The Education of Giacomo Jones Ch. 05

Rance thought he saw tears in Middleton's eyes, but he couldn't be sure. Might have been sweat, but this was not a hot day. Either way, every player in that circle of men was breathing fire right now. Every fist was clenched. No chatter. Just... ready. That instant, that feeling was something that no man who experienced it would ever forget.

The official walked away from the on-field replay monitor to make his call, and Fulbright's offense jogged into place on the field. Matt Crews had his hands on the ball the instant the official blew it ready for play. Two heartbeats later, he snapped it to Gerow, and five offensive linemen exploded into the Georgia players across from them as one with a ferocity they had never known collectively. The result was a sizeable crease between the center and guard through which Bookie Riemers sprinted instantly. He saw a cornerback coming toward him fast from the left, so he cut to the right, seeing a large white jersey behind which he could duck for another few yards. Just as he did, the white jersey, bearing Rance Martin's number 74, turned and crushed the pursuing cornerback, freeing Riemers for a 30-yard downfield sprint. After Bookie was tackled, the game was stopped for the second consecutive play so Georgia's medical staff could tend to a player crumpled on the grass - the defensive back Rance Martin had destroyed.

Was that Rance who hit that poor boy? Ga. dropping like flies, Calvita Jones texted her daughter who was pacing in front of her television during the injury timeout, the popcorn she had spilled earlier now flattened beneath her socked feet.

As the Georgia player - a first-team All-Southeastern Conference selection - was helped off the field with a broken collarbone that ended his season, a talented freshman with scant game experience replaced him. That opened all sorts of possibilities for the Fulbright passing game.

Keenly aware of Georgia's glaring vulnerability, Gerow called the misdirection play-action pass that resembled Fulbright's trademark 38 read option, the same play that had resulted in a touchdown earlier against the wily senior who was now climbing into an ambulance for a ride to the hospital and, ultimately, surgery to reset his fractured clavicle. This time, Georgia's defense recognized the formation and was blanketing Mojo Hale who had burned them for the uncontested touchdown earlier. Mojo cut his route inside, carrying two defensive backs with him, leaving Generals flanker Philando Fernandez with the left sideline all to himself until a cornerback spotted him and sprinted toward him. He was too late, particularly for Fernandez and his sprinter's speed. Gerow arced a spiraling ball that landed nose-down in Fernandez's arms 40 yards downfield for another touchdown.

With 10 minutes to play, Fulbright led 31-24, and now it was the Fulbright defense's time to step up.

Georgia had pinned its hopes in the running game, partly out of necessity because of the concomitant ejection/injury to its starting quarterback and its proven passer. But it was also logical, and had been Georgia's bread and butter all season. The Bulldog offensive line was perhaps the best outside the National Football League. And Georgia had powerful runners. Together, they chewed up three first downs in the space of eight plays and had pushed the ball across midfield to the Fullbright 43. There, they gambled with a short pass by the untested backup quarterback. When the pass was tipped by Hal Donovan and nearly intercepted by another Fulbright linebacker, Georgia fully cast its lot with the run.

Fulbright's undersized defense was fighting valiantly, using its speed advantage and its excellent conditioning to fight off Georgia blockers and limit Bulldog ballcarriers to three to four yards per carry. Statistically, that's going to result in a lot of third-down and short situations, and the Bulldogs reliably prevailed in them. But it also does two other things: it burns a lot of time off the clock very quickly, and the increasing play count (now 13 in this drive) actuarily increases the odds of a game-changing mistake. It's increasingly difficult, running that many plays in fast succession, to expect everything to go right: For a back not to cut the wrong way; to miss a critical block or to not expect a handoff; for a lineman not to incur a holding penalty by letting an elbow loop around a defensive lineman's neck; for a center to lose focus for a microsecond and send the snap over the quarterback's head.

