Taking his first live snap in the NFL, a rookie field-goal kicker—who also happens to be a 43-year-old sportswriter— learns about pressure. LESSON BY STEFAN FATSIS

uring the ’ team tells me one day. “You’re doing it.” Still, I camp and minicamp, I felt like I want to be accepted not just as a team- Dwas trespassing. mate but as a player. On the field, I didn’t want Most of the Broncos to steal time from the kick- rarely watch me kick. If ers fighting for a chance. Off EXCERPT they wander out early and the field, I didn’t want to at- witness only one of my tract any more attention inevitable pop-ups or line than my presence already did. In 25 drives, that kick defines me. That’s a per- years of reporting, I’d never felt so ten- formance issue. Then there’s a confi- tative. An NFL locker room, not sur- dence issue. I fear failure and its atten- prisingly, is an intimidating place. dant embarrassment, which argues deep- Time, though, is a good relaxant. Ner- ly against attempting what I’m attempt- vousness about my ability and my phy- ing. It’s one thing to try, in early middle sique—showering next to my huge, age, to become an expert Scrabble player. sculpted teammates instantly destroyed It’s another altogether to try to become a the pride I’d taken in my dozen pounds of professional athlete. new muscle—is fading. My presence is no longer noteworthy. Journalistically, this The fifth day of training camp is the first to is terrific. The players don’t care anymore include “FG/FG Rush” on the schedule: that I’m carrying a notebook, and when field-goal practice, with a live rush from they remind themselves that I am they the defense. In the training room, I rub keep talking anyway. And they seem to Flexall, a mentholated aloe vera gel, on respect that, no matter my skills, I have my quadriceps, hamstrings, and groin the guts to be here at all. “You’re doing (a little too close to the private parts), this stuff,” Amon Gordon, a sensitive, and I slather my neck and face with sun- soft-spoken 312-pound defensive tackle, screen. A training staff summer hire

50 SEPT | OCT 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Illustration by Jay Bevenour THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE SEPT | OCT 2008 51 stretches my legs. To make the environ- Everybody’s a critic. I jog back and kick if you do what you do. No sense making it ment I might encounter feel familiar, I a dozen balls from 25, 30, and 35 yards. harder on yourself.” close my eyes and visualize the full Good plant, solid hit. When I connect from I nod. I’m hungry. Inside my helmet, I assemblage of Broncos watching me 35, Ronnie says, “That’s going to be your feel perspiration form beneath my fore- kick, the thousand fans gathered on distance.” This isn’t casual stand-around- head and burst through the skin. We the berm by the far sideline, my tech- and-schmooze kicker talk. Ronnie is dead walk to the sideline. General manager nique. I imagine good plants and solid serious. Under the lights. Bullets flying. If Ted Sundquist mimics John Facenda’s hits—the kicking mantra I’d developed Shanahan summons me, Ronnie is say- voice-of-God baritone from the classic with a sports psychologist. ing, I’ll be kicking from 35 yards. NFL highlight reels: “The hot breath of Still, I don’t think Broncos “One kick?” I ask. the defensive end. The beads of sweat will let me kick with “One kick.” pouring down his cheek ...” the team. It’s too early in camp. The I have to pee again. Two more fans The airhorn sounds: FG. I jog onto the starting field-goal kicker, , are standing near the sideline of the field with Jason for our first moment in hasn’t even kicked yet. Special teams kickers’ field. the spotlight. Shanahan shoos me off. coach Ronnie Bradford won’t give me a “Jason was kicking from here,” one says. While Jason kicks, I stand a couple of straight answer on whether I will. We “Number nine’s pretty good, too,” the yards in front of the team, shaking out have 40 minutes before FG. We stretch, other says before I trot by. “Way to go, my right leg, pacing, breathing the way punt, loosen up. I ask Jason the plan. nine!” he says. sports psychologist David McDuff recom- “We’re going to kick field goals,” he I scoop up the orange duffels and my mended to relax and focus: in through replies. “The idea is to kick the ball fellow kickers Paul Ernster and Micah the nose for four counts, hold for seven between the tall yellow things.” Knorr—who are competing for the team’s counts, out through the mouth for eight Jason will kick 10 