I Love Corey, Chapter Twenty-four

I was running out of things to say and wondering how to stop when my brain finally started to work again. Suddenly I knew I had the perfect ending. When I’d finally finished thanking everyone who had helped during the year it was time to try my idea. I paused to get the crowd’s attention.
“That’s about all I can think of to say except if we don’t get the team somewhere they can get something to eat I think those lions I can hear growling in their stomachs will escape and eat us all.”

The crowd erupted in laughter. It was mostly made up of the parents of the team anyway and they all knew what bottomless pits their sons were when it came to food. Amidst much laughter we all headed for those arches everyone knows. Mickey D was about to get a transfusion of money.

I’m sure the manager was shocked when the crowd showed up. He’d expected the team and a few parents but there was at least four times as many people as we’d ever had before. There were thirty-one players and normally one might expect another twenty to forty parents. Now he was faced with at least two hundred people and about half of them were students. While the adults might not eat very much I knew he’d better have gobs of fries and burgers. The younger set would make up for what the adults lacked with regards to appetite. The parking lot was full and traffic was backed up for a couple of blocks. What a mess. There were people everywhere and instead of going about their business and ordering something they all crowed around the door trying to shake the hands of every team member. 

Finally the manager got the door pushed open from the inside and there was a large enough break in the crowd for some of the kids to get in. That started things going. The team was shoved to the front of the line and it finally looked like things were moving along.

I started looking around and finally found Corey. He was standing by himself next to one of the trees beside the street. There was no one within twenty feet of him and as still as he was I doubt that anyone else noticed him. He was just leaning against the tree with his head down. With the way his shoulders were slumped down and his head was hanging he was the perfect picture of dejection. The problem I had was how to try to bring him out of his depression. Not only that, we wouldn’t be able to leave until everyone had managed to get their turn telling me what a great team I had and how I’d done such a good job of coaching them. Normally I’d have been thrilled but tonight I just wanted to get Corey home and try to cheer him up. Unfortunately, that would have to wait. I didn’t like it but the kids on the team had busted their butts to win and I had to help them celebrate. Chances are they’d never be on another team with a perfect record again and I suppose they’ll remember this all their lives. No matter how much I wanted to leave with Corey, they deserved their hour of fame and I had to let them bask in it. I knew I couldn’t leave until all had managed to get their fill of the celebration.

I couldn’t get Corey to eat anything but he finally had a milkshake. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. The celebration just kept going on all around us and I finally got Corey to go sit in the pickup so he wasn’t bothered by it. Eventually things started to slow down. The parents were taking their kids home so they could get some sleep. I had my doubts about that but figured we would just have to put up with a bunch of sleepy students tomorrow. 

I finally got up to the counter to settle the bill but found a bunch of the parents had left money and it was more than the total bill. It had been such a mad house that nobody had been able to keep up who was paying and who still owed money. Most parents had just left plenty of money and let it go at that. I told the manager to give any excess to the Ronald McDonald house as it’s a worthy charity. I always made sure to give them a donation once a year.

Finally I was free to go. I found Corey sitting in the pickup crying. I hurried home as I wasn’t sure people would understand if they saw me hugging him and trying to calm him. He’d already attracted more attention than I wanted and I wasn’t about to give people anything more to think about than they now had.

As we were driving into the garage he asked me if I thought anything might have happened to his mother. I told him I didn’t think so but that we would check. Once in the house I called Vince Logan, the team doctor and asked him to check the hospital and see if Mrs. Babcock had been admitted. I also called a friend at the sheriff’s office and asked if there had been any reports of her being involved in an accident. When both called back, the answers were negative. That didn’t give us any information but in this case no news was good news. If anything had happened to her in the area it should have showed up in my checks.

Corey again cried himself too sleep. He was afraid something had happened to his mother even though my checks of the hospital and law enforcement had turned up nothing. All I could do was hold him and rub his back. After he drifted off, I started trying to figure out if there was anything I might do to assure this didn’t happen again. Unfortunately there was nothing I could think of. I finally fell into a restless sleep.

