Mexican wrestling mask

(One of the last and hardest cuts from the manuscript ...)

Beaux Jones had a seat about three-quarters of the way up student-packed Section 128. His father had played for the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League, and he had come to Davidson from Louisiana to play football. He was loud and excitable, and in the stands at basketball games he wore a red and black Mexican wrestling mask.

Before the Kansas game, he had tailgated with his Phi Delt fraternity brothers outside Ford Field, doing shirtless pushups and drinking Bud Light from cans. They had walked two Detroit blocks to the building, 40 or so of them, arms locked, double file.

But now, inside Ford Field, in this moment, he got quiet.

He stepped out into the aisle, away from the others, away from the swell of the sound and still in his Mexican wrestling mask, and he felt an odd sort of calm. He looked down at the court. He looked at all the other fans in red.

Could they make a shot to win?

Did they even need to?

The thought confused him. It made him angry for thinking that way. As a football player he had been known as a serious competitor. In his freshman year, Davidson lost 56-0 to the University of San Diego; in his senior year, against the same team, Davidson lost by only three points. That’s how far he and his teammates had come, others told him, and how much they had improved. But he didn’t want to hear it. Moral victories were not victories. Moral victories were still losses, and athletes were supposed to win.

There was a book written not long ago about one of his father’s football friends. It was called Season of Life, and was about former Colt Joe Ehrmann, who used to volunteer as a high school football coach and had an atypical pre-game pep talk.

“What is our job as coaches?” he said to his boys.

“To love us,” they all said back to him.

“What is your job?” he asked.

“To love each other,” they all said.

Beaux Jones had scoffed. Ridiculous schmaltz, he thought. But now he stood in the aisle in his wrestling mask and came to a conclusion that surprised him. He had learned something from watching this basketball team that he had not learned in a lifetime as an athlete himself.