balls, two apiece punting job—and I migrate to the empty counts. It’s supposed to release tension. with the ball on the 10-, 15-, 20-, 25-, and grass field next to where the rest of the But it’s not working. The players are 30-yard lines, or field goals of 28, 33, team is practicing. Paul snaps and Micah watching. The coaches are watching. The 38, 43, and 48 yards. With 20 minutes holds. From 40 yards, I strike with foot fans are watching. This scene doesn’t feel to go, I pace back and forth on an adja- sideways, skip through directly toward familiar at all. A few days earlier, Jason cent fake-turf field where we kickers the goalposts, and land with my toe point- had described the kicker’s job as “hours practice. I need to pee. Inside a Port-O- ing straight ahead. Perfect execution. and hours of boredom surrounded by a Let, I hear fans talking about me. ‘‘Way to go, dog!” a fan screams. But I’m few seconds of panic.” My few seconds “He hit four in a row the other day,” growing visibly nervous. I ask Paul to feel like a lifetime. one says. hold my Broncos cap and my notebook. Each of Jason’s kicks is a tracer bullet “But they were 10 yards out and didn’t get “Relax, dude,” he says. “Just do what you that soars through the goal posts and 10 feet off the ground,” another replies. do. You make a hundred out of a hundred smacks into or passes through the hydrau-

Why do this? Just a natural followup Q&A with to the Scrabble book? Strangely, yes. Becoming an expert Scrabble STEFAN FATSIS player challenged my mind. I wanted to do In Word Freak [“Man of Letters,” Sept|Oct 2001] another piece of participatory journalism that Stefan Fatsis C’85 explored the history and challenged my body (before it’s too late). But as obscure subculture surrounding the iconic board with Word Freak there had to be a larger story game Scrabble, training himself to be an expert about a mysterious American subculture. That player along the way. His new book, A Few may seem an odd thing to say about profession- Seconds of Panic, tells how this “5-foot-8, 170- al football, which is covered voraciously by a pound, 43-year-old sportswriter,” as the subtitle 24/7 media machine. But I’d long believed that puts it, managed to talk his way onto the Denver Broncos roster the wall between reporters and players had grown so tall and as a kicker during the team’s 2006 training camp and preseason so thick that the public didn’t—couldn’t—get an honest depic- and what he learned about the subculture—hardly unknown but tion of life inside the sport. The only way to do that, I little understood—of the modern NFL. believed, was to play, and the only act I felt I could perform While he didn’t exactly become an expert this time (see the on a field even remotely credibly compared to the pros was accompanying excerpt), he did learn something about what it’s kicking field goals. like to be a player—which, given the personal stats listed above, is still pretty impressive—and gain both the trust and the respect How did your family feel about it? Were they concerned of his teammates. This summer, as he was engaged in the some- for your safety and/or sanity? what less physically taxing demands of a book tour, Fatsis took The reality of what I was proposing didn’t dawn on my time out for an interview with Gazette editor John Prendergast. wife, Melissa Block [host of National Public Radio’s All

52 SEPT | OCT 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE lic video tower scaffolding beyond the end zone. I try another breathing technique, “I want to look like I’m one used when the body’s physiology kicks into overdrive: hyperventilating through the nose to tighten the muscles, then tak- preparing to kick. Instead ing some clearing breaths to release the tension. I want to look like I’m preparing I look like I’m having a to kick. Instead I look like I’m having a nervous breakdown. Paul writes in my notebook: “Pacing rapidly, rigid, franti- nervous breakdown.” cally breathing, looks like a man awaiting execution. Elam is drilling field goals on kickers. We’re going to put some the flutter in a skirt. We want to savor the effortlessly. More pressure on SF.” pressure on our kicker, Stefan. He’s experience. We want to enjoy. Intellectually, Then the horn sounds to signal the end going to kick. If he makes it, meetings I recognize that this should be one of of , and I suddenly realize I’m not will end at nine instead of nine thirty.” those moments. I am comfortable with going to kick. I’m deflated that Shanahan A war whoop rises from the team. As