From School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up—Brett "Stick" Patterson has a love/hate relationship with football. He loves the game itself but hates the win-at-all-costs attitude that prevails on his high school team. He hates even more the way others—especially his power-mad coach and abusive, alcoholic father—exploit his talent. Nerdy Preston Underwood comes to Brett's attention as the boy is being pelted by eggs thrown by Brett's bullying teammates. Brett fails to intervene but is intrigued by Preston's serene attitude in the face of such abuse. The two form a relationship as Preston tutors Brett in math and also pushes him to confront the issues in his life that he has been avoiding. Preston has issues of his own: his father was murdered before his eyes during a robbery. Brett quits the football team and with the help of a sympathetic guidance counselor, transfers to another school where he is able to join a team coached by a fair-minded man. Meanwhile, Preston takes to the streets at night dressed in a superhero costume trying to thwart crime (to atone for his inaction in his father's death). Brett's former teammates attack both of them in their rage at his defection. There is way too much going on in this novel for any of the important issues raised to be treated with any depth or complexity, and the scatological language would limit the potential audience to older teen readers, even as the vocabulary, sentence structure, and general level of sophistication suggest a lower reading level. VERDICT An additional purchase only.—Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT

Review

"“This delivers the feel-good satisfaction of an afterschool special while forgoing the saccharine aftertaste for some solid satisfaction.” —Bulletin, starred review

About the Author

Michael Harmon was born in Los Angeles and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He dropped out of high school as a senior and draws on many of his own experiences in his award-winning fiction for young adults. Michael is also the author of Under the Bridge, Chamber of Five, Brutal, The Last Exit to Normal, and Skate. Learn more about Michael and his books at BooksbyHarmon.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I was there. In the zone. Midair, my body stretched, flying right along with the football. I loved the feeling. Those few seconds when nothing was touching me. When I was free. When I was doing what I loved and the rest of the world disappeared. Game winner. Touchdown. Cheering crowd. We would put another notch in the belt, show the league who would dominate. Just like last year. State champions. First time in school history to take it twice in a row. Second time in state history any school had swept two years.

It skimmed my fingers. Fell away. Like a dream you could barely grasp after waking: there, but not there.

I hit the field, thudding and skidding on the turf, the ball tumbling away uselessly. Dream over. Game over. Back to real life.

Driving home, I replayed it in my head a million times. Our first loss of the year. Me picking myself up. Feeling the bruises forming, the adrenaline leaving my veins. The crowd quiet. Coach with a slack-jawed expression. My dad on the fifty-yard line, four rows up in the stands, manning the video camera. His face wasn't disappointed. No. Not one bit disappointed.

He was sitting in his recliner when I got home. Four empty beer bottles, and a fifth, half full, sat on the table next to him. I shut the door. He hit the pause button on the remote and nodded toward the couch. "Sit down, Brett."

I took a breath, walked across the carpet, and sat. Of course he was replaying the game, and of course it was paused exactly at the spot where I missed the pass. The past three years of my life--since I'd made it onto the Hamilton team at the start of freshman year--had been paused on every mistake I'd ever made on the field. He took a swig of his beer. "Perfect pass, Brett. Perfect."

"I couldn't get to it."

He grunted, then jabbed the remote at the TV like he was poking a fire. He rewound the tape. "No. Watch." He hit the play button, and we watched the down from beginning to end. "See? What do you see?"

My shoulder ached. "Me missing a pass."

He looked at me, never happy with anything but total perfection. His eyes went back to the screen. "Why, though? Why did you miss it?"

My knees were killing me, and the only thing I wanted was to zone out, but no, he had to teach me. Show me everything I wasn't. Show me everything he'd never been. "I'm tired, and I've got to train in the morning. Can we do this tomorrow?"

He nodded, chugging the rest of the beer and getting up. "Yes, we're going to do this tomorrow. But we're also going to do this tonight." He pointed at the screen as he passed to get another beer. "What did you see, Brett?"

"I saw a long pass."

I heard him pop the cap on a fresh one. He walked back in and sat down, tipping the bottle at me. "It can't always be somebody else's fault. You were late on the snap. Look." He hit rewind and played it again. "See? That half second meant you would have been where you should have been. It wasn't a long pass. You should have been there."

My father was an avalanche of ice spilling over me, but instead of stinging and burning, I was just numb. He was relentless. Obsessed.

"It was one pass, Dad."

He finished his beer. Less than three minutes from full to empty. He shook his head. "Exactly. One pass. Losers lose, and you lost because you didn't pay attention."

I grunted, glancing at the beer bottle still clutched in his hand. "You didn't happen to notice the four I caught? Or maybe that I went for ninety-seven yards? Or maybe that my room is full of trophies?"

"Don't start with the bullshit, Brett. I'm tired of your attitude, and on top of that, I know you're failing math, which means no football." He shook his head and tried to take a swig of the bottle, which was empty. He looked at it, irritated, then tipped it at me. "Yeah, Coach called. You're failing. I don't know what your problem is, but we've got a scout from UCLA coming to look at you next week, and I'm not going to let anything ruin that. Including tonight. What if he'd been here? What if he'd seen it?"

You could give my dad a penny less than a million dollars and he'd bitch about the penny. And I knew he really didn't want to know what my problem was. If he knew, he'd flip. "He would have seen me miss a long pass."

He shook his head, his eyes bleary. "You want to be a smart-ass? Fine. Grounded for the weekend. Forced manual labor. Go to bed."

"Dad--come on. So I should have caught the pass. I'll watch the tape tomorrow, and I'll work on the snap."

He shook his head. "Grounded. At least until you buck up." He raised an eyebrow at me. "And lose the attitude, huh? This isn't Little League. You're not playing with a bunch of little pukes with no talent. You're a champion."

Relentless. It never ended. "There's a party tomorrow night. The whole team is going to be there. Please?"

"I said grounded." He held out his hand. "No phone, either. Not until you bring that grade up."

I bit my lip, tempted to stuff the phone down his throat, but I handed it over. He threw it on the table, then went back to watching the screen. I watched him watching me fail, and I knew why I was in trouble. And math had nothing to do with it.