Catching Coach Jefferson's curious eye, I watched him walk over and study the muscular physique of last year's star fullback.

"You're Ledbetter?" Coach Jefferson asked.

"Uh-huh," Wormy said, not looking up.

"Put a 'Yes, sir' on that," Coach Jefferson barked.

"Yes, sir," Wormy said.

"I studied the films of last year's games," Coach Jefferson said. "I thought you were going to be the stud in my backfield."

"I thought so too, sir," Wormy said. "It's just that my parents ..."

"See what I mean, Dr. King?" I said.

"Would you play for me, son?" Coach Jefferson asked. "Tell me the truth now."

"I guess," Wormy said.

"That's not good enough," Coach Jefferson said. "Would you play for me?"

"Yes, sir," Wormy said. "If Dr. King gives me a chance, I'll play for you."

"Son," Coach Jefferson asked Ike, "will you play with Ledbetter and other white boys like him?"

Ike was clearly uncomfortable, but he finally said, "If I played all summer with the Toad, I guess I could play with any white boy."

A howl of laughter broke the considerable tension in the room. Sheba said, "Dr. King, could I marry your son?"

My humorless mother was caught off guard by Sheba, and she answered, "Leo hasn't even been on his first date yet."

"Don't listen to her, Sheba," I said. "I accept your proposal."

"There will be no punishment for what happened this morning, then," my mother announced. "But I want no trouble out of any of this crew for the rest of the year, or I'll hammer you. Understand?"

"One other thing," I said. "These orange jumpsuits have got to go, Dr. King. Please. And could Pollywog be talked into not having the orphans marched over here by poor Mr. Lafayette?"

"You'll have to clothe them, then," my mother said. "I've already had this discussion and she was adamant that she had no funding for clothing."

"Then, we'll clothe them," I said. "Sheba, can you dress Starla and Betty for tomorrow?"

"It's as good as done," Sheba said.

"Ike, Wormy: you got some spare clothes that Niles can wear? I got a couple of khakis and shirts," I said.

"You girls will look like you stepped out of Vogue Vogue before we're through with you," Sheba said. before we're through with you," Sheba said.

"I'll do your hair tonight, girls," Trevor said.

"Jesus!" Wormy said.

"Quiet, Wormy," I said. "You got to forget that you're Wormy Ledbetter. Pretend you're someone wonderful and fabulous. Go wild and pretend you're the finest, most splendid man you've ever met. Pretend that you're Leo King."

"Oh, puke," Ike said.

In single file, we marched out of the principal's office and straight into the history of our times. Later that afternoon, Wormy Ledbetter and seven integration-resistant white boys joined the football team.

In the world of high school football in South Carolina, nothing scared a young man any worse as he strapped on his shoulder pads than the knowledge that he was about to face the awesome and storied Green Wave of Summerville High. The legendary John McKissick coached the Green Wave, and his teams were famous for being ferocious between the lines. The year before they had crushed us, 56-0. I had never felt as humiliated as when walking off that playing field.

But Coach Jefferson had brought a slick defensive scheme and a complicated offensive one from his days at Brooks High. His playbook looked like a branch of advanced calculus, and I had to study hard every night before I began to feel any mastery. His practices were disciplined, hard-hitting, and utterly exhausting. The Charleston sun had been a brutal star in the exotic heat of August. It took an effort of will to survive the first week of two-a-days, and I would often go straight to bed after supper. A couple of guys quit each day, and our team was down to twenty-three players when Wormy and the seven other latecomers showed up at practice.

Though I thought Coach Jefferson would go easy on the eight white boys, I couldn't have been more wrong. He singled them out, screamed obscenities at them, and generally ran them into the ground. Ten minutes after their first practice, Coach Jefferson had terrified them into a lamblike submission. His defensive coach, Wade Williford, was a young white man I had watched play in the defensive backfield at The Citadel. He surprised me by putting me at linebacker, pairing me with Ike Jefferson, who had looked like an All-American to me since summer practices had begun. I had never played defense, but found out I loved it far more than offense. With Wormy and the boys back, I thought we might have a pretty good football team. The only thing we lacked was a quarterback, and that was like a Catholic church lacking a tabernacle.

