
The Lombardi Factor (Short Story) {Part IV}
November 30, 2012
Ways to Increase Your Electric Bill (Silverton Style)
December 14, 2012The final installment of The Lombardi Factor. This story was inspired by the fact that my high school basketball team won a total of four games in three years. Truly a record of excellence unsurpassed in the world of sports!!
Word Count: 1189
The Lombardi Factor
(Part V)
A steady drizzle leading up to the big game resulted in turf conditions better suited for duck migration, and the 1st half of the big game turned into a defensive struggle. Each outfit managing a single chip shot field goal and a sense of aggravation settled in on the sidelines. Particularly for coach Henderson and APA. At the halftime two minute warning signal and crucial time-out:
“What’s going on Chalmers?” asked Henderson. “Last year we had this game before the 1stquarter was half over!! This time you guys look like a bunch of milquetoasts out there!! Even my mother whose half blind could beat you with her hands behind her back.”
Biff was totally perplexed. “I thought you said you grew up in an orphanage for gifted children coach? It isn’t easy getting our footing out there. Very slippery.”
“Stop making excuses. Now I want you to go with the split-T wing-back option.”
“You sure coach? That involves me handing off to the split back, who then throws a pass back to me. Pretty risky?”
“Just go out there and do it Chalmers. You questioning my authority?”
“No sir.”
“Then do it. I’m the brains of this outfit. Don’t forget that.”
APA ran the play and it almost worked. As Biff was reaching out to catch the ball, he
caught a glimpse of Vigilio on the sidelines. He remembered the Lombardi documentary and the odd coincidence occurred to him that this St. Cats loser/coach bore a slight resemblance to the late Packer great-swarthy southern Italian looks, dark glasses, a flannel suit. In the split second that his mind took to stumble over this irony, Biff bobbled the pass and missed a path clearer to the end zone than the day after the latest storm-of-the-apocalypse.
Just to add insult to injury, Biff then landed face first in one of 15,000 mud puddles courtesy of the sky opening up. It took him a good five minutes to wipe the muck off his helmet, longer to salvage his pride too. At halftime, a total yawn-fest, 3-3.
The atmosphere in opposing locker rooms was decidedly different.
“All right men,” said Vigilio, who decided to push it once again. “We’re still in this game even though we almost gave them that TD before intermission. Let’s go out in the 2nd half and do it. We can win this thing!!”
Meanwhile in the APA locker room;
“What are you morons thinking!!” said Henderson. “I’ve never seen such a pathetic display of football fundamentals!! Chalmers, all that hair dye must be clouding your brain. What mind numbing bull*^$@ was going through that head when you dropped the ball?”
“Nothing coach,” said Biff. “I’m always focused in reality.”
“Now either you morons start playing like you’re supposed to, or I call the governor and cancel that parade I’ve scheduled after we’ve wrapped up the state championship.”
Halfway through the third period APA methodically trapped St. Cats in the quagmire that was once its own end zone and scored a safety. Both teams hunkered down, and with 1:00 minute left in the game and APA in possession of the ball, order looked like it was finally being restored to the Kirby Henderson universe. Not quite as events would have it.
“Damn,” said asst. coach Gumble. “They got the ball, third and one, and all these Arden jerks need is a single first down and everything’s over except for the crying. Looks like another lousy night at the Gumble residence.”
“What the..?” said Vigilio.
Right at that moment Biff dropped back to pass and a path wider than most of the patron’s rear ends at a Godzilla-Burgeropened up.
The shocked look on Eric Gumble’s face was palpable. “Unbelievable,” “He’s going to run for the first down.”
“Yeah,” said Vigilio. “And he’ll probably get it too.
Now the smallest guy in the St. Cats defensive backfield was Stanley “Shit Luck” Riviera. Even though the nickname Shit Luck was crude and on numerous occasions Stanley’s father told him to tell people to quit calling him that, the underlying reason for Stanley having acquired the moniker was sound. Through out his life, Stanley Riviera had the uncanny ability to land in piles of proverbial excrement and come up smelling like the most fragrant of bouquets. In every situation in which he’d painted himself into a corner with his mis-guided instinct brush, serendipity would smile upon him and he’d find a way out of his box canyon. This was one of those odd situations.
“Hey Kirby!!” exclaimed asst. coach Monroe. “Biff’s got a clear path to the first
down. The only thing in his way is that kid.”
A Mississippi-wide smile crossed Kirby’s face. “What a joke, in addition to being the main actor in a midget movie, that St. Cats moron is going to entertain us with his dance moves.”
Sure enough, Stanley was performing his best Fred Astaire routine as he began slipping and Biff stopped to laugh. The APA quarterback also hesitated at that moment and glanced over at the sidelines. He noticed that the St. Cats loser/coach was wearing the same pork-pie style hat that the Packer Great wore. How pathetic is that, thought Biff.
“Oh no!!” said assistant coach Lampwick. “Biff just collided with that St. Cats dwarf
impersonator and the two of them have landed in that huge mud hole!!”
No, no!!” said coach Van Houten. “Now the ball is just sitting there for anybody to grab. Kirby! Kirby!! Snap out of it!! You look like you’re watching the final night’s broadcast of FOX-News.”
Once again the roses germinating in excrement axiom began to kick in, as Stanley noticed upon getting up and wiping the debris off his helmet that an oval shaped brown object was just laying there for the taking. He practically waltzed his way into the end zone, which is pretty much what he could’ve done too. Most of the APA players were too far down the opposite end of the field to do anything other than panic. Not unlike victims in the latest teen slasher flick.
The following Monday you might’ve thought the St. Catherine’s football team had just won state instead of a single game in a 1-12 season. One would also be tempted to think Vigilio Lombardi was revealed to be the latest American Idol pseudo-celebrity the way the paparazzi was congregating outside his office.
“It’s like backstage at a rock concert out there,” said Eric Gumble as he squeezed his way past the hordes. “What should I do Vigilio? You’ve got twenty-seven office messages. They all want interviews.”
“Insane,” said Vigilio. Feeling that his decision to live life on the edge resulted in a big pay off once again. “Just because we finally won.”
“What’s going to happen if we put together consecutive victories next year?”
“Not much. Maybe it’s true what they say the first one is always the toughest, after
that the novelty wears off.”
“You know what’s even crazier. The press is spreading the rumor that you’re turning things around for us because of your last name. Sounds insane,”
“Not really. Makes sense actually.”
THE END