Gym Candy Read Online Free Page B

meetings—had no work ethic at all. None. But I was the best running back around by
far, so when game time came around, the coaches found a way to get me on the field. Then I got to the pros, where there were guys as good as me. I pulled the same crap, and the Chargers got rid of me just like that." He snapped his fingers. "I couldn't believe it. Sometimes I still can't believe it.
    "So I came back to Seattle, my tail between my legs. I managed to land a job on sports radio, and a few years later you were born. That was quite a moment, seeing you. I looked in your crib and I thought:
He's not going to end up like me, wasting his talent.
    "I know I've worked you hard all these years. Your mom says I put too much pressure on you, and I guess I do. But you're good at football, Mick. Really, really good. I don't want you to get so mad at me over this that you quit."
    I shook my head. "I'm not going to quit. I love football. It's just..."
    "Just what?" he said.
    "It's just that I don't get why you didn't tell me earlier."
    He laughed grimly. "That's easy, Mick. Everybody I see at the radio station, friends of your mom's, friends of mine, they look at me and they think:
There's Mike Johnson. He could have been great.
You looked at me
and your eyes said:
That's my dad. He is great.
" He paused. "I couldn't give it up."
    We sat for a little longer, neither of us saying anything. Finally, he stood. "So, we're okay?"
    "Yeah," I said. "We're okay."
    "We'll still throw the ball around now and again."
    "Yeah, we'll still throw the ball around."
    On the drive home, neither of us spoke. I don't know what I thought. I didn't hate him; I wasn't really even angry. But things would never be the same. He'd never be as big in my eyes as he'd been, never take up so much of my world.
    After that he still gave me advice on technique and strategy, and we still tossed the ball around the park, though we didn't do that as much. The change wasn't in what we did but in what we didn't say. He never again described the big plays he'd made on the football field, and I never again asked him about them. They were all in the past, buried. It was unspoken, but we both understood that the games that mattered were the games yet to be played—my games.

PART TWO

1
    So much had happened over that weekend that I forgot how angry Rooney had been until I returned to the practice field Monday. I considered telling him that I was going to stop smarting off, that I was different from my dad, but what good are words? I'd show him.
    That practice, I pushed myself to outperform everyone, especially Drew Carney. Running drills, agility drills, strength drills—I took him on. If he made it through the tires in twenty seconds, then I was going to do it in nineteen. If he managed thirty pushups, then I was doing thirty-one. If he ran the four-forty in fifty-five seconds, then I was clocking fifty-four. After two hours, Rooney blew his whistle. "Good practice, men," he called out. He turned to me, and our eyes locked. "Very good practice."
    As I walked toward the parking lot, Drew fell in stride beside me. "That was fun," he said.
    "What?" I said.
    "You trying hard like that—it made practice better."
    "Yeah, I guess it did," I said.
    "A bunch of us play flag football at Crown Hill Park in the afternoons. A kid named DeShawn Free is always there and usually there are some other guys who go to Shilshole High. You should come around."
    ***
    After I ate lunch, I walked to Crown Hill Park. They had even teams, but Drew made the other guys make room for me, even though it meant going six on five. I had a great time that day, and after that I played flag football with those guys every chance I got. The games turned out to be more competitive than our league games. About half the guys were on the Shilshole High varsity, and they were determined to push me and Drew and DeShawn around, which made us determined not to be pushed around. We kicked our effort up a notch,