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It is aloof afterwards 7 a.m. on Aug. 9, and the alone complete at Quince Orchard Aerial Academy is cars cavernous by on Darnestown Road. A white moon, which was abounding the night before, rests in a clement dejected sky. The Cougar Dome acreage is coated in dew from a casual storm and still clear by the spikes of cleats and expectation.
Soon, cars cycle into the parking lot, and out appear the players, one afterwards another, abrading the beddy-bye out of their eyes, accustomed accessories and the apprehension of a new season. Quince Orchard Drillmaster John Kelley, beginning off a three-mile morning run, surveys the accumulation of boys in the school’s bandage room. Chief quarterback Doc Bonner, sitting advanced and center, cracks jokes while scrolling through his iPhone. Two players are one minute backward and charge to do 50 up-downs as their teammates beam and calculation out anniversary one.
It’s the aboriginal official day of convenance but feels added like a alliance of constant friends. Accompany who got beginning haircuts alone to acquire their active covered by shined, safe helmets. Accompany who are about to absorb four months calm and will be consistently affiliated by this point of their lives.
“All right, acquire up,” Kelley says, and 55 pairs of eyes accommodated his.
As addition aerial academy division begins about the country, football is both a accumulation action and a mirror for a disconnected nation. Accord is crumbling at the adolescence and aerial academy levels. New head-injury studies accession skepticism about the game’s abiding bloom effects. The action will already afresh become a political battlefield as the abatement unfolds, no best a relied-upon ambush from debates over action and bellicism and peaceful protest.
But football charcoal stitched into Quince Orchard, a accessible academy that draws acceptance from an breadth addition aloft Gaithersburg and North Potomac in Montgomery County, Md. The academy was congenital in 1988, and the area, already abounding with rolling farmland and alone mansions, has aback acquired into a suburb of Washington, with alternation restaurants and a mix of accommodation communities. So abundant has changed, yet football hasn’t. Not here. The kids accumulate aggravating out. The bleachers consistently ample on Friday nights. The advancing division will appearance the sport’s pull, its problems and why it has ashore about in this community, as article for players, coaches, parents and admirers to anchor onto, abutting the accomplished to the present, and the present to an cryptic future.
“Football will consistently be football,” Drillmaster Kelley said. “It agency too abundant to too abounding bodies to anytime go away.”
“If you’re not giving effort, why are you here? If you don’t appetite this, go home now!” Doc yells.
“This is your team! You diaphoresis for your teammates. You die for your teammates.”
“These are your brothers, man!”
The aboriginal convenance of the division ends aloof afterwards 5:30 p.m., with the players boring their bodies through a annular of half-field sprints. Their faces are red. Their breaths are abundant and heard. Afore they go central to bark off their sweat-drenched clothes, Doc Bonner accomplish into the ataxia and looks at his teammates.
“If you’re not giving effort, why are you here?” he screams, eyes lit up, articulation and anatomy shaking. It is a catechism they will all accost in the advancing months. Why? Why will all of them, the sons of doctors and soldiers and gardeners, white, black, Hispanic and Asian, appear actuality every day to hunt victories that can alone ascertain them for so long? Some of them acquire dreamed of cutting this compatible aback they were kids. Some acquire annihilation bigger to do. The bold gives all of the boys a adventitious at article as they attack with pressure, artifice their futures and try to amount out a apple adults acquire not been able to.
“If you don’t appetite this, go home now!” Doc yells. “This is your team! You diaphoresis for your teammates. You die for your teammates. These are your brothers, man!”
They inch closer, accession their fists in the air. Doc counts to three, and they all yell, “Family!”
“I alone acquire one added attempt at this,” Doc says to himself, quietly, afterwards breaking from the ataxia and arch his aggregation into the school. And as they bending adjoin the locker room, a admission alarm on the bank ticks adjoin their aboriginal bold adjoin Bethesda-Chevy Chase: 23 days, 56 minutes, 16 abnormal . . . 15 . . . 14 . . . 13 . . .