I my teammates now, and comfortable in has left me out—this is why I’ve come to record Shanahan’s words, defensive back front of crowds. I have spoken to audi- Denver—but also relieved. My mind had Nick Ferguson snatches my notebook. ences in the hundreds, appeared dozens been invaded by an army of tiny, hectoring “Quit writing!” he shouts. The special of times on national television, talked to kickers. Smooth steps back! Stay down! Be teams line up on the 12-yard line—a 30-yard millions of people on the radio, had my aggressive! Good plant! Bend over! field goal—and the fans realize what’s hap- work critiqued in the pages of influen- Chippin’ and skippin’! Head down! Leg to pening, Applause builds. “Come on, nine!” tial newspapers and magazines. I am butt! Hips open wide! Foot perpendicular “Let’s go, nine!” “Come on, Fatsis!” Jason comfortable with spotlights. I couldn’t to ball! Solid hit! Follow through toward approaches. “Stefan, you know there’s a have conceived, arranged, and carried the goalposts! I couldn’t have made a 35 25-second clock,” he says with a grin. I’m out this extended performance with an yarder if you had spotted me the first 25. too frightened to ask whether he’s joking. NFL team if I wasn’t. Having experienced the prekick stress, I In the movies of our lives, the most In sports, there is nothing quite so think, will help me when I actually do have meaningful moments occur in slow appealing as the split second before exe- to kick. Phew. motion. We want to preserve them and cution. There’s the anticipation of what Shanahan motions the team to the relive them, find a way to recover the will happen, for sure, but also the exqui- middle of the field before the next drill. most evanescent details: the first upturn site beauty of the pause: the moment of “In this business,” he says, “there’s a in a smile, the bounce of a bob of hair, nothingness before the explosion of lot of pressure, and a lot pressure put the instant when two pairs of eyes meet, everythingness. But instead of soaking

Things Considered], until after a colleague of hers jokingly How much of your approach came out of your own desire asked whether I had a good life-insurance policy. I assured and how much from trying to distinguish what you were doing her—translation: I lied—that there was no chance anyone from what George Plimpton did in the 1960s with Paper Lion? would try to tackle me. But Melissa never doubted my sani- My own desire first. I played soccer in high school, in ty because journalistically it seemed like a good idea. Plus, intramurals at Penn (I attended one tryout for the JV, real- our then-four-year-old daughter liked telling people that I ized I was out of my league and went straight to the DP) was playing for the Broncos. and in adult leagues. So I knew I could kick a ball. Plus, I’m fairly competitive. So I wanted to do well. Plimpton, as he There’s certainly a fair amount of humor in the book, described it, joined the in the summer of 1963 but it’s not a lark. You took the training very seriously. Can unprepared. His stated goal was to find out “how one got you talk a little about that? along” if thrust into the company of professionals. Today, I did take the physical part seriously. I found a trainer in we know the answer: He’d be squashed. So I needed to twist Washington, D.C., where we live, who worked with profes- the Plimptonian proposition. I needed to try. I didn’t want sional athletes. Over the course of about 15 months, I ran and to just show up in Denver with a notebook. lifted weights and ate six meals a day and grew from about 160 to 172 pounds. I was in by far the best shape of my life. At Do you think your attitude helped you gain acceptance the same time, through the magic of Google, I found a kick- among the players? ing coach, a record-setting college kicker—and failed NFL Absolutely. There was never a doubt that I wasn’t an “actu- kicker—named Paul Woodside. Paul was my age and al player,” as a Broncos put it. Nor did I harbor embraced me and my quest without a single doubt. He want- any fantasies of becoming one. But it was clear to my team- ed me to do well and believed I could do well—for him and for mates that I understood the mechanics of kicking, that I had every athlete who dreamed about playing in the NFL. practiced a lot and, most important, that I was committed to

