Another Round at the Say When: "McDermitt Needs You."
A journalist moves to the small town of McDermitt, on the Oregon-Nevada line, to learn about why the high school football team never wins, and about the townsfolk who cheer them on, no matter what.
One in a series.
It’s already early September and the McDermitt Bulldogs are still a football team fumbling for an identity — and enough boys to even take the field.
For weeks, coaches Richard and Jack have held daily practice, not once having a full compliment of eight players.
There’s always a reason one or two Bulldogs fail to show. A lost dog, a spat with a girlfriend, or like the boy from the reservation named Maverick, one mysterious AWOL after another.
Maverick is a gentle boy who at practice is always the last to complete a drill.
But Richard can’t afford to lose him.
One day, when Maverick shows up late, the head coach is waiting for him.
Maybe some peer pressure will get to the boy, he thinks. Maverick apparently doesn’t care what the adults think, but the other teens are another matter entirely.
“McDermitt needs you,” he says within earshot of the others.
“McDermitt doesn’t need me,” Maverick says as he stretches out his knees.
“If I can just get two more kids to come out here and play, I can quit.”
The boys are a cross-section of this isolated high desert town.
The three seniors have known each other since grade school. One is the son of a cop. Another’s family works a farm in nearby Orovada and the last lives on the nearby reservation, the youngest son of a father looking for work.
The coaches worry less about these boys. In their last year of high school, they don’t want to end their careers as losers.
It’s the others they have to motivate.
In the end, is it worth it? Worrying all year? Designing plays, just to have another team of out-of-shape softies not only lacking the will to win, but the will to even play?
“I never thought of it that way,” Richard says. “I know what the kids here are like. I know what I’m dealing with. Some coaches, if they’re not winning, won’t stick around. But I’m part of this program. As long as they let me, I’m not going to give up on these kids. As long as they come out here to play, I’m willing to work with them.”
Then he looks at his players. Several of them have still not tied their shoes.
“Tie your shoestrings, guys,” he says. “That’s a good way to twist an ankle.”
Maverick embodies the long way this team has to go to become competitive.
On the second night of practice, rumor on the field is that this summer straggler might finally make his appearance.
The rest of the boys are on the ground, doing their stretches.
“Where’s Maverick?” asks Jack, the assistant coach.
“I don’t know,” Richard says. “He’ll probably linger down there in the locker room and join us at quitting time.”
“Probably,” Jack says.
A half hour after the start of practice, as the boys are running end outs, dropping most of the balls thrown their way, a minor miracle happens.
It’s Maverick, a dark-skinned reservation kid with middle-of-the-night black hair and oversized glasses with big moon frames. He’s kind of a doughy boy, quiet, one of the enigmas from the reservation.
“Maverick!” Richard greets him. “You’re here!”
“I’m tired,” the boy says. “I had to work all day long.”
Richard isn’t having it.
He knows the other boys are looking on, and can’t be seen to play favorites. Still, with only 28 total students this year at McDermitt Unified High School, he doesn’t have the luxury of kicking anyone off this team.
Even Maverick.
“Well, I work all day long, too,” he says. “And I’m here.”
The following night, Maverick is late again.
The coaches spot him coming from a distance.
“Is he running or walking?” Jack asks a player.
He’s walking.
“He can’t pull this stuff,” Richard adds.
Later, during one passing drill, Maverick makes a crisp cut toward the sidelines and reaches up to haul in a pass well over his head.
Richard looks pleased. The boy has talent, somewhere inside all that lethargy.
A half hour later, Maverick doesn’t look well, As the boys take a water break, he leans over to wretch, but can’t.
“Let it out, Maverick!” one teammate yells.
“I don’t want to,” he says.
Instead, he spits out a heavy fluid. Moments later, he’s falling on the ground as part of a drill. “Man!” he says. “I just dropped in my own spit!”
“That won’t hurt ya,” Richard says.
As the sun weakens, Richard is in a rush to end practice. He doesn’t want his boys driving home after dark, especially those who live on ranches a long way out of town.
They could hit a deer, hurt themselves.
He tells the boys to take three final laps around the track. It’s not long before Tyler is back. He’s by far the fastest runner, and rejoins the coaches, sweaty and breathless.
But Tyler doesn’t even pause for a drink. He looks over and sees Maverick, last among the runners, moving slow, Zombie-like.
“I’m gonna go do a few laps with Maverick,” he says.
And so the two friends complete the drill, sometimes running, mostly walking.
But at least Maverick is here.
Richard knows the hard-ass Bear Bryant coaching routine won’t work with these boys.
So he instead employs gentle coaxing and humor.
This joke features the casino in town.
“Hey Maverick, can you say bacon cheeseburger and Say When at the same time?”
Maverick groans.
“Once you get into shape, everything is a breeze, the coach continues. “I’m glad you guys are here and I’m glad we’e going to have the chance to build a team together.”
But he doesn’t hold back his concern.
“We’re thinking we’ve got time, but we don’t," Richard says. “Time waits for no one. These next three weeks of practice will pass before we know it.”
He brings up the subject of last season, in which the team was outscored 250 to 2.
“We want to be better than we were last year,” the coach says. “I don’t want to be standing out here on the field after another loss, saying ‘We are who we are.’ We’re better than that.”
Both Richard and Jack have coached teams with the will to win. Rarely have they faced a team like this one, with the endless excuses, complaining and inside jokes that waste precious practice time.
Jack orders the boys to take one knee on an imaginary line.
“Get down like you’re proposing,” he says.
“Yeah,” one kid says, “except you guys are all gay. Those are your boyfriends.”
Nobody laughs. Questioning a boy’s sexual identity out here is like throwing a punch.
“Boyfriends?” another finally says. “Man, you’re like a little kid talking.”
Richard starts a drill where the boys fall on a big circular pad, they call the big ring.
“Put your helmets on,” he says.
Maverick groans.
“Hey Maverick, Richard says. “This is a big chocolate donut. Have at it.”
The seniors hit the ring hard and roll onto the grass.
One younger player bounces off the pad.
“That donut just tackled you,” a senior mocks him.
As the practice drones on, Jack turns to his coaching partner.
“These kids act like this is a hard practice,” he frowns. “We haven’t done nothing yet.”
“Yeah,” Richard sighs. “They have to toughen up.”
He starts the boys on a drill where at the whistle blow they fall on their stomachs.
“That’s hard,” one says.
“Nah, it’s like a carpet,” Richard says. “Try walking on a dirt floor,” he adds, a hint of his early life on the reservation.
“Many moons ago,” the kid says.
Jack has heard enough. He calls the boys into a huddle.
“We don’t want last season,” he says. “You guys got killed last season. Opponents scored the first, play, and the second, and the third. I’m not trying to bring back bad memories, but we gotta learn to tackle.”
The boys grow quiet. He has their attention.
“To be honest, you looked like a bunch of wimps that first game. Those guys weren’t that good, but you made ‘em look like an NFL squad. This is tackle football. This is combat. The person who delivers the hit, gets hurt less. That’s a fact. We’re looking for guys who relish the hit. Guys who just suck it up and play football.”
The coaches break for the long Labor Day weekend, not sure of how many players they’ll have when practice resumes.
And there’s only three weeks before their first contest, an away game against the Carlin Railroaders.
Last season, the Bulldogs were shellacked at home by Carlin, 84-0.
Now, ready or not, they’ll try to regain some self respect under the other team's vaunted Friday Night lights.
But they won't even get the chance unless they achieve the unlikely.
Put eight players onto that football field.