Playing for Pizza

Chapter 27

The oldest Panther was Tommaso, or simply Tommy. He was forty-two and had been playing for twenty years. It was his intention, shared much too often in the locker room, to retire only after Parma won its first Super Bowl. A few of his teammates thought he was long past retirement age, and his desire to hang on was just another good reason for the Panthers to hurry and win the big one.

Tommy played defensive end and was effective for about a third of any game. He was tall and weighed around two hundred pounds, but sort of quick off the ball and a decent pass rusher. On running plays, though, he was no match for a charging lineman or fullback, and Sam was careful how he used Tommy. There were several Panthers, the older guys, who needed only a few snaps per game.

Tommy was a career civil servant of some variety, with a nice secure job and thoroughly hip apartment in the center of town. Nothing was old but the building. Inside the apartment, Tommy had carefully removed any concession to age and history. The furniture was glass, chrome, and leather, the floors were unpolished blond oak, the walls were covered with baffling contemporary art, and arranged nicely throughout was every conceivable high-tech entertainment apparatus.

His lady for the evening, certainly not a wife, fit in superbly with the decor. Her name was Maddalena, as tall as Tommy but a hundred pounds lighter and at least fifteen years younger. As Rick said hello to her, Tommy hugged and pecked Livvy and acted as though he might just lead her away to the bedroom.

Livvy had caught the attention of the Panthers, and why not? A beautiful, young American girl living with their quarterback, right there in Parma. Being red-blooded Italians, they could not help but wiggle their way closer. There had always been invitations to dinner, but since her arrival Rick was really in demand.

Rick managed to pry Livvy away and began admiring Tommy’s collection of trophies and football memorabilia. There was a photo of Tommy with a young football team. “In Texas,” Tommy said. “Near Waco. I go every year in August to practice with the team.”

“High school?”

“Sì. I take my vacation, and do what you call two-a-days. No?”

“Oh yes. Two-a-days, always in August.” Rick was stunned. He had never met anyone who voluntarily submitted himself to the horrors of August two-a-days. And by August the Italian season was over, so why bother with all that brutal conditioning?

“I know, it’s crazy,” Tommy was saying.

“Yes, it is. You still go?”

“Oh no. Three years ago I quit. My wife, the second one, did not approve.” At this, he cast his eyes warily at Maddalena for some reason, then continued: “She left, but I was too old. Those boys are just seventeen, too young for a forty-year-old man, don’t you think?”

“No doubt.”

Rick moved on, still flabbergasted at the thought of Tommy, or anyone, spending his vacation in the Texas heat running wind sprints and slamming into blocking sleds.

There was a rack of perfectly matched leather notebooks, each about an inch thick, with a year embossed in gold, one for each of Tommy’s twenty seasons. “This is the first,” Tommy said. Page one was a glossy Panther game schedule, with the scores added by hand. Four wins, four losses. Then game programs, newspaper articles, and pages of photographs. Tommy pointed to himself in a group shot and said, “That’s me, number 82 back then even, thirty pounds bigger.” He looked huge, and Rick almost said some of that bulk would be welcome now. But Tommy was a fashionista, dapper and always looking good. No doubt losing the extra weight had much to do with his love life.

They flipped through a few of the yearbooks, and the seasons began to blur. “Never a Super Bowl,” Tommy said more than once. He pointed to an empty space in the center of a bookshelf and said, “This is the special place, Reek. This is where I put a big picture of my Panthers just after we win the Super Bowl. You will be here, Reek, no?”

“Definitely.”

He flung an arm around Rick’s shoulder and led him to the dining area, where drinks were waiting — just two pals arm in arm. “We are worried, Reek,” he was saying, suddenly very serious.

A pause. “Worried about what?”

“This game. We are so close.” He unwrapped himself and poured two glasses of white wine. “You are a great football player, Reek. The best ever in Parma, maybe in all of Italy. A real NFL quarterback. Can you tell us, Reek, that we will win the Super Bowl?”

The women were on the patio looking at flowers in a window box.

“No one is that smart, Tommy. The game is too unpredictable.”