It turned out to be the latter, though the center can't bear the blame alone. Georgia's second-team quarterback, on third and 2, was attempting to audible into another play to take advantage of a shift in the Generals' defense. To make sure he was seen and heard by the wide receiver near the right sideline, he took two steps to his right when he (or someone) made a sound that the center thought was the snap count. With the quarterback out of place, the ball sailed through thin air. A Georgia running chased it down and fell on the ball 20 yards behind the previous line of scrimmage. And, because of Georgia's single-minded pursuit of the ground game, the Bulldogs found themselves facing fourth down and 22 yards to go from their own 45 yard line, trailing by seven points with just 2:17 to play. Georgia used its second time out to devise their best play to pick up the needed 22 yards to retain the football. Anything less and Fulbright would take over the football, likely for the final possession of the game.

The Bulldogs had decided that passing was the only hope and lined up with multiple receivers and only the quarterback in the backfield. Georgia would flood the secondary with its many talented receivers and trust its talented backup passer to find one of them. Perry Middleton responded by calling the first of Fulbright's three second-half time outs. He pulled his beefy linemen out of the game and replaced them with fleet linebackers. He played two safeties deep and put his most experienced cornerbacks in the game.

Georgia's quarterback, deep behind the line in shotgun formation, took the snap and took a read of the five receivers he had sent downfield, initially finding none open. A Fulbright rusher broke free and sprinted toward him, but he tucked the ball and rolled toward his left, instantly complicating the task for a right-handed passer. Had the starting quarterback been in the game, he might have recognized from experience that his tight end was in position to break deep toward the goal line. The tight end made the break and had a two-step advantage over the deep safety covering him, but the quarterback was now running the opposite direction with no time to set his feet for such a deep pass and Fulbright's rusher closing fast. Seeing no alternative as he approached the sideline and the line of scrimmage, he tucked the ball and turned upfield, by rule forfeiting any chance for a forward pass.

Now it was a desperate broken-field scramble for the 22 needed yards. He cut back toward the middle of the field, sprinting for 10 of the yards. He leveraged a block from a Georgia lineman to gain another five when he saw two white-shirted Fulbright defenders closing in. He took them on with three yards to go and somehow fought his way beyond the line to gain -- enough for a first down.

At that point, a more seasoned quarterback with better situational awareness would have dropped to the ground, satisfied with a new set of downs. But this young quarterback remained on his feet and continued his valiant but foolhardy quest to gain additional yards, and that's when Quigley used his hand like a tomahawk to punch the ball out of the quarterback's grasp. In the desperate scramble that ensued, both teams got their hands on it, repeatedly batting the ball out of their grasp, until finally Hal Donovan picked up the loose ball and began sprinting toward the end zone. He got 40 yards downfield before he was dragged down from behind by Georgia's speedy wide receiver at the Bulldogs' 19 yard line.

With a minute and 47 seconds left, it was Fulbright's football, first down and 10. Comfortably in field goal range, Fulbright could let Georgia burn its only time out and still drain the clock to just three seconds before snapping the ball for the last time. If worse came to worst, the Generals could attempt a Gene Hurley field goal, putting the game out of reach but also risking a blocked kick and a potential run-back that could tie the game or even win it with a two-point conversion.

Fulbright's defense leapt for joy as they headed to the sidelines. But Matt Crews, Rance Martin, Matt Gerow, Bookie Riemers, Mojo Hale and the rest of the Generals offense took the field, still businesslike.

In Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, Callie Jones had sat motionless clutching her rosary, uttering one Pater Noster after another and watching her television as the closing minutes and seconds of the game ticked into history in Athens, Georgia.

In the Honors College dorm at Fulbright, Gia Jones had sunk to her knees on the popcorn-strewn floor of her room in hopeful disbelief, her eyes locked on the CBS telecast and the impossible scene it showed live from Georgia. She was torn between the impulse to howl in celebration or cry out of sheer joy. She heard shouts from other rooms down her hallway. Outside, car horns all over campus began to blare.

As predicted, Matt Crews snapped the football for the last time with three seconds to play. Gerow backed up and stalled a couple of beats before he took a knee as time expired. It was over. The miracle had happened. Minds were blown. Grown men in Fulbright green wept. So did coeds in Georgia red and black, but for a much different reason. In bars in Fallstrom, total strangers hugged one another. The CBS announcing crew sat in awed silence as the incredible scene unfolded below.

