The Lombardi Factor (Short Story) {Part III}

                                                                                                Word Count:1048

     As the first hints of autumn chill appeared in the mid-August heat, Vigilio gathered together all the St. Catherine’s boys who were interested in playing varsity football that fall.  In the beginning it wasn’t that many, primarily due to the team’s record over the past six years, the classic definition of the word “futility”, 3-57.

     It didn’t even look like they’d have enough players to field a team, and the season might be canceled due to this fact. Then monsignor Waldo Wiggum showed up at practice and told Vigilio to make an important announcement.  The following Monday the situation looked considerably brighter when Vigilio talked to Rev. Wiggum.

     “So Monsignor,” said Vigilio. “That statement you told me to give the boys worked to

perfection.”

     “Which one’s that?”  asked Waldo.

     “I told them every kid who made the team would receive an “A’ in P.E.”

     The monsignor smiled. “I figured as much, you had what, nine kids the day I appeared?”   

     “Forty seven the following practice.”

     The first game of the season was versus the juggernaut that is M.Y.A..  In actuality, Moses Yeshiva wasn’t really a juggernaut, but they had managed to beat the St. Catherine’s boys for the past three years and this fact hadn’t gotten away from anyone. Particularly the St. Catherine’s players, who to the untrained eye during that first game looked like credible impersonators of chickens with their heads cut off.

     In actuality all of the St. Cat’s boys were still learning the new plays Vigilio had instituted, so you did have that decapitated poultry look, and a final score, M.Y.A.-38, St. Cat’s-20.  A moral victory in the eyes of some, but a crushing defeat for Vigilio.

     The St. Cat’s boys also looked tired during the latter part of the game.  This lack of energy was the result of conditioning drills Vigilio kept putting them through every practice.  Vigilio’s obsession with physical conditioning for the team also earned him another interesting moniker, discussed to various degrees by members of the team each day.

     “So just why do we refer to Lombardi as SLS?” asked Jeffery Prouty, one of the new recruits, thus heavily motivated to get that “A” in P.E..  “Seems like all we do in practice is drills.”

     “Haven’t you heard Prouty,” said Rodney McFarland.  “Lombardi being former military, thinks SLS stands for Sergeant Lombardi Sir.” 

     Jeffery was shocked. “It doesn’t?”

     “Keep your mouth shut in front of Lombardi.  We like to use SLS in a different context.”

     “What’s that?”

     “Sadistic Lombardi Sir.”

        An interesting phenomenon occurred as the season wore on. The St. Cat’s football team continued to lose, but with each week’s contest and as the number of opponents ticked off their schedule, the scores got closer.  People even started talking in hushed tones about the previously unthinkable, something St. Catherine’s hadn’t done in three years, and akin to that of the Cubs winning the World Series, a team victory.

     The dominant team in the south Philadelphia happened to be Arden Preparatory Academy. A.P.A., or as it’s opponents/enemies liked to refer to them, Arrogant Poseur Academy.  A.P.A. was the richest school in the league and a powerhouse in a number of sports, football being just one in its vast arsenal of weapons.  A.P.A. was talented and good.

     Unfortunately they knew it and displayed their arrogance in front of their opponent’s faces.  The previous year they’d roughed up Moses Yeshiva 48-7, just a week after M.Y.A. thought it was an up and coming program, beating St. Catherine’s.  The fact that A.P.A. beat the Hebrew boys so soundly wasn’t that much of a surprise.

      What did astonish observers was the behavior of the A.P.A. team towards the game’s end.   One of the A.P.A. players jokingly lowered his trousers and shined the moon at the opposition bench.  This led to a number of other athletes on A.P.A. joining in on the prank, and pretty soon you had more rear ends on display than the climactic orgy scene in a XXX porno.

     Fall 2010 A.P.A. wasn’t quite as powerful and only managed to beat M.Y.A. 32-21.

Their behavior towards the end of the contest was just as crude. A.P.A. players

and  their fans were seen making a variety of obscene gestures and rude catcalls in the general direction of M.Y.A.. Then things got out of hand in the eyes of Leopold Quimby,

assistant coach for the M.Y.A. Rams.

     “I’m telling you Adrian,” said Leopold.  “Nobody should put up with the attitude of those A.P.A. jerks.”

     “Calm down Leopold,” said Adrian Greenstein, M.Y.A. head coach “Just because their head coach, Kirby Henderson, walked across the field and shook my hand with that limp wrested grip of his is no reason to get upset.”

     “Yeah, but at least he could’ve done it without that arrogant scowl. I know league rules say every coach is supposed to walk across the field to shake hands with the opposition mentor, but his behavior is absurd.”

     The following weekend the final game of the season was scheduled to take place for St. Cat’s and the instigation of sick gestures on the part of some higher up seemed to be clearly evident.  Vigilio didn’t get upset about most things, but this was an exception.

     “Damn it!” said Vigilio, whispering underneath his breath.  “What sadistic schedule maker put us up against Arrogant Poseurs the last game of the season!”  In principal, Vigilio didn’t raise his voice either, but this required rule bending.

     “Yeah,” said Eric Gumble, volunteer assistant for St. Cat’s, and a closet masochist.  

     “We’ve come so close to just winning one game all season and then the administrative morons schedule our last contest against APA. On the other hand, maybe we’ll get lucky and come close.”

     “Close doesn’t count Eric.  I’d love nothing better than to come within 5 or 10 points of the Arden Academy aristocracy, but unless rap music becomes popular with the geriatric set, that isn’t happening.”

     Eric shook his head. “Unfortunately you’re right. Chances of a dramatic improvement are as good as my mother swimming the English Channel.”

      “So you’re saying she isn’t much of a swimmer?”

     “Definite understatement.  She hates the ocean.  She also weighs roughly 270-280 lbs., give or take what she inhaled for breakfast on her 5’3” frame.”

(End Part III)