“But you, Reek, you’ve seen so much, so many great players in magnificent stadiums. You know the real game, Reek. Surely you know if we can win.”

“We can win, yes.”

“But do you promise?” Tommy smiled and thumped Rick on the chest. Come on, buddy, just between the two of us. Tell me what I want to hear.

“I believe strongly that we will win the next two games, thus the Super Bowl. But, Tommy, only a fool would promise that.”

“Mr. Joe Namath guaranteed it. What, in Super Bowl III or IV?”

“Super Bowl III. And I’m not Joe Namath.”

Tommy was so thoroughly nontraditional that he did not provide parmigiano cheese and prosciutto ham to nibble on while they waited on dinner. His wine came from Spain. Maddalena served salads of spinach and tomato, then small portions of a baked cod dish that would never be found in a cookbook from Emilia-Romagna. Not a trace of pasta anywhere. Dessert was a dry, brittle biscuit, dark as in chocolate but practically tasteless.

For the first time in Parma, Rick left a table hungry. After weak coffee and prolonged good-byes, they left and stopped for a large gelato on the walk home. “He’s a creep,” Livvy said. “His hands were all over me.”

“Can’t blame him for that.”

“Shut up.”

“And besides, I was groping Maddalena.”

“You were not, because I watched every move.”

“Jealous?”

“Extremely.” She shoved a spoonful of pistachio between his lips and said, without a smile, “Do you hear me, Reek? I am insanely jealous.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And with that they passed another little milestone, took another step together. From flirting, to casual sex, to a more intense variety. From quick e-mails to much longer chats by phone. From a long-distance romance to playing house. From an uncertain near future to one that just might be shared. And now an agreement on exclusivity. Monogamy. All sealed with a mouthful of pistachio gelato.

Coach Russo was fed up with all the Super Bowl talk. Friday night he yelled at his team that if they didn’t get serious about Bologna, a team they had lost to, by the way, they would not be playing the Super Bowl. One game at a time, you idiots.

And he yelled again on Saturday as they sped through a light workout, one that Nino and Franco demanded they have. Every player showed up, most of them an hour early.

At ten the following morning, they left for Bologna by bus. They had a light lunch of sandwiches at a cafeteria on the edge of town, and at 1:30 the Panthers got off the bus and walked across the best football field in Italy.

Bologna has half a million people and a lot of fans of American football. The Warriors have a long tradition of good teams, active youth leagues, and solid owners, and their field (likewise an old rugby pitch) has been upgraded to football specs and is carefully maintained. Before the rise of Bergamo, Bologna dominated the league.

Two charter buses filled with Parma fans arrived after the team and made a rowdy entrance into the stadium. Before long, the two sides were engaged in a rousing shouting match. Banners went up. Rick noticed one on the Bologna side that read: “Cook the Goat.”

According to Livvy, Bologna was famous for its food and, not surprisingly, claimed to have the best cuisine in all of Italy. Perhaps goat was a regional specialty.

In their first meeting, Trey Colby had caught three touchdown passes in the first quarter. By halftime he had four, then his career ended early in the third quarter. Ray Montrose, a tailback who’d played at Rutgers and had easily won the regular-season rushing title at 228 yards a game, romped around and through the Panther defense for three touchdowns and 200 yards. Bologna won 35–34.

Since then the Panthers had not lost, nor had they played in a close game. Nor did Rick expect one today. Bologna was a one-man team — all Montrose. The quarterback was the typical small-college type — tough but a step slow and erratic even in the short game. The third American was a safety from Dartmouth who had been pitifully unable to cover Trey. And Trey was neither as quick nor as fast as Fabrizio.

The game would be exciting and high scoring, and Rick wanted the ball first. But the Warriors won the toss, and when the teams lined up for the opening kick, the stands were full and rocking. The return man was a tiny Italian. Rick had noticed on tape that he often held the ball low, away from his body, a no-no that would keep him on every bench in America. “Strip the ball!” Sam had screamed a thousand times during the week. “If number 8 takes the kick, strip the damned ball.”

But first they had to catch him. As number 8 slashed across midfield, he could smell goal line. The ball came away from his gut as he took it in his right hand. Silvio, the pint-size linebacker with great speed, caught him from the side, and jerked his right arm almost out of its socket, and the ball began rolling on the ground. A Panther recovered it. Montrose would have to wait.