Late one afternoon, Coach Jefferson had an inspiration. He called out to Niles, "Hey, mountain boy! You ever play quarterback?"

Niles said, "No, sir, just played end. Just went out and caught the ball."

"Throw it for me, son," Coach Jefferson ordered.

"Where you want me to throw it, Coach?" Niles asked, standing with the team near the 50-yard line.

"I don't give a damn," Coach said. "I just want to see how far you can throw it. I saw you tossing it around with Toad yesterday, and you throw a nice pass. Can you go deep?"

"Don't know, Coach," Niles said. "Never had any reason to."

"Throw the damn ball, boy."

Until I saw them wrap around that football, I had never noticed the size of Niles's hands. They were large, magnificent hands. He placed the ball behind his ear, and threw that football out of the end zone and between the goalposts.

"Jesus God Almighty, son, can you do that with any accuracy?" Coach Jefferson yelled, as the team murmured with admiration.

"Have no idea, Coach."

"Looks like we've got us a quarterback," Coach Williford said.

And so we did. Since Coach Jefferson had played quarterback at South Carolina State, he spent long hours with Niles, practicing snaps, the three-step drop and the seven-step drop, and hand-offs. With each day, Niles grew in his role and became more and more proficient at calling the game and running his team. He improved every time he touched the ball, infusing his teammates with great hope for the coming season.

From the locker room beneath the stadium, we heard the noise of the crowd gathering above us. We had already heard that the Summerville game was a sellout. The ignominy and completeness of our destruction by Summerville last year still ached in the psyche of last year's players, especially Wormy Ledbetter, who had been held to a season low of twenty yards rushing by an awesome Green Wave defense. But most of that defense had graduated, and we knew very little about their replacements. Coach Jefferson came in to deliver the pregame pep talk, and I could not wait to see if he brought any natural gifts to that art form.

The coach walked into the locker room with a pride that was contagious. For a moment, he was silent as the hum of the crowd grew thunderous outside in the stands. Then he began to speak. "I want to talk about integration. Just one time. After that, no one on this team is going to mention it again. I've never coached white players or coached against a white coach. But I'm doing both tonight. I've always wanted to coach against John McKissick to see how good I really am. With you young men-I believe with all my heart that we can kick the Green Wave's ass all the way back to Summerville. I think this team is that good."

My teammates roared their approval. Then Coach Jefferson continued. "When the white players didn't come out for the team because I am a black man, it hurt my damn feelings. It damaged me in ways I don't even realize, and in places like my heart and my soul. That's why I was so hard on Wormy and his friends when they came back. I tried to kill you boys in this Charleston sun. I tried to break your spirit. I couldn't do it, and I gave it my best shot. Now what I have left is a team. I think it's a team with character and mental toughness. Look around you. Look at your teammates. If you see black faces or white faces, you get the fuck off my team. No white. No black. No more. The time for that is over. We walk the world as a team, and we're going to have fun kicking a little ass this year. I've studied McKissick's game films, but he doesn't know what the hell I'm going to do. He has no idea that we're going to kick his team's ass this year. People in this whole state are going to know about Peninsula High School when they drink their morning coffee tomorrow. We believe in this team with our bodies and souls. Repeat that in one voice."

"We believe in this team with our bodies and souls!" my team roared out in unison.

"We will will kick Summerville's ass!" he said. "Repeat it." kick Summerville's ass!" he said. "Repeat it."

"We will will kick Summerville's ass!" we shouted. kick Summerville's ass!" we shouted.

"Then go do it."

We stormed out of that locker room, with Ike and me leading our fired-up teammates into the blinding lights of that stadium and the thundering applause of that sold-out crowd. The ten cheerleaders sprinted out ahead of us, breaking out fast like a spooked covey of quail-five white girls and five black girls, as my mother had demanded. The great surprise of the crowd was the presence of the frail-boned boy who led the cheerleaders, Trevor Poe, the first male cheerleader in the history of my state. Not surprisingly, Sheba Poe took to the sidelines as head cheerleader, with Molly Huger and Betty Roberts trailing behind her.

