The Prophet Read Online Free PDF

the coaches paused for a few minutes, broken up into offensive and defensive sides of the ball. Here they had a brief opportunity for technical adjustments, a chance to look at the charted plays from the first half and consider what wasn’t working, and why it wasn’t. Once inside, Matt Byers took the first speaking role and started it off by punting an empty Gatorade jug across the room. This was standard fare. Byers was a holdover from the days when Kent himself had played on this field, a thirty-three-year assistant, and to say that his style differed from Kent’s was a laughable understatement. Kent was cool precision, Byers was hot emotion. Matt could—and did—intimidate the hell out of the kids with furious and profane reactions to mistakes, theatrical demonstrations, and imposing size. They butted heads, sometimes so much so that the rest of his staff took bets on the likelihood of a firing, but in the end, Kent needed Matt. He’d let someone else throw clipboards and scream himself hoarse—it delivered a message to the boys, certainly, but what it also did was emphasize the occasions when Kent was the one shouting. Those caught more attention because it was not a constant. Players learned to tune out the consistently raving coaches. When Kent’s voice rose, the field went silent fast. That was how he liked it.
    Matt was in the midst of an explanation of how the team’s performance apparently demonstrated that the players were not only pussy sons of bitches but also lacking in so much as a shred of respect for their fans, parents, state, and country when Kent rose from his chair. This was the signal, and this was where they’d had their greatest clashes. When Kent stood, Byers was to shut up and sit down. Immediately. He stopped in mid-tirade, which always distressed him, and said, “Listen to the head coach, now. Damn it,
listen.
”
    Kent stood and faced his team, let them all sit in silence, hoping they’d absorb two things from him: calmness and disappointment.
    “Who thinks I’m upset with the numbers on that scoreboard?” he said eventually. His voice was low enough that those in the back leaned forward to hear.
    Nobody raised a hand. They knew better; it was not a game of points to him, it was a game of execution. The points were a product of proper execution, and proper execution was a product of proper focus. He turned to Damon Ritter and said, “What am I upset with, Damon?”
    “We’re giving them their points.”
    “Correct. I want you boys to be generous, but not with the football.” He swiveled to look at Colin Mears. “Colin, are you afraid of losing tonight?”
    “No, sir.”
    “You ought to be,” Kent said. “Tell me why that’s true, Colin. Tell me why.”
    His star receiver said, “Because we aren’t getting beat, we’re losing the game.”
    This difference was critical; this difference was the focus of their season.
    “Do me a favor, Colin. Read that poster on the wall behind me. Read it out loud.”
    The poster said, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACCEPTING A LOSS AND EARNING ONE. The boys were sick of hearing that little slogan. Kent watched while they heard it one more time.
    “You’ve earned ten wins this year,” he said. “Haven’t earned a loss yet. If we have to accept one, we will. But, boys? Let’s not earn it. Let’s not do that.”
    He was looking at Colin, who nodded emphatically. There was something off with him, though. Something wrong with his focus. Of all the players to have playoff jitters, Colin was the most surprising. Kent decided they’d feed him the ball early in the second half, see if they could settle him down through repetition and ritual.
    “We’re going to run a lot of thirty-one flood at them,” he began, and from then on their focus was on the technical details. He hoped.
    If you focused on your individual responsibilities, good things happened as a team. Early in the third quarter, the Chambers safeties no longer biting on that