On the first play, Rick faked to Franco on a dive, then pump-faked to Fabrizio on a five and out. The corner, sniffing an early and dramatic interception, took the bait, and when Fabrizio spun upfield, he was wide open for a long second. Rick threw the ball much too hard, but Fabrizio knew what was coming. He took it with his fingers, absorbed it with his upper body, then clutched it just as the safety closed in for the kill. But the safety never caught him. Fabrizio spun again, hit the afterburners, and was soon strutting across the goal line. Seven — zip.

To further prolong the entrance of Mr. Montrose, Sam called for an onside kick. They had practiced it dozens of times in the past week. Filippo, their big-footed kicker, nicked the top of the ball perfectly, and it bounced crazily across midfield. Franco and Pietro thundered behind it, not to touch it but to annihilate the nearest two Warriors. They flattened two confused boys who’d been drifting back for the wedge then changed gears and were going timidly for the kick. Giancarlo somersaulted over the pile and landed on the ball. Three plays later, Fabrizio was back in the end zone.

Montrose finally got the ball on a first and ten from the 31. The pitch to the tailback was as predictable as a sunrise, and Sam sent everybody but the free safety, just in case. A massive gang tackle ensued, but Montrose still managed to gain three. Then five, and four, and three again. His runs were short, his yardage fought for against a swarming defense. On a third and one, Bologna finally tried something creative. Sam called another blitz, and when the quarterback yanked the ball out of Montrose’s belly and looked for a receiver, he found one all alone, dancing down the far sideline, waving his arms and screaming because there wasn’t a Panther within twenty yards of him. The pass was long and high, and when the receiver caught up to it at the ten-yard line, the home fans stood and cheered. Both hands grabbed the ball, then both hands let it slip away, painfully, slowly, as if in suspended motion. The receiver lunged for the prize of gold as it bobbled too far from his fingertips, then fell flat on his face at the five-yard line and slapped the grass.

You could almost hear him cry.

The punter averaged twenty-eight yards a kick and managed to lower this by shanking one at his own fans. Rick sprinted the offense onto the field, and with no huddle ran three straight plays to Fabrizio — a slant across the middle for twelve yards, a curl for eleven, and a post for thirty-four yards and the third touchdown in the first four minutes of the game.

Bologna didn’t panic and abandon its game plan. Montrose got the ball on every play, and on every play Sam blitzed at least nine defenders. The result was a slugfest as the offense methodically punched the ball down the field. When Montrose scored from three yards out, the first quarter expired.

The second quarter was more of the same. Rick and his offense scored easily, while Montrose and his ground it out. At the half, the Panthers led 38–13, and Sam struggled for something to complain about. Montrose had two touchdowns on twenty-one carries and almost two hundred yards, but who cared?

Sam lectured them with the usual coach-speak about second-half collapses, but it was a lame performance. The truth was that Sam had never seen a team, at any level, coalesce so beautifully and effortlessly after such a lousy start. To be certain, his quarterback was a fish out of water, and Fabrizio was not just good but great and worth every penny of his eight hundred euros a month. But the Panthers had stepped up to another level. Franco and Giancarlo ran with authority and daring. Nino, Paolo the Aggie, and Giorgio fired off the ball and seldom missed a block. Rick was rarely sacked or even pressured. And the defense, with Pietro clogging the middle and Silvio blitzing with total abandon, had become a frenzy of gang-tacklers, swarming around the ball on every play like a pack of dogs.

From somewhere, probably from the presence of their quarterback, the Panthers had obtained a cocky self-assurance that coaches dream about. They had the swagger now. This was their season and they would not lose again.

They scored on the opening drive of the second half without throwing a pass. Giancarlo zipped wide left and wide right while Franco thundered through the pit. The drive ate six minutes, and with the score 45–13 Montrose and company jogged onto the field with a sense of defeat. He didn’t quit, but after thirty carries he lost a step. After thirty-five, he had his fourth touchdown, but the mighty Warriors were too far behind. The final was 51–27.