As we ran toward the home-team bench, Ike surprised me by grabbing my left hand with his right one, then lifting his other hand into a fist and pumping it at the home crowd. I lifted my own free fist and pumped it at the fans. To my surprise, it drove our crowd into a frenzy. Ike's hand felt good in mine. It began a tradition that still exists at Peninsula to this day: the cocaptains of the football team clasp hands and pump their other fists as they emerge from the locker room.

I turned and looked across the field at the huge and menacing Green Wave of Summerville. They had dressed out sixty-six players, while us poor Renegades could manage to dress only thirty-one. Their line outweighed us by twenty pounds per man. Their entire offensive backfield had returned after being second-best in the state. The quarterback, John McGrath, was being recruited by all the great college programs in the country; he was leaning toward Alabama or Southern Cal, which at that time was as big-time as big-time got.

Ike and I walked out to the center of the field. We shook hands with their captain, John McGrath, who handled himself with the princely carriage all great athletes have as their birthright. The referee flipped the coin, and Summerville won the toss. We told the ref we wanted to defend the south goal. Then Ike and I strapped on our helmets and ran back to join our teammates.

Coach Jefferson gathered us in a huddle. "Summerville doesn't think we have a chance. Play clean, boys, but play mean. When Chad kicks off, let the Green Wave know they're in a game."

It had been Chad Rutledge who had surprised me most in the brutal football practices of August. I had taken a poisonous dislike to him when I first met him at the yacht club. Over the years, I had met a thousand boys just like him-a candy-assed, cookie-cutter type with a last name for a first name thrown in for the grand pretension of it all. But Chad had proven resilient, versatile, and fast on his feet. He could punt and kick field goals and showed good hands as our starting wideout receiver. On the first day of practice, Coach Jefferson put him in the safety position on defense, where Chad displayed a nose for the ball and was, I thought, our best open-field tackler. Though it would take some time, Chad would prove to me that it was a serious mistake to underestimate those boys of privilege who emerge from the pampered world South of Broad.

As we lined up, waiting for Chad to deliver the signal that he was about to kick off, I yelled to Ike, lined up beside me, "Bet you I beat you downfield and make this tackle, Ike."

"Dream on, Toad. You'll be fifty yards behind me when they're calling for an ambulance to scrape that poor boy off the field."

"I can feel this one," I screamed. Chad approached the football and kicked off. A Summerville back received the ball on his own 15-yard line. In a blur of light and color, I sprinted downfield. A Summerville lineman tried to take my feet from underneath me, but he dove too low, and I leaped over him. I experienced the illusion of swiftness as I set my sights on the running boy, who wore number 20. He was sprinting up the left sideline when he saw his blocking breaking down. He reversed his field and started coming in the direction that brought him face-to-face with me, with nowhere to go. I hit him at full speed, driving my right shoulder into his chest and knocking him back five yards before I brought him crashing to the turf. I didn't know the boy had fumbled and Ike had picked it up until I heard the note of wild joy erupt from our side of the field, and I saw Ike holding the ball aloft in the end zone before handing it off to a referee. I had hurt the boy that I had tackled. He lay on the field, and I kept asking him if he was all right. Soon, a trainer and some coaches were around him, and they helped number 20 to his feet.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," I said.

"It was a good, clean tackle, son," a man said to me, the first and only time in my life that the great coach John McKissick would speak to me.

Chad kicked the extra point between the goalposts with Niles holding. As we lined up for the second kickoff, I looked up at the time clock: it had taken us only twenty seconds to score.

When Chad kicked off again, Ike and I both tackled the kickoff returner on the twenty-five. Then Summerville lined up and began to show us why they had one of the most feared programs in the state. John McGrath led them downfield in a timely fashion, throwing beautiful and accurate passes to his ends and backs coming out of the backfield. Whenever he handed it off to his big fullback up the middle, Ike and I would close the holes fast; twice we dropped the kid for a loss. But still, Summerville drove us down to our own thirty. Coach Jefferson kept screaming, "They know they're in a game now. They goddamn sure as hell know that."