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE SEPT | OCT 2008 53 in the attention, in appreciating the most ing backward. I kick the grass first and minutes earlier—none has been like this unlikely moment of nothingness in my then the ball. There is no explosive one. In fact, in the long history of the life, I am totally freaking out. I can’t find sound, no sound at all, really, no power. NFL, through the eras of dropkickers a way to slow things down. I can’t smile. I No chance. I hear shouts of “Get up, get and toe kickers and never-seen-a-foot- can’t high-five the other players and skip up, get up!!!” and then “No, no, no!’!” ball European sidewinders, no one—no into place. I can’t acknowledge the fans And a crescendo and decrescendo wave one—has likely kicked a ball like this with a rock-’n’-roll finger point, the way of “Awwwwwwww!!!” as the ball shoots one. “OOOOoooooHHHHhhhhh!!!!” the does. I can’t pat under the crossbar. crowd and players cry as one. Amid the my , Mike Leach, on the ass I grab my helmet with both hands, turn noise, I hear a single scream of anguish. and my holder, Micah, on the helmet. I my back to the goalposts, and collapse The ball flies high enough and far can’t call the field-goal team together for into a question mark. A chorus of laugh- enough. But it is a line drive to the left an impromptu huddle and a self-effacing ter surrounds me. When I lift my head, I of the goalposts. A line drive spiral to joke. I can’t see anything around me—but see Nick Ferguson leaping up and down the left of the goalposts. A spiral! I can’t shut out the fact that I’m surround- and shouting. “Offside! Offside!” He I drop to the ground as if I’ve been shot ed, either. Nothing looks clear. It’s as if I’m helps me up. “Five-yard penalty!” and bury my helmeted forehead in the standing a few inches from an impres- Shanahan says. “Offside! Do it again!” grass. The horn sounds. While the rest of sionist painting, the players, the Broncos “No, no, no!” I shout to Shanahan. I the team runs past my carcass rotting on staff, the fans on the berm all dissolving don’t want to go five yards closer! I can the turf, Jason Elam, a broad smile high- in a pointillistic blur. I want to fast-for- make a 30-yarder! But no one listens. lighting the crow’s-feet around his bright ward to tomorrow. I want to disappear. Wide receiver Rod Smith cradles my hel- eyes, helps me up. Mike Leach pats me on Suddenly, the offensive line is bend- met and whispers encouragement in an the back. A defensive lineman named ing over. I tap the ground with my right earhole. The crowd starts clapping. Nick Demetrin Veal puts an arm around my foot and take three erratic steps back Ferguson raises his arms to pump up the shoulders and says it’ll be okay. I walk and two over. I don’t take a practice fans. “You can do it! You can do it!” some- the slow walk of the damned to the side- swing. I exhale hard. My body is shak- one shouts. But I feel more alone and line with Jason. ing, my fingers twitching. I never come insecure than ever. I pace and shake out Sports psychology tells us that, in to a complete stop. Rather than nod- my legs, daubing the turf with my right demanding situations, we need to shut ding my head at Micah to signal that foot, then my left. A whistle blows. everything out. But I should have let it I’m ready for him to call for the ball, I Of all the hundreds upon hundreds of in—breathed deeply, to be sure, but say, inexplicably, “Go!” Go? Go? What footballs I have booted in the prelude to embraced my slow-motion moment and was that? Then the ball is snapped and this kick, of all the hooks and slices and inhaled my surroundings: the crowd, the I’m racing forward. Left, right, left—I short kicks and weak kicks and slips grass, the uniform, the taunting players, feel my plant foot slip and my body fall- and mis-hits—including the one two the video guys in the tower, the coaches,

working hard and getting better. One book reviewer accused this one—by being a person first and eventually a teammate, me of “dreamy self-glorification,” which I found pretty funny. rather than a questions-asking reporter, by being there all day Because my experience was largely about self-humiliation, every day—I gained otherwise unobtainable insight. I developed and in the telling about self-deprecation. I wanted to do well, friendships with players, coaches, front-office executives, the absolutely, but that’s a natural athletic and competitive drive. team owner, the equipment guys, the groundskeeper, the p.r. And I believed that the only way to understand pro sports and staffers. That didn’t compromise my journalistic “objectivity.” It to get the players to open up to me—to talk in ways that they simply