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Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather.  This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded 
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to 
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as 
there is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of 
acquiring this material.

   (Copyright 2005, revisions c. 2007, R.C. Mather)

E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather at hotmail dot com
Don't be shy!  I enjoy hearing from you.

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THE COMPETITIVE EDGE:
PLAYING THE GAME III

A Novel

by R.C. Mather



- 39 -

A POTENTIALLY GOOD IDEA



We left right after breakfast for the long ride back to Gainesville.
We took turns driving so it didn't seem like that long, each of us
taking about a two hour turn behind the wheel. Alex was quiet and
subdued during the trip, uncharacteristic of her. Erin studied the
entire time she was not driving, and I took the opportunity to do a
little homework, too.

We stopped along the way for lunch. Erin had made up a bunch of
bologna sandwiches from the supplies I had purchased. We had chips
and sodas to go along with them. The weather in southern Georgia had
moderated, with the sun trying to break through the clouds and the
wind calming. We found a turnoff to a little state park along the
coastline, and we watched the breakers, still large, pounding the
rocks as we sat on a picnic table and ate.

Alex took over the driving duties after lunch. I sat in the back and
alternated between trying to write a paper on the Industrial
Revolution and thinking about what Erin had said. I would be in the
middle of a sentence about Eli Whitney or something, and boredom and
distraction would set in. I would find myself mulling over my night
with Erin in my bed.

I understood what she had been telling me, but I was having a hard
time accepting it as a lifestyle that was suitable for me. It might
have worked for Erin, but it seemed like the whole thing had way too
many traps for somebody like me. I would be the first to admit to
having a classic, Midwestern Bible Belt upbringing. Perhaps the
morality that came with that landscape was too stifling for more
sophisticated kids, but I didn't think I was ready to throw off the
shackles of my relatively conservative values, such as they were. I
sighed and tried to concentrate on what, to me, was ancient history
once again.

Before we left, Erin had written out a little thank-you note for the
Fontanas and left it propped up on the kitchen table. We also left a
little money, explaining in the note it was for the beer and pizza we
had consumed.

"Are you sure this is going to be enough?" I asked, looking
doubtfully at our paltry offering. I was still a little nervous about
the breaking and entering we seemed to have perpetrated.

Erin laughed, though. "It's enough," she said. "Remember? Friends of
the family? Really, Sean, they won't mind at all."

We cleaned up the place, including washing and drying the towels and
stuff we used and putting it all away. When we finally closed and
locked the door, the note and the money were the only evidence I
could see of our habitation over the weekend.

When the girls pulled up to my apartment, I slithered out of the
back seat, clutching my meager bagful of belongings. I leaned in and
gave Erin a kiss, and then I walked around to the driver's side. Alex
didn't wait for me. She got out of the car and, with a glance back
toward Erin that probably was more significant than I realized at the
time, she took my face between her hands, hauled herself up against
me. She gave me a hard, open-mouthed kiss with plenty of tongue that
took my breath away.

When she broke the kiss, she held on to me for a moment, looking
into my eyes. Her normally playful expression was serious as she
gazed at me. Then, without a word, she let me go, got back behind the
wheel, and drove off, leaving me standing there completely baffled
once again. 

'How do they do that?'



* * * * * * * * * *



We had two home games until the Georgetown tournament. I was a
little nervous about going up to Washington again, considering the
last time I was there was when I suffered a self-implosion of
magnificent proportions. I was still trying to recover from the
repercussions, and I absolutely did not want to experience anything
other than eating, sleeping, and playing soccer while we were at the
tournament.

Pick started experimenting in advance of the tournament by mixing up
our positions during our practices and scrimmages, just to see how it
all affected our movement during game situations. Most of the time it
really didn't matter, which pleased Pick enormously. We all knew the
tricks we had developed using Lightspeed during throw-ins had a
limited lifespan. Teams and scouts would pick up on them from reports
and film very quickly, and so our coaches were constantly looking for
new opportunities. Switching the lineup was a good way of keeping our
opponents on their heels.