Ike called his own number for a linebacker blitz on a third down and long. The ball was snapped. The quarterback dropped back, looking toward that hole in the pass coverage that was left after Ike charged through the center of the line. No one blocked Ike, and he was going at full speed when he made a spectacular sack on McGrath, who never saw him coming. McGrath fumbled the football, and Niles leaped on top of it.

Though we were not half the team that Summerville was, things broke our way that night, and our coach had delivered a clever and strategic game plan to offset the superior talent of the Green Wave. When Niles called the first play of the year on offense, I thought it was a mistake to start off a season with a trick play. I hiked it to Niles, who kept the ball himself and sprinted out toward the Summerville sidelines. The left guard and I pulled from our positions to lead the blocking in front of Wormy. I stopped a Summerville linebacker from getting to Niles in our backfield, but our blocking was breaking down badly. Niles was about to get in trouble when he stopped suddenly. He looked far down to the other side of the field, where he saw Ike standing alone, calling for the football. Ike had pretended to block his man but let him through, allowing Ike to slip unnoticed down our own sideline. He was still alone when Niles hurled him the ball.

After Chad kicked the extra point, we were leading a stunned Summerville by a score of 14-0.

It was a joyful and rapturous night, one that happens all too infrequently in the brief transit of human life. I can remember everything about that night, every play that either team ran, every block I missed or made, every tackle I was in on. I remember the feeling of complete, transported bliss that one can get only from athletics or lovemaking. I fell in love with the heart of my team as we fought against the strength of an infinitely superior team. Because we had worked out so hard during the summer, Ike and I stuffed their running game the whole night. We would jump up, slapping each other's helmets, pounding each other's shoulder pads, trusting each other, and, by the end of that game, loving each other. A bond formed between us and our teammates that I thought would last for the rest of my life. We screamed at one another and fought with lion-hearted courage against Summerville all night long.

The score was tied, 14-14, with a minute left to play. I blitzed and hit McGrath the moment he set up to pass; Ike recovered the fumble on Summerville's 28-yard line. Our home crowd turned lunatic. I looked up to where my mother and father sat with Monsignor Max and saw that they were leaping up and down and hugging one another. My James Joyce-loving mother was actually gyrating like a cheerleader over a football game.

Niles was cool and no-nonsense in the huddle. Before he called the play, he yelled to us over the noise of the crowd, "Boys, I want to win this goddamn football game. I won't fuck up; I promise you that. But none of you can fuck up, either. You promise me that."

"We promise!" the team screamed at him.

"They stopped Wormy tonight," Niles said. "Now I want my goddamn line to open some holes for him."

I knocked their noseguard on his back and took out their left linebacker as Wormy ran for fifteen hard-earned yards and a first down on the 13-yard line. On the next play, Wormy went ten yards up the middle to the three. With twenty seconds left, Niles called for Wormy to run it off-tackle.

I snapped the ball. I blocked the man on my left and was looking for a linebacker to bring down when I was hit from behind and found myself lying on my back in the end zone. The world slowed down, and time was stillborn and the movement of all stars and moons sat frozen as I watched something float out of the night air toward me. I reached up to grab it, to touch it. I caught it before I realized it was the football Wormy had just fumbled, which had popped straight up into the air and straight back down into my waiting arms. I secured the ball in the end zone and then felt the entire weight of the whole Green Wave leap on top of me, trying to steal the ball from me in the pileup.

When the referee signaled that Peninsula had scored a touchdown, the stadium approached meltdown. There were five seconds left on the clock. We lined up for the extra point, and I snapped it back to Niles. He did not put the ball down for Chad to kick, but instead danced around in the backfield for the five seconds it took to end the game.