allowed me to tell a more complete story. don’t normally talk to reporters—was to demonstrate that I As a player, I was able to examine up close the complexity was serious—not good, necessarily, but serious. of pro football. I was able to experience the pressure of ath- letic performance and the monotony, drudgery, and exhaus- There’s a great moment near the end of the book when the tion of training camp. I was able to witness the psychologi- owner of another team sees you with the players and asks cal, physical and emotional toll of this painful, Darwinian if you’re a Broncos fan and you reply that no, you’re a sport. I got to see the private interactions between players Bronco. What did you learn about the NFL as a player that and coaches, players and management, and players and play- you couldn’t learn as a reporter? ers. And I got to hear—during long, brutally honest conversa- That same book reviewer asserted that I wasn’t a Bronco tions—just how thoughtful and introspective many players because I couldn’t experience being cut—because I had a non- are about their profession. They’re not dumb jocks. They football life to return to after training camp. No kidding. But I question the sanity of the tradeoff they make: the impossibly know that I felt more like a part of the team than like a reporter pressure-filled workplace, the total absence of job security, covering the team. And I’m convinced that allowed me to tell a the ever-present threat of temporary or permanent injury in story I wouldn’t have been able to tell otherwise. I think there exchange for the exhilarating thrill of competition and the are too many artificial barriers in journalism. By breaking down long shot of the multimillion-dollar payday.

54 SEPT | OCT 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE the scouts, the equipment staff, the fans, well raised to say anything different. and hide my head in his shoulder pads. the media, the preteen ball boys who are I sit on my helmet and wipe sweat from “Don’t even talk to me!” he says. Tight beginning to feel like kids of my own. my brow while pretending to watch the end Tony Scheffler says he really wanted Instead of embracing my few seconds of rest of practice. I apologize to Micah, who that half hour off. ‘‘That was pathetic,” panic, I simply panicked. tells me not to. Ronnie Bradford says that, offensive tackle offers. As I leave the field, I can’t look anyone watching me bang 35- and 40-yarders Cornell Green, another offensive line- in the eyes, though I know everyone’s with room to spare in warm-ups, he man, wants me to run the quarter-mile eyes are on me. I feel as if I have let the thought, “This is going to be easy.” Then, penalty he incurred for jumping offside team down—at 30 minutes per player, as curtain time approached, he saw me in practice. I tell him I will. “They were my misses cost my teammates a total of tighten. Ted Sundquist says that, in my going to tape you up and throw you in the 45 hours of freedom—and I let myself position, he would have spit the bit, too. cold tub,” he says. ‘‘I’ll tell them not to.” down. That I had never before kicked a When I regain composure, I rejoin the With Jason Elam, I search for new ways football from a live snap over an offen- cluster of players standing behind the to express my embarrassment and disap- sive line and a full defense is more yellow rope waiting their turn to play. I pointment. I say that I’m dumbfounded excuse than pertinent detail. I wanted sneak up on quarterback Preston Parsons by how I could have missed so badly. to validate my presence here. Instead, I failed publicly and spectacularly. In the seconds after the debacle, a few “When the abuse subsides, Broncos try to help me recover. “Your team is going to need you again,” Jason the players (the more sympathetic says. “Don’t go into the tank.” Tight end Stephen Alexander whacks me on the shoulder pads and pats me on the helmet. ones, anyway) seize on my failure “Shake it off,” he says. Micah reminds me that everyone wants me to succeed. “You as a happy confirmation of reality, heard the crowd. You heard the team,” he says. “They’ll be cheering for you the next a big, fat I-told-you-so. My going time.” My favorite ball boy, Chandler Smith, the polite and adorable 13-year-old down in an intergalactic fireball son of assistant strength coach Cedric Smith, comforts me best of all. “Close, Mr. illuminates their struggles to Stefan,” he says, either too young to real- ize just how badly I have performed or too play professional football.”

