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Adam had not been wrong. Coach Thomas really was thinking about using Nolan to cover for the injured wide receiver.
More precisely, Nolan had become one of the options. The other was to start the Italian kid who had joined the team at the same time he did.
The Hawthorne game was coming up, one of the last Ocean League games of the regular season.
The Ocean League matched BHHS against other Southern California schools across sports like football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. In football, league standing could decide whether a team reached the CIF Southern Section playoffs.
Their opponent was Hawthorne High. The Cougars had spent years near the bottom, but this season they had surged out of nowhere. Now they were tied with the injury-thinned Normans, which meant the next game was practically do-or-die for BHHS.
On Nolan’s third day with the team, he was allowed to line up with the offense as a wide receiver.
Across from him stood the cornerback assigned to cover him. He was an eleventh grader, and the moment he saw Nolan, he greeted him warmly.
"I saw that catch the other day," he said, clapping Nolan on the chest. "Made an impression."
His name was Monte, but everyone on the team called him Mountain. His voice was deep, and his personality fit the nickname: steady, solid, hard to move.
The accidental sideline catch had put Nolan on the team’s radar. He was still an underclassman, but more than a few players had started to believe in his potential.
"Shut your mouths," Coach Thomas barked. "This is practice. Focus. The guy across from you is not your teammate right now. He’s the enemy. Understood? Give me one hundred and twenty percent."
Nolan lined up outside the line of scrimmage and watched the center snap the ball to Adam.
At the same time, Nolan took off.
Go forward.
That was the only instruction he had been given before the play.
Attack the defense, drag the corner away, and create room for his teammates.
Whether he moved across the field or drove vertically had not been defined. He had not really been worked into the offense at all.
"If you still don’t understand the playbook," Thomas had told him, "try being creative."
So Nolan changed direction again and again.
Mountain had size. He had strength. What he did not have was Nolan’s flexibility. After a sharp sequence of cuts, Nolan found a gap and separated from him.
In the pocket, Adam spotted the opening near the far side. He took an old-school seven-step drop and, just before the pressure arrived, launched a deep ball toward Nolan forty yards downfield.
The football spun through the air on a clean arc. Nolan had already tracked the ball, but in that brief window, Mountain caught up, turned his body into Nolan, and muscled him off the spot.
The ball hit the turf and rolled away.
Incomplete.
The play ended there.
Football’s basic math was simple. The offense had four downs. If it failed to move ten yards, the other team got the ball. If it gained ten yards, the offense earned a fresh set of downs. Repeat until someone reached the end zone or stalled out.
"That route made the throw too obvious," Mountain said, pulling Nolan up. "Trust me, in a real game, the guy across from you will be faster. Run like that and you’ll never get the ball. You have to make him throw it before you look open."
On second down, Nolan used almost the same idea and again created separation with footwork.
This time Adam threw deep again, but not to Nolan.
He went to the other side, toward another wide receiver.
Flea.
Flea did not have much size, but he was fast. After making the catch, he turned upfield and sprinted for twenty yards before a safety and corner closed him down together.
The offense was suddenly within twenty yards of the end zone.
The effect was immediate.
For the next hour, the team ran play after play, offense against defense. The workload was heavier than a real game, where offensive and defensive units usually rotated and had time to rest.
By then, everyone was drenched in sweat. The Southern California heat had started to show its teeth.
Flea’s weakness became obvious too. He had burst, but not much endurance.
Nolan, on the other hand, could still run.
With that stamina advantage, he started making more and more catches. He finished with four touchdowns and gradually developed real chemistry with Adam. More and more often, the ball left Adam’s hand almost the moment Nolan started his break.
The key play came when Nolan borrowed one of Flea’s release moves. A safety closed in from the front, another safety shaded from the side, and the corner trailed behind him. Caught in a three-man triangle, Nolan stopped, slid laterally, spun, and slipped through the trap.
He reached the end zone.
In football, people liked calling that kind of escape a Houdini act.
Harry Houdini had made a career out of being locked inside impossible places and getting out alive. A Houdini play was a move that turned a dead end into open grass.
Nolan’s move lit up the whole practice.
Adam started clapping. Someone stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled hard. Even Coach Thomas nodded several times.
For the final hour, the two safeties at the back of the defense paid far more attention to Nolan’s side than they had at the start.
Defensive attention was the sincerest form of respect.
And with Nolan pulling coverage, Flea found more room to work.
Nolan and Flea, attacking from opposite sides, were starting to look like a real two-headed problem for the defense.
On the final snap, the two receivers crossed their routes and forced the deep defenders into each other’s path. Adam saw the confusion and lofted the ball. Nolan caught it easily and jogged into the end zone.
At that point, their own defense had run out of answers.
When Thomas blew the whistle, Flea came straight over and hooked an arm around Nolan’s shoulders.
"I like you, man. I’ve worked with a lot of receivers, and you’re the best partner I’ve had out there."
Flea pulled off his helmet. He had a round, cheerful face.
"We’re going to be a great pair."
Adam came over too, shaking his head in amazement.
"You learn fast."
Then he added, "We should build that last crossing route into the playbook. Call it Scissors. When I give this signal..."
Adam raised two fingers in a V.
"It means we’re about to score," Flea said, tossing his helmet into the air.
Football relied heavily on designed plays.
Nolan, however, was still getting by on raw athleticism and improvisation.
His weakness became painfully clear during the film-room review afterward.
In the locker room, Thomas went through the practice with the team.
"On 78 Shout Toss, the TE was late, which nearly got the RB killed..."
To Nolan, the analysis might as well have been a foreign language.
The other players listened closely. Adam even took out a small notebook and wrote things down on the spot.
After a while, when the discussion opened up, Adam stood and announced a new play call. In that package, the other positions would serve as decoys, pulling coverage away and creating space for the two wide receivers.
Nolan felt nearly every eye in the room shift toward him.
The team now had a play built around him.
That meant he had truly secured the starting job.
In the corner, the Italian kid who had joined at the same time did not look happy. Their positions overlapped. At this rate, he would either have to move somewhere else or become Nolan’s backup.
After the review ended, Thomas kept Nolan back after everyone else left.
"Tell me the truth," Thomas said, studying him again. "You’ve played football before, haven’t you? You don’t look anything like a beginner."
Nolan shook his head.
"Then you must have played another sport."
Thomas folded his arms.
"Do arcade games count?"
Thomas laughed and shook his head.
"You have to be joking."
"Coach, I think I’m ready to fit into the system now."
"No. No. No." Thomas spoke each word separately. "You do not need a system. A system would box you in."
He tapped a finger beside his temple, circling it slowly.
"Stop thinking in straight lines. You’re going to be the Normans’ wild card. You’ll catch Hawthorne off guard, and you’ll help us win next week."
Thomas grinned at him like he had found buried treasure.
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