Who hadn’t had that dream? Or the dream about hitting the homer that wins the World Series? Or playing in the NBA?
“Dreams do come true,