During the games, though, he kept his plans wrapped. He put us in
our standard starting lineup for our game against Duke, a school
known almost as well for their basketball achievements as their
academics. They recruited great athletes who were also exceptionally
bright. Sometimes it worked dazzlingly well, and other times it was
an exercise in futility - as in Northwestern University, another very
highly regarded school who chose their student-athletes carefully.
Their trials and tribulations trying to compete in the Big Ten were
the stuff of legends back home.

We didn't have much in the way of trouble from Duke's soccer team,
though, and we walked away with a 3-0 shutout. Jesse scored twice,
and Lightspeed contributed the middle goal. I got assists on one of
Jesse's scores and on Harlan's goal, which put a smile on Eddie
Whitehead's face. Pick looked as stoic as he could, but Eddie gave it
away. The coaching staff was as pleased as a fisherman at an unlocked
catfish farm.

Our next game was against a very tough opponent. Even though Tampa
was a relatively small school, their soccer program was top-notch,
and they were ranked in the Top Twenty. We lined up at two in the
afternoon, and by four we all felt like we had been through a war.

They were tenacious and tough, and they knew exactly who they wanted
to harry. They employed a fluid defensive scheme that involved just
about everybody on the field, and they were well prepared for our
maneuvers. They keyed in on Jesse, Lightspeed, and me, no matter
where we were on the field. Part of the time, they played man-to-man
coverage, nearly unheard-of in soccer, switching into zones when we
began to exploit the open man in their doubling coverage. We were
able to move the ball seemingly at will on our half of the field, but
we could never get into a good attacking position. They always
managed to deflect our advances. They also were quite judicious in
choosing when to double-team one of us, the second man always seeming
to converge whenever the ball came to any of the three of us. They
used a lot of elbows and knees in their defense, all perfectly legal,
and all really painful when you were on the receiving end. By the
middle of the second period, I was beginning to believe they had
sharpened their joints with files, just for us. I was bruised and
winded, and it made me just a little hesitant to attack, which of
course fit right in with the Tampa scheme.

They also had obviously spent a lot of time watching films of our
games, because they seemed to find ways to attack just when we were
switching. We always knew we were at our most vulnerable when we were
moving men from one position to the next, but, in the past, our speed
and the element of surprise always worked in our favor. During the
Tampa game, I couldn't tell if my teammates and I were a couple of
steps slow, or if Tampa's reaction times were really so good, but the
result of the game was a shock to us, especially playing at home. We
walked away, humbled by a 3-1 defeat.

After the game, though, Pick didn't look upset, or even unhappy.

"Gaw-damn, but that was a helluva team, wa'an't it, boys?"

We were too drained to do much more than mumble back at him. I had
my head down, my arms resting on my thighs, as I sat in the locker
room. Sweat was dripping from my nose and puddling on the floor
between my feet. I didn't even have the energy to wipe myself off
with my towel. All I could do was watch each drop hit and crown in
the accumulating puddle.

"Boy, wouldn't I love to match up with them again this season," Pick
continued, unconcerned about our decided lack of enthusiasm at the
prospect. "They done their homework, didn't they, Eddie?"

"Yes, Pick," said Eddie dutifully.

"And we didn't," growled Pick. "We done got beat off the ball at
nearly every turn, din't we? And we couldn't penetrate, could we? And
they had their way with us, ex-pecially up in the middle, din't they?
And that's just the beginnin'."

"They were better prepared," said Bryan.

"Yup, they was," agreed Pick. "Porter? Where are you, boy? Ah, there
you are. Porter, what could we have done better that might have
neutralized some of their potential?"

I wearily picked up my head, a little dazed that he would grill me
at this point. "Jeez, I don't know right now, Coach. Maybe after I
look at the film..."

"Nope, not good enough. Show me your worth here, son. I know you
know it, you was just too much in the middle of things to have seen
it at the time."

I sat there, wishing he would leave me alone, knowing he wasn't
going to let me off the hook. I thought about it for a few minutes,
and then it began to make sense to me.