Did the book turn out the way you thought it would? day to kick; I’d been through camp! As terrifying as the If not, how did it change in the telling? reality of lining up against a team of players who didn’t Well, I thought I’d be nailing 50-yard field goals—honestly. know me would have been, I would have done it in a second. So while I did make some 40-yarders—nothing to sneeze at; Broncos owner and head coach Mike Shanahan 40 yards is a long way—I didn’t get as good on the field as were willing to let me, and my teammates would have loved I’d hoped, which was sad to me. But the book was never to see me try. intended to be about my middle-aged kicking adventures. It In the end, though, it didn’t matter. As I said, this wasn’t was about infiltrating the skunk works of the NFL. Thanks fantasy camp. I didn’t need to play in a real game to com- to the candor of the Broncos players and the openness of plete the narrative. In fact, I think it might have distract- Broncos management, I think the book turned out to be ed from the point of the book because kicking in a real even more revealing than I’d originally hoped. game would have been a typical sportswriterly way of judging my experience, and a particularly sportswriterly Although you got to kick in practice with the Broncos, the climax to the story, too. In the movie, though, I’d be happy NFL wouldn’t let you kick in an actual preseason game. to see the credits roll after I kick a last-second, 50-yard How disappointing was that? game-winner. In the moment, it was frustrating, because the reason for barring me felt specious. The NFL said that allowing an In the book, you’re 43. You’re a couple of years older now. amateur to play in a preseason game could undermine the Still in shape? league’s integrity. I argued that kicking a short field goal Not the same kind of shape. Though I did kick some foot- or an extra point in the fourth quarter of an utterly mean- balls with Scott Simon of NPR the other day. I blasted a ingless preseason game would have been harmless and in 35-yarder into the netting beyond the uprights. Alas, no fact entertaining. Plus, it wasn’t as if I’d just showed up one other NFL team has called.◆

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE SEPT | OCT 2008 55 “You play long enough in the NFL, you’ll Athletes complain that the reporters than buzzing them. Todd makes the sound miss some kicks,” Jason says. who smugly judge their performance and of propeller blades and suggests that “But I’m not playing long enough in behavior can’t possibly understand what Jason could do both at the same time. the NFL,” I reply. they experience. Before joining the I laser the ball from 35 yards on the ‘‘That’s what I’m saying. You’ve played Broncos, I was sympathetic to the Atticus turf field. T-Mac calls it my best hit yet long enough to miss some kicks.” Finch principle, that you can’t judge as a Bronco and announces, “He’s full of someone unless you walk around in his piss and vinegar!” I hand him my tape posse of about 30 reporters and shoes. I’d watched and reported on recorder. He hits the red button and cameramen awaits me as I stroll enough sports, and talked to enough talks. “Stefan, do not shit down your leg Aoff the field alone. I handle them jocks, to conclude that fans and report- today. Focus. Don’t be scared. Execute. with greater ease than I did the kicks. ers often absurdly consider athletes as Swing. If you shit down your leg today, They ask who I am and why I’m here. automatons who should never fail. How your reps will be limited from here on They ask how it’s been going, and I in could that jerk have missed? (That night, out.” I line up for another from 35. turn ask whether they saw me bagging when a local TV sports reporter cracks in “You better get the fucking ball up. 40-yarders. They want to know if I have his report that my book should be titled Get it up! There it is!” T-Mac shouts, not any kicking experience. They want to Worst Kicker Ever, I say to the screen: sarcastically. “Whoa ho ho! He’s on the know who’s taken me under his wing. “Asshole.”) But, trite as it may sound, driving range!” he says in a falsetto. They want to know what the stakes now I have learned the lesson because I “Back him up,” Ronnie says. “He’ll hit were for my kick. They want to know have lived it. And my teammates love a