Then the fans moved in a great flood toward us, surrounding us, pummeling us, just about hurting us in their ecstasy and surprise. Then they went for the goalposts. I retained a sight from that perfect night that could bring me to tears for the rest of my life: I watched in amazement as my mother and father and Monsignor Max helped an out-of-control mob of football fans pull the goalposts to the earth. I howled with laughter when I watched Betty Roberts kiss Wormy Ledbetter on the cheek in her sheer exuberance. I laughed harder when I saw Wormy wipe that kiss off with the sweaty sleeve of his jersey.

I turned and watched the moment when Coach Anthony Jefferson shook hands with Coach John McKissick. Both were models of sportsmanship and made me proud to be part of such a game. History was changing all around me.

I watched the swaying goalposts, watched my father get lifted up to the crossbars to direct the surging, unstoppable fans, watched my mother whip off her shoes and hurl them backward, deep into the crowd, into that lost night. She was trying to get better traction as she rejoined the crowd that finally brought those stubborn goalposts crashing to the earth.

In Charleston that September, a heat wave put a stranglehold on the city. The sun seemed parboiled as it made its slow transit across the peninsula. Because of our nearness to the Atlantic, the humidity seemed man-killing and inescapable as I made my torpid way from class to class. It had pleased me immensely when I found myself in the same classes as the twins, the orphans, Ike Jefferson, Chad Rutledge, and Molly Huger. And, yes, I recognized my mother's handiwork in the arrangement and understood that she had drafted me as her watchdog over a group that still seemed flammable to her. Of course, Sheba Poe, with her incandescent, voluptuous beauty, was a natural enemy to my mother's intellectual sensibilities, and Trevor seemed like a creature imported from an undiscovered planet. Starla carried her woundedness like a weather report issued by her damaged, wandering eye. Niles played his role of guardian angel to his sister, but to my mother he seemed unanchored, a young man turned inward because of too many responsibilities given him at too young an age.

"That boy never had a childhood," my mother announced at dinner one night.

"Niles is a fine young man," Father said, simply.

"Too bad his sister's a head case," my mother said.

"She's a nice girl, Mother," I protested. "Why don't you cut her some slack?"

"I don't like the way she looks at me," my mother explained.

"That's because one of her eyes is looking due west, while the other is looking straight ahead. That's not her fault."

"I'm talking attitude, not strabismus or whatever malady she has."

"Dr. Colwell has agreed to operate on that eye," I said. "I bet that changes everything about Starla. The eye makes her self-conscious."

"How on earth will she pay for it?" Mother asked.

"He's doing it for free."

"Did you tell Dr. Colwell about Starla?" my father asked.

"Yes, sir. I told him this summer, one night when I was collecting from him for the newspaper. He's already examined her, and he'll operate when he has an opening."

"So your nice boy set this up, Lindsay," my father said with pride.

"That girl's personality is set in stone," Mother said. "She's a head case. Moving her eyeball isn't going to change a thing. Mark my words."

By the end of October, my football team was still undefeated. But Coach Jefferson made us well aware that we had been luckier than we had been good. He swore we could be in better shape, and he made us outhustle every team we played that season. I would feel half-dead after one of his practices.

Fate has its own quirks and defiances and accords, as I was to learn one night after I got home from such a grueling practice. When I walked into the house, my father said, "Your dinner's in the refrigerator, son. And that pretty Molly Huger called."

"Molly?" I asked. "Why'd she call?"

"Don't know," Father said. "It wasn't me she wanted to talk to."

I picked up the phone in my bedroom, then I found myself almost faint with fear. I realized I had never called a girl. My distress came not from being unnerved but from feeling unmanned. My hands trembled and felt clammy. It became clear to me why I was suffering from this unexpected panic attack: the reason I had never called a girl was that I had never dated one. Even to me that seemed like an odd and illogical fact in the life of an eighteen-year-old boy.

Molly and I had developed an easygoing friendship in the first month of school, and we sat next to each other in three of our classes. So I summoned up a small reserve of courage and dialed Molly's number. Her mother answered on the first ring. When I gave my name, her voice turned frostbitten and brittle.

"Molly isn't here, Leo. Good night," Mrs. Huger said, then hung up the phone.