"We didn't collapse down on their doubles," I said. I sat up a
little straighter, feeling more energized as I thought about the
problem. "Christ, we played right into their hands, didn't we? They
pressured us, and we caved. If we had recognized the double-teaming
and reacted right away by sending another body into the mix, we might
have broken it."

"What do you mean, Boss?" asked Dan.

"They were marking us and watching how we tried to move the ball
in," I said. "They were reacting to our movement, offsetting it with
defensive moves of their own. If we had been able to recognize it
soon enough, their doubling leaves us a man open. They abandon their
defensive assignment to double up, and one of us is left alone. We've
tried to instill an automatic reaction to move into space when we
find ourselves off coverage, but the guy being doubled - the guy with
the ball - can't take advantage because of the double."

"Sure," said Bryan. "That's obvious."

Jesse joined in. "But... if the guy being left on the double-team,
instead of moving to take a pass that isn't coming, moves instead to
cut off the double-team, we're back to man coverage."

"So then, somebody else comes, and we send another to cover that
man, and then another comes, and pretty soon we have a scrum," said
Frenchy. "Like in rugby."

I laughed out loud, seeing how it could all work. "Maybe," I said.
"But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I used to call it swarmball
when I refereed little kid games. We might be able to use that."

"A diversionary tactic," said Spencer. I glanced over to him, and I
could tell he saw it, too.

I nodded. "Right," I said. "We can't move the ball, but neither can
they. Then it becomes a game of patience. Who has the discipline to
wait for the right moment? Remember, we've taken away their trump by
forcing them back into either man-to-man or position coverage again."

"And there isn't a more patient team out there than we can be,"
finished Jesse.

"Absolutely," I agreed. "Once we have them back into manned
coverage, it's a simple thing to begin to spread out the field again.
They'll have no choice but to follow us. And then..."

"And then," said Bryan, picking up the thread of where I was going,
"they're back to trying to catch up to our changes, instead of
preempting us." He looked over at me. Did I see a little admiration
in his eyes? Certainly they were friendlier than they had been all
season.

Suddenly we weren't so tired. We had work to do in practice, finding
the right combinations to block this kind of defensive tactic, but I
had the feeling we were on the right track.



* * * * * * * * * *



I wrote a long letter to Kayla while we were on the bus to
Georgetown. I told her a little about living through hurricanes. I
also wrote some stuff about living in an apartment with Spencer, and
about how most of our bachelor cooking turned out to be burgers and
hot dogs on the grill. Since Jesse, Spencer, and I were from up
north, we introduced Bryan to the peculiar joys of good bratwurst.
Once he got past the pasty gray color before they were grilled, he
grudgingly agreed they were pretty tasty, especially if they were
soaked in beer beforehand. We couldn't stop him from slathering
catsup all over his dogs and brats, though. It was almost painful to
watch.

I also had hours to think about Erin and what she had said to me
while we were riding out the storm. As much as I wanted to buy into
her ideology of separating sex from love, I just couldn't wrap my
mind around it and feel comfortable. I just couldn't separate love
and sex so easily. Even with my relatively limited experience, I had
come to recognize a desire by people in love to be closer physically.
At the same time, I had had a few encounters that were certainly
draining physically, but lacking emotionally. I much preferred
combining the two, the physical and the emotional. The chance of
heartbreak was greater, but as the lady said, you can't appreciate
the highs until you've experienced the lows. I'd been there, and I
was ready to build a little happiness into my existence.

After what seemed like hours of agonizing, I came to the only
conclusion I knew would work for me. I loved both Alex and Erin as
friends, but I had to try to be done with them as bed partners. There
was no future, beyond friendship, in either relationship. Maybe they
had a future together, I didn't know. But I couldn't let them include
me in their exchange of bodily fluids any more, if I could possibly
help it.

I just hoped they would understand.

I just hoped I could be strong.



* * * * * * * * * *



Pick implemented his lineup plans during the tournament. For each
game, he varied our starting positions as much as he could. Jesse as
stopper? I wasn't sure if even the Twilight Zone would have come up
with a stranger storyline. Dan Ortega on offense? Incredible.