forty-yarder.” how it felt. They want to know whether that. A half dozen tell me that I got a “Next on the tee box, from New York it changed how I appreciate and per- taste of their lives, that I should multiply City, Stefan Fatsis! Whaaaaaaa ...” I ceive the NFL. I answer honestly, in the pressure I felt by 25 or 50 or 100, that make the 40-yarder. I’m completely sound bites. I was lucky to have had just a half hour of comfortable. Nervous, yes, but in a good From his nearby daily news-confer- meetings riding on my performance way. After my flop, Jason told me that if ence perch, Shanahan is kind. He tells instead of my future employment. you’re not nervous, you don’t care. He the throng that I didn’t choke. “What I skip the ice pool out of fear one of said he’s nervous kicking an extra point was great about that, since he’s been the offensive linemen will drown me in a preseason game. We repair to the around, he knows what a kicker has to and instead walk directly to the show- weight room to count down the time to go through,” my coach says. ‘‘When you ers. Just outside, next to the urinals, FG. I pee, eat a chocolate brownie Myoplex miss a kick in a game, you’re by your- fullback Kyle Johnson is wearing a protein bar, and read the Denver Post. self, nobody talks to you for a week until white towel and his Broncos ID, wait- With 10 minutes to go, I make two kicks the next game. It was a lot of fun.” ing to take a drug test. from 30 on grass and patrol the sideline Not for me it wasn’t. But I’m grateful “How was that for pressure?” he asks. calmly, stretching my legs and breath- that Shanahan is at least charitable. At “More than anything I’ve felt in my life.” ing methodically. Paul writes in my the back of the crowd, still in shoulder “That’s what it’s like every play of notebook: “Looks much better today. pads, I pretend to be another reporter. every game. It’ll keep you up at night— More relaxed.” Instead of standing alone “So will you give that kicker a second if you let it.” to await my fate, I stick close by Micah chance?” I ask. Shanahan sees that it’s while he ingathers snaps from Mike me, flashes one of the tight, white smiles By the end of lunch, my folly seems Leach. Snapper, holder, and kicker are a that often cross his permanently wind- forgotten. Either I don’t matter much unit, after all. burned face, and says that he will. to my teammates, or, I prefer to think, “Field goal and field-goal rush!” Amid a pulsing dance beat, I do a they understand that there but for the Shanahan shouts. “Let’s go!” Jason again perp walk through the locker room. grace of God go they. The coaches may converts all 10 kicks from the same dis- The reviews are not good. Linebacker expect perfection. The players under- tances and locations as the other day. : “I was thoroughly dis- stand it’s an impossible standard. The last ball skims the right upright and gusted.” Center : “Thanks Two days after my debut, FG is on the bounces through. I watch with stupefied for fucking us.” Tackle Chad Mustard: schedule again. asks if I’m awe, but no intimidation or worry. I’m “Shit the bed! Call housecleaning! We prepared for redemption—and says the not shaking or hyperventilating, and I’m need new sheets!” Starting quarter- stakes are always higher the second time. not afraid. back Jake Plummer: “Don’t fucking But my fellow kickers aren’t concerned “Offense!” Shanahan barks. “Fifty-yard come near me. Get out of here.” But with whether I’ll have an encore. It’s just line!” The horn sounds. Redemption will when the abuse subsides, the players another day at camp for them. Jason have to wait. “At least you were ready,” (the more sympathetic ones, anyway) regales us with tales of buzzing a herd of Paul says.◆ seize on my failure as a happy confir- antelopes in Colorado in his 1957 de mation of reality, a big, fat I-told-you- Havilland Beaver airplane. Special teams From A Few Seconds of Panic by Stefan Fatsis. so. My going down in an intergalactic assistant coach Thomas McGaughey— Published by arrangement with The Penguin fireball illuminates their struggles to universally known as T-Mac—notes that Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. play professional football. Jason would rather be killing antelopes Copyright © 2008 by Stefan Fatsis.

56 SEPT | OCT 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE