Bleachers

In 1992, the Spartans were under an enormous amount of town pressure to have a winning season. Three years had passed since they won their last state title, and Messina was hungry for victory. The team talent that year, except for Jaeger, was not especially promising. Because of this, Rake worked them all even harder. The conditioning he put them through was worse than most teams ever endured.

On a Sunday morning practice, called after a “bad scrimmage on a Saturday afternoon” (52), Rake’s methods came to a head when they cost the life of a player. At eight in the morning, the heat was already suffocating. Rake ordered the team to run up and down the bleachers. After a few laps, most of the players were either slowing or vomiting. Scotty Reardon, a thin 15 year old, collapsed from heat stroke and “never regained consciousness” (53). Though some placed additional blame on the fact that Rake had insisted on not having assistant coaches there that morning, or the ambulance for taking too long, Scotty was already dead. He died in the bleachers. The bleachers that once solely represented a way of life for Messina were tainted with tragedy.

With Rake’s death rapidly approaching, the town intends on burying him next to Scotty’s grave, where Neely and Paul are standing now. Neely asks Paul how Rake was fired, since Neely was away in 1992 and never heard the whole story. Paul tells him that Scotty’s uncle, John Reardon, was the town’s superintendent and demanded justice for his nephew’s death. The autopsy showed that Scotty had no health issues prior to football practice that day, meaning that Rake alone was to blame. Reardon fired Rake immediately, and though there were some people who were upset, others finally started to question Rake’s methods.

Rake had no answer for them, and the town split between those who finally admitted Rake was going too far and those who claimed Scotty just “wasn’t tough enough to be a Spartan” (55). Some of the die-hard fans, who were also members of the booster club, threatened to withdraw funding and start a new school of their own so they could hire Rake as the coach. Rake, meanwhile, did all he could to put pressure on Reardon and get his job back. However, Reardon didn’t budge and instead hired new coaches. Soon, the entire affair became political. The people in town who had always felt too much money went to football started to advocate to use that money elsewhere. Before long, the race for superintendent pitted John Reardon against Dudley Bumpus, a longtime supporter of Rake, against each other in the polls. Reardon won by only 60 votes, but it was enough, and Rake’s days as the Spartan football coach were officially over.

The next stop Neely makes is to a new bookstore and coffee shop, the first in Messina. The owner of the store is Nat Sawyer, who “was the worst punter in the history of Spartan football” (60). When Nat sees Neely, he rushes to embrace him. Nat may have lacked athleticism, but he has certainly found himself since high school. When Nat notices Neely eyeing his multiple earrings, he exclaims “First male earrings in Messina, how about that? And the first ponytail. And the first openly gay downtown merchant. Aren’t you proud of me?” (62). Nat continues to show Neely around and explains that Paul loaned Nat $30,000 to open it up, and Rake was the shop’s first customer. He frequented the shop before he got sick, and once word got out that it was a favorite of Rake’s, business finally increased.

In the years that Rake visited Nat at the shop, Nat was privy to a lot of Rake’s true emotions. He was embarrassed about being fired and felt an enormous amount of guilt over Scotty’s death. Nat tells Neely, “when I opened this place and got to know him as something other than a legend, when I wasn’t worried about getting screamed at for screwing up, I grew to adore the old fart” (65). Rake was the one who gave Nat the courage to come out of the closet and is the one who first encouraged him to open the shop.

Nat’s friendly tone quickly shifts when Neely switches the topic to his first ex-girlfriend, and one of Nat’s best friends, Cameron. Nat coolly tells Neely that he hopes Neely still feels terrible about what he did to her. Nat reveals that he and Cameron write letters, and she is now married with kids in Chicago. They theorize that she will likely be in town for the funeral because Rake’s wife, Miss Lila, taught her piano for years. On his way out, Neely tells Nat to let Cameron know he wants to speak to her.

The halls of Messina High School remain unchanged, but for the most part Neely walks through unrecognized. He visits the lobby of the gym, which was once described as “the heart and soul of Messina. It was more of a shrine to Eddie Rake, an altar where his followers could worship” (72). Neely walks past the display of all 13 state titles and sadly considers the many other sports teams at Messina High that go unnoticed because they aren’t football.

The ringing of the school bell brings Neely out of his daze. The current quarterback bounds out of a class, clearly the king of the school. Neely scoffs at the thought, thinking how short-lived this boy’s glory days will be at the end of it. He awaits the fate of all Spartans: a few years of being a hero, followed by obscurity. Suddenly, being there makes Neely feel old and out of place, and he abruptly leaves the school.

When Neely returns to The Field, word has spread that Rake’s health has made a turn for the worst. Paul, Silo, and Nat are there, and Nat pulls out a tape of the 1987 championship game. After all these years, the team decides to listen to it again. They fast forward the first half, then listen to Buck Coffey, who announced the Spartan games for years, as he starts to recap the play by play of the game. At halftime, the coaches were nowhere in sight, and their absence puzzled the town of Messina for the past 15 years. The recording rings out throughout the bleachers, drawing other former players closer, and even Rabbit leans in from a distance to hear it better. The game turns around with what is considered “one of the greatest moments in Spartan football history” (87): a 95-yard punt return. Despite being left to their own devices, the team plays a strong game. Neely’s hand was mysteriously broken, so they couldn’t rely on his passing game. However, the Spartans were still able to pull the score up until they were only down by three points.

At this time, they pause the recording. Mal approaches the men on the bleachers and tells them that Rake is gone. The field is dark, and the former Spartans sit quietly as they digest the news. Each of them finds themselves filled with emotions: awe, sadness, and nostalgia.

At last, one of them, Blanchard Teague, requests that they finish listening to the game. Instead of letting Buck Coffey narrate again, the team takes turns voicing each of the plays from the fourth quarter of the championship.

The plays are smart and forceful, and in the last 18 seconds of the game, Neely Crenshaw pulls off a run that is “perhaps the most famous in all the glorious history of Spartan football” (101). He crashes into a linebacker at the 10-yard line, gets hit again at the three, and keeps going. Silo and another player, Barry Vatrano, slam into the player from East Pike who is tackling Neely, and all of them tumble into the end zone. It’s a miraculous winning play. At some point in the fourth quarter, the coaches reemerge, and they watch in awe. The Spartans take home an incredible win, then retreat to the locker room until the crowds disperse. Rake, too, disappears, leaving Rabbit to accept the trophy on The Field.

On Friday at noon, The Field will be the place of a very different ceremony. It will be the place where they hold Rake’s funeral.