TV cameras rushed onto the field and captured in high definition the euphoria on the faces of Fulbright players and the green-and-gold clad fans in the stands, many overcome with emotion. It showed Perry Hemphill being doused with a cooler of icy Gatorade. It also showed Georgia players on their knees in stunned disbelief and their coach, Kirby Smart, wearing a pallbearer's face as he sought out Perry Hemphill for the congratulatory postgame handshake.

In an on-field interview, Hemphill was surrounded by his players as he credited them for their hard work and for the leaders on the team who made the difference. Slightly obscured over Coach Hemp's left shoulder was the wide, smiling face of Rance Martin arm-in-arm with Matt Crews.

Alone in her apartment, Gia looked at the image on her television of the love of her life and his friends -- their friends -- reveled in an incomparable and improbable moment of victory and whispered words heard only by the angels: "Yes, I'll marry you."

●●●

It was almost 10 p.m. when the two charter buses filled with Fulbright players pulled into Fallstrom. Rather than head directly to the football facility as was protocol, word was relayed to the state and local police escort and to Coach Hemphill by text that the buses instead should be routed to downtown Fallstrom where more than 10,000 people awaited for an impromptu parade to celebrate their Davids, freshly stained with Goliath's blood.

High Street, the primary east-west drag through Fallstrom, was a sea of humanity, yet it parted peacefully as the buses inched amidst the teeming, cheering crowds that parted but surrounded the busies from both sides. The open-air had been going for more than four hours in the bars and second-floor walk-up apartments downtown, and the inebriation showed. Some guys had climbed trees and were perched on branches tens of feet off the ground. Others had scaled streetlight poles. A few women raised their shirts, flashing their bare tits at their returning heroes, including one who had painted one tit green with her nipple colored yellow and, on the other, a yellow mound of breast with its green nipple. School spirit indeed.

The buses stopped in front of the Moultrie County Courthouse where city and university crews had hastily put wooden barricades in place to create a pathway for the team to alight its south steps leading to its grand entrance. There was no time to rig a sound system; bullhorns would have to do.

The players grasped the hands of well-wishers as they climbed the 24 steps to stand beside their coach. Rance was among the last off the lead bus, and his eyes scanned the crowd for the one face he treasured above all others. He had reached the bottom of the steps when he heard her calling to him from the crowd to his left.

He reversed himself and walked toward her voice until he spotted her. Rance asked an officer to open the barricade and let her through. She emerged from the crowd and ran across the open sidewalk toward Rance and leapt the last two yards into his open arms. He lifted her off the concrete and twirled the two of them around and around as they kissed.

There was mild applause at the girl and her boyfriend's joyful embrace, but as the realization set in as to their identity, it expanded through the crowd and quickly became a throaty roar of approval. These faces had saturated television screens nationwide for much of the past month; their story had become legendary, though they had deliberately avoided the spotlight. Now, here in this spontaneous moment of victory, there they were, locked in a tight embrace in the midst of the most incredible celebration this college town had ever known.

When at last Rance lowered her to her feet, she began to return to the crowd, but he grasped her hand and led her, by his side, up the steps to be with the team already gathered at the apex of the steps -- including other members of the equipment and training staff. The players hugged her like a long lost friend.

"Could there be a more perfect moment than this? I don't think so," Perry Hemphill said into his bullhorn, his words not only a commentary on the victory in Athens but the healing moment that had just unfolded in their midst.

"If there is one thing this team understands, it's adversity. We've dealt with so much of it, both on and off the field this season. And where adversity breaks weak people and weak teams, it builds up the strongest and best in us, and that's who we are. That's been Fulbright's story this year, and y'all know what I'm talking about."

"We eat hard times for breakfast and we come back and win!"

He never mentioned Rance and Gia. He didn't have to. Rance and Gia were grateful that he didn't. This was a team moment, but their meaning to this team in that moment was inescapable and it needed to be savored as such.

Mojo Hale was next to take the bullhorn. His teammates speculated among themselves how long it would take him to drop his first F-bomb - something that might make the national airwaves uncensored if ESPN was taking the local television feed live.

"Yall, I could have gone to the League last spring. Folks told me I'd be first round. It was tempting, all that money. But I saw something here in Coach Hemp and the folks coming back this year that I knew was special. I saw a chance to do something I ain't never got to do before, and that's win. This team is givin' me that," he said, his voice choking with emotion. "I ain't wanted nothing more than to be a winner my whole life, and now I can say we are. I'ma always love Fulbright for this."

And he ended it the best way anyone could.

"Cuz as y'all know...," he bellowed into the bullhorn, "... WE ARE..."

"... FULBRIGHT," the crowd roared in refrain.

"WE ARE..."

"... FULBRIGHT!"

And so it continued for another five or six volleys.

The football team slowly worked its way down the steps and through the throngs. Some boarded the bus for the ride back to the practice facility where many had left their cars. Some walked back to the facility and got there before the buses. And some just blended into the night, mingling with the student revelers. Many of them closed down the bars that lined High Street and Foundry Street, the next street north and parallel to High.

Back on the courthouse grounds, someone had begun an a capella chorus of the Fulbright alma mater, "My Fulbright." By the closing stanza, most everyone in downtown Fallstrom was singing (or at least humming) along: In tempests dire and winters cold; From days of youth til we grow old; Our fondest mem'ries are of thee; My Fulbright, abide in me.

Much as Gia and Rance sought to hide themselves in the crowd, they were easily recognized. In what amounted to their first public appearance together since the troubles, well-wishers pressed toward them with hugs, handshakes and sometimes tearful accounts about how earnestly they had prayed for them. Rance and Gia drew the line on selfies. Their faces had been ubiquitous enough across the Internet and would likely be trending across social media before midnight. They were touched by the adulation, but what they craved most was to get away, to shake the crowd. That's when the idea came to Gia.

"Let's duck into Pizza Don's," she said into Rance's ear.

"Won't they mob us in there just like here... and we'll never get a seat," he said.

"Last thing I want is a seat, but I know there's a fire exit near the restrooms that opens into an alleyway that leads to Water Street," she said. Water Street, ran parallel and to the south of High Street. It was lined with retail storefronts and offices of law firms, banks, realtors, financial advisors, insurance brokers, a medical office and parking decks and, thus, largely devoid of revelers. From there, it would be a walk of seven to 10 minutes to the Honors College dorm and Gia's room. Unlike some of his teammates, Rance had the foresight to take his backpack when he disembarked from the bus for the extemporaneous courthouse celebration and had no need to return to the practice facility. His SUV was parked at his apartment because he'd ridden to the practice facility Friday afternoon with Gene Hurley.

As soon as they had cleared the alleyway and walked a couple of blocks down Water Street, they took one of the three secluded brick footpaths that provided easy pedestrian access from the campus into Fallstrom and back. Rance had draped his oversized, forest green travel-team blazer around Gia after she had shuddered against the late-night autumn chill during the courthouse celebration.

To say the couple walked arm-in-arm is an understatement. A more apt description would be an ambulatory hug, each with both of their arms entangled in some way around the other. They were incapable of more than a dozen steps without stopping to kiss - each more passionate than the previous. When they paused again steps from the rear entrance to her dormitory, Gia and Rance pressed themselves shamelessly and lewdly into each other, as close as it gets to a vertical dry hump. Her legs, encased in jeans, straddled Rance's left thigh as her crotch ground into it. And Rance, with his hands cupping both hemispheres of her muscular ass, helped her add pressure. They kissed hungrily, an expression as filled with love as it was with lust. Rance's jacket slipped off Gia's shoulders, a gentle reminder that it was time to move to more private -- and horizontal -- environs.

"I want you," Gia said, her voice husky with desire. She picked up his jacket from the brick footpath with one hand, grabbed Rance's hand with the other and they took the stone steps one flight up to her dormitory's rear garden patio and the door that opened off of it. She scanned her ID card against the reader, opened the door and they raced up the stairwell to the second floor. No sooner had they closed and bolted the door to her apartment than her sweatshirt landed, inside-out, at Rance's feet. Fifteen seconds later, both were naked, their hands desperately groping each other before she pushed Rance backward onto her love seat.