Hail Mary Read Online Free Page B

was true, although Michael planned on high-tailing it back to Tide headquarters as soon as he was finished.
    “Great. Again, I cannot thank you enough for doing this, Michael.”
    For once, he was doing the right thing for the right reason.
    “Let’s go. Even though you’re not speaking for awhile, it’ll be good for you to see the gym, familiarize yourself with the layout and meet some of the other teachers and staff before you begin,” Mary suggested as they exited her classroom.
    ~ * ~ * ~
    By the end of College Career Day, Mary was convinced if Michael ever traded his cleats and pads for chalk and mid-terms, all of Walker would make it to higher education. All the boys wanted to be him. He’d apparently convinced enough of them that college actually was important. All the girls seemed to have serious crushes on him. Not even her fellow teachers or administrators were immune to his quiet charm. Afterwards, Dr. Boxer, Walker’s fifty-three- year-old principal, had practically cooed when she thanked him for speaking.
    After the students were seated in the bleachers and had suppressed their chatter to a manageable whisper, Mary had introduced him. He launched into his story, supplying details that were news to Mary, lending a glimpse to added dimensions. He attended Catholic Central High School in Dallas, Texas, before he was recruited by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, he earned his bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering in four years.
    Michael had started out awkward. He was visibly uncomfortable, fidgeting with his tie, tapping his hands on the side of the podium. Not making eye contact with the audience and looking down at his notes. Walker’s student body swiftly grew restless and let him know it. While they might have been excited at first to have a professional athlete in their midst, the cell phones, sidekicks, and other PDAs had soon come out and were put to quick use, filling each others’ in boxes and text folders.
    It was as if the restlessness of the crowd awakened Michael. He quit looking at his notes and started speaking from his heart. His deep voice was as rich as maple sugar but slightly raspy, as though from lack of use. The audience had been hooked.
    Eventually the inevitable question had come from one of the junior boys. “Isn’t it a little bogus for you to tell us to go to college when you get paid to play football? I mean, do you even use your college degree?”
    “It’s a fair question.” Michael had taken the microphone out of the podium stand and walked the length of the bleachers. “Does the name Bruce Vianes mean anything to you?” Michael asked the junior and by extension, the rest of the audience.
    “No, sir.”
    “I’m not surprised. You don’t know about Bruce because he never made it to the NFL draft. Fourth game of our senior season, we were playing Michigan State. Vianes, a wide-receiver, took a big hit while going up for a sixty yard pass. He broke his neck when he came down after the tackle. He’s paralyzed from the neck down. Because Vianes was a hot shot prospect both in high school and in the Big Ten, he made no plans if his professional career didn’t work out. He never worked towards any degree. He didn’t graduate and last I knew, he was living with his parents and selling stereos at Best Buy.”
    Letting his message sink in, Michael took a drink of water before he finished. “Bottom line? Nothing’s certain in this life and you can’t count on anyone or anything except yourself and hard work. Hard work will get you an education and it will land you a job. Now, for me, I don’t know when my NFL days will be over, but when they are, I intend to put my degree to good use.”
    Afterwards, Michael had been flooded with interested students and smitten teachers, including Calleigh whose brief introduction was interrupted by clamoring spectators. He’d shot a look at Mary that screamed “help” and she’d run interference for the next three