The only constants to Pick's arrangements were Stan Voigt in the
net, Spencer somewhere in the middle, and my spot. I always started
on defense, so Spencer and I could coordinate the switches. Where
either of us ended up depended entirely on the flow of the game.

Which we controlled, right from the opening gambit. Seeing a
different lineup than what they had been expecting always threw off
our opponents, and we profited by it. We tore through our first three
games, outscoring our foes by a combined total of 17-1. We already
had set tournament records for total goals scored, largest
differential in scores, most points scored, and fewest points
allowed. Points, as opposed to goals, were accumulated through
scoring. Two points were awarded to the scoring player, and one point
was awarded to a player who had made an assist. On rare occasions,
that could actually be two players. Through the three games we had
played thus far, we had amassed a total of 48 points. Our collective
opponents had only acquired a paltry two points, as the sole goal
scored against us came on a penalty kick. And we still had the
championship game to play.

The final match-up was a repeat of the previous year's championship
game, Florida versus South Carolina. The night before the game, my
buddies and I met again for dinner. Eric, Trent, Jesse, Spencer, and
I were sitting at a big round table at a seafood place called
Clamshell, off the beltway. We had mussels, clams, and shrimp we had
to peel ourselves on the table, and we were all digging in.

"How's Keisha?" I asked Eric.

"She good," he replied. "She sends her love. Couldn't come this
weekend, her sorority is doing something out in the sticks somewhere.
Some do-gooder thing."

"Well, tell her I say hi," I said. "Do-gooder things aren't bad, you
know."

Eric chuckled. "I know," he said, reaching for another oyster.
"'Specially when she get back home from one of these estrogen
weekends. She particularly glad to see me then."

We all laughed. I turned to Trent. "And Danielle? How's she?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eric give me a little shake of
his head, but it was too late. The question was out and on the table.

Trent just shrugged and stuffed another couple of shrimp into his
mouth. His expression was not one of joy and domestic bliss, however.

I let the question die without renewing it, and we concentrated on
demolishing as many shellfish as we could.

Later, as we lingered over coffee and ice cream, I leaned over to
Trent. Eric was involved in a long story about some soccer game from
this year, a story I suspected was going to turn into one of his
famously bad shaggy-dog stories. Spencer and Jesse were roped in and
listening, though.

"So, trouble in paradise?" I asked Trent quietly.

He grimaced. He took a careful sip of his coffee before answering.
"You might say that."

"Anything I can do to help?"

He looked at me tightly. "I love you as a brother, Sean, but I've
got to tell you. You aren't exactly the example I would seek out for
advice to the lovelorn."

I was momentarily shocked, but then I just had to chuckle. "No
worries, mate. You are absolutely right in that. You want to know how
to take exactly the wrong step, then I'm your man. Otherwise, stick
to Eric's advice."

Trent smiled, for perhaps the first time that night. "I try," he said.



* * * * * * * * * *



We took South Carolina apart in the championship game. In Trent's
defense, he wasn't playing his best, but he was only one of eleven
guys on the field, and blame could have been spread far and wide. At
the end of the match, we were awarded another trophy to add to the
case back home in the fieldhouse, having defeated South Carolina 4-0.
It was so lopsided, Pick played his entire bench for the last half of
the second period, giving Stan, Jesse, Bryan, Frenchy, and me a
break. I felt badly for Trent, but at the same time, I was licking my
chops in anticipation of the SEC Tournament and the Big Show, the
NCAA Tournament. We were going to perpetrate some serious ass-kicking.

To make the weekend even better, on the ride home I had an idea. I
sat in my seat and examined it from lots of angles. Hell, I had so
few of them, I was indulging myself with this one. I tried to lay it
all out logically, listed good results and bad results, the lists
forming in my mind, until I finally was able to label it: A
Potentially Good Idea.

Of course, there was a downside: many of my Potentially Good Ideas
carried lethal properties. I was wise enough to recognize this, but I
was still young enough to seriously consider leaping into it anyway.

One thing I was sure of: if put into effect, the ramifications - good
or ill - would steer my life from that moment forward. Was I willing 
to take that chance?






(Continued in Chapter 40)


  
CE39