Friday was an improvement. It wasn’t that he was cheerful or anything like that, it was just that his normal appetite kicked in and when he said he was hungry I fixed him a big breakfast. By the time he had finished his hotcakes and eggs, he seemed a little more ready to face the world. Perhaps the sugar high from the syrup accounted for some of that but I was ready to accept any help with his attitude that was available. At least he was no longer spending all his time looking down.
Fixing Corey such a big breakfast during the week caused me to be a little later than normal. I wouldn’t have done it except he hadn’t eaten anything last night. That made me somewhat later than normal but I was still there before most of my colleagues. I don’t know, I’ve always tried to get to school early. That gives me a little more time to get organized. There always seem to be a few things that come up and need to be taken care of. I’ve tried to get everything done before leaving for the day but it doesn’t work. I can have my mail box empty and there will be something in it in the morning that needs my attention. I finally learned it was just easier to show up early and get everything caught up. Today was no exception.

I have no idea when he did it but there was a note from the principal announcing there would be an assembly for sixth period and I would need to think of something to say about the team and make sure everyone knew the tentative play-off schedule. Since we had the best record, we would have the home field advantage until the championship game if we lasted that long. That game would be played in Sacramento. I still wasn’t sure who our opponent would be but that wouldn’t change anything except how we prepared. I was sure we’d find out who we were playing sometime this morning. Fortunately I had a free period in both the morning and the afternoon. I could use the one in the morning to plan for the assembly. I started making a list, noting those things I thought would need to be done. I needed to check and see if last night’s performance had caused any or our players to set any State records. We’d all ready set several school records and I needed to get the final figures together so they could be announced. I also needed to figure out which players to call on. 

About that time Mr. Mathers called the meeting to order. It wasn’t really like that but he did say it was time to get the show on the road. 
The first thing he announced was the assembly and also reminded me that the sports reporter for the local paper would be there along with the paper’s photographer. After some discussion of that, we moved along to the normal school business.

Jerry beat me to the punch. He asked about Corey before I could bring it up. That caused a lot of the other teachers to wonder what was wrong. I explained the problem with his mother and after that the conversation got lively. By now, most of the teachers seemed to think of him as their own special project. The way he’d improved his grades and the fact that he was polite and seemed appreciative of their efforts had made him one of their favorite students. A lot of them seemed almost as concerned as I was. While we could not come up with a way to solve his problem, at least all the teachers were now aware of it and I knew they would help in any way they could.

The day actually went pretty well. The students were still pretty excited over the team but they at least acted like they were listening to us. About halfway through the day I came to the conclusion I’d have to repeat the lesson on Monday as acting like they were listening and actually listening are a world apart. None the less, they at least seemed polite even if nothing was managing to stick in their feeble little minds.

As the day wore on Corey seemed a little better each time I saw him. That improved my outlook so by the time the assembly rolled around I was in a pretty decent frame of mind.

When Principal Mathers turned things over to me I had a list of the state records we had broken and also the school ones. They cheered the team when I announced we’d broken the record for passing yards and passing touchdowns. School records included most points, highest scoring average, and a tie for fewest points allowed. 

Brad Conner managed to do a good job of thanking the line for giving him time to pass and his receivers for catching the ball. Tyler Andrus, who led the team in tackles, brought the house down when he yelled at Brad and told him the team would have lost all our games if the defense hadn’t managed to get the ball for the ‘skinny assed’ offense. The fact that his remarks contained some other commentaries about the ineptitude of the offense contributed to the laughter. We might not be the best defensive team but we had a good offense and the students knew it. After that there seemed to be a bunch of light hearted banter amongst the students and members of the team. All of us teachers stayed out of it and let them have fun. After all, how often does a team go undefeated for a season? They deserved their day. I will have to have a quiet talk with Tyler. Skinny assed, I wonder which one he was looking at? I never noticed any skinny asses and I like to look at asses. I would have said they were all cute asses, even his. Besides, he really shouldn’t be using words like that during an assembly.

The team still hadn’t come off their high. Practice was a disaster. They didn’t pay attention and just wanted to clown around. I finally got their attention with the threat of lots of laps. I’d learned who our opponent would be and they didn’t present any problems I didn’t think we could handle. In fact, the only type of team that would be hard for us was one that was a lot bigger and could just overpower us. We were built on speed and agility, not power. We were just too small to do anything else.

The team finally settled down and the practice wasn’t too bad. I hoped they would do better next week but for now I guess they were entitled to feel a little cocky. The hard work would start on Monday. I had a couple of tapes to watch so I could figure out our game plan. One change would be that the games would now be on Saturday afternoons. That gave teams more time for travel.

Corey and I were just getting in the pickup to go home when the rain that had been threatening arrived. The forecast had called for a pretty good storm so it looked like we would be housebound for the weekend. I’d really been hoping the forecast was wrong so that I might come up with some activity that would bring Corey out of his depression. It didn’t look like that was going to happen.