Game Changers Read Online Free PDF Page B

a girl,” she said.
    Ben said, “It’s just that you’re not always willing to try.”
    â€œBecause I don’t care enough to try,” she said.
    â€œYou coming to the game?” Ben said.
    â€œWouldn’t miss it,” Lily said.

It felt like the whole Rockwell Rams team missed the game, at least the first half of it.
    They were behind 12–0 and it could have been worse than that if Midvale’s fullback didn’t fumble on the Rams’ five-yard line with thirty seconds left before halftime.
    â€œPut it this way,” Coop said to Ben as they walked off the field, “nobody would say we’re exactly crushing it so far.”
    â€œWe’re gonna get crushed if we don’t step on it a little,” Ben said.
    â€œYou think I should give a halftime speech and remind the rest of the guys that, like, this isn’t a scrimmage?” Coop said. “That the game counts ?”
    â€œI have a feeling the Coach is going to point that out without your help.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m afraid of,” Coop said. “This is not going to be pretty.”
    Coach was fine, though, mostly telling everybody to relax, that not once in his whole career had he ever won a championship in the first half of the first game of the season. And had never lost one.
    Coach O’Brien was actually smiling when he said, “We’re down a couple of scores in a Pop Warner game. It’s not like you’re all going to be held back a year in school if we don’t come back. Even though we are coming back.”
    He told them that he wasn’t going to change much on his substitution pattern, not just because league rules said that everybody in uniform had to be out there for at least eight plays, but because he wanted to see what they all could do in a real game situation. Especially now that Midvale had come at them pretty hard.
    â€œOne of the greatest lines I ever heard in sports came from Mike Tyson, when he was still a great boxer and not in the movies,” Coach said. “Before a fight one time he said, ‘Everybody’s got a plan till they get hit.’ Well, we’ve been hit now. So we’re the ones who are gonna have a different plan in the second half. Okay?”
    They all nodded.
    â€œBut the plan does not include anybody on this team hanging his head,” Coach said. “Got it?”
    Hardly anything had gone right for them in the first half. Shawn had missed all but two of his passes. And the Shawn that Ben had started to like and wanted to like after the two of them shared a pizza together had gone right back to being the Bad Shawn he’d see at practice. Grabbing his helmet when he’d miss a pass, or somebody would drop one on him, as Darrelle had in the open field. Staring with his hands on his hips after Conor Hale, their left tackle, missed a block and Shawn got sacked.
    But most of it was directed at himself today. One time, waiting for Kevin Nolti to bring in the play from the sidelines, Shawn walked a few yards away from the huddle, put his head down, and said to himself, “I stink !”
    Not only was Shawn playing tight today, he was making the other guys on offense tight. The more he missed with his passes, the worse it got. And once Midvale realized the Rams had no real passing game, at least so far, they started bringing more guys up close to the line of scrimmage to stop the run, one of the big reasons why Ben’s longest run from scrimmage had been four yards.
    The one time he did slip out of the backfield to catch a short pass from Shawn — one of Shawn’s two completions — Midvale’s middle linebacker dropped him after a one-yard gain.
    â€œYou good?” Sam had asked Ben earlier in the day.
    Not even close , Ben thought, at least not so far.
    They had waited all summer for football season to start, even when they were having their summer fun playing All-Stars after the