More than a quarter-century of football brings John Kelley to his long, angular appointment off the school’s lobby, legs continued out, fan announcement in his face on a boiling August afternoon, nine canicule afore his fourth division opener as the Cougars’ arch coach. The 36-year-old would apparently beddy-bye here, on the exhausted covering couch, if it weren’t for his wife and three kids cat-and-mouse at home about the corner, aloof a Hail Mary canyon from the convenance field. He is, afterwards all, the drillmaster who captivated scout-team blur sessions aback he was a apprentice abettor at Maryland. His tan Toyota Sequoia is a beard on wheels, abounding with shirts and pants and visors, all atramentous and red and white. He could absorb hours talking about old football scores, some acclimatized and others that will nag at him forever.
In the 1998 accompaniment final, a 7-6 win delivered back-to-back titles while he was arena at adjacent Seneca Valley: “We blocked the added point.”
In the 2011 accompaniment final, Old Mill’s two-point about-face sunk Quince Orchard in overtime: “There was holding.”
In the 2012 accompaniment final, a jump brawl in the end breadth pushed Wise accomplished the Cougars: “We were acceptable the accomplished game.”
And aftermost year it was a 42-7 accompaniment championship accident to Wise, a football adeptness from Prince George’s County, a bold Kelley alone talks about through a afflicted smile. But his eyes widen as memories cascade out of his mouth. He leans advanced in the baby folding chair. He curtains both anxiety adjoin the floor. The analog alarm aloft his arch is frozen, the easily ashore on 11:43.
Then he stops and sighs.
“Ten years, it’s been a while,” he says, comatose to the aftermost time Quince Orchard won a accompaniment title. But Kelley is 32-6 in his aboriginal three seasons as arch coach. He is sometimes criticized for accepting players who alteration to Quince Orchard, as affective to appear a altered accessible academy for able-bodied purposes is a exhausted practice. But he is never answerable with not caring enough.
He consistently cuts the Cougar Dome grass himself, folding the agile anatomy of a aloft Division I academy arresting end, attenuated by time, assimilate the school’s acerbic benumbed backyard mower. He helped alpha a adolescence football affairs in North Potomac he hopes will augment into his aggregation one day. Quince Orchard’s accord is steady, alike ascent some years, as abounding aerial schools aloft the country accost crumbling numbers.
Quince Orchard linemen confused the blocking sled out of the weeds during one of the aboriginal practices. Afterwards accident in the Maryland 4A accompaniment championship in 2016, the Cougars were motivated to accomplish it back. Chief advanced receiver Elijah Payne has “family” tattooed on his arm.
“The funny affair is,” Kelley, who additionally teaches at Quince Orchard, tells his aggregation during one practice, “once you leave aerial academy football, it’s not the same. Aerial academy football is different. It’s grass roots, bottomward to the bottom. The community, everything. Anybody loves you. You put on that Quince Orchard jersey, that agency something, right? You should admire that.”
High academy kids comedy football to accomplish accompany or breach out of agitation or, maybe, acquire a academy scholarship. At Quince Orchard, Kelley says, they accumulate advancing out because the Cougars win. Period. Aggregate except the aftermost bold of the season, admitting Kelley and his agents anticipate that may change this fall. Doc, the best quarterback in academy history, is aback for one added run. The breach has admeasurement and speed. The aegis has an accomplished advanced and a ball-stealing secondary. But that all charcoal hollow, a agglomeration of accomplished hope, with aloof addition day of training affected ahead.
Soon Kelley snakes through the school’s hallways on his way to practice, answering questions as he goes: Did Desmond about-face in his medical form? “I’ll check.” Is September 23 a acceptable date for the coaches dinner? “Don’t see why not.” Are your guys bubbler abundant water? “I got it, I got it.” But he never stops moving. It is the cull of convenance that gets him through anniversary academy day. It is the cull of Friday night that gets him through anniversary week.
Once Kelley pushes through bifold doors and into a sun-soaked afternoon, the pep bandage practices for the aboriginal time. The drummers accord a baby to the advancing season. “Here we go!” Kelley yells. “Great day to get better!” He slides on aphotic sunglasses and sees his players agreeable in a huddle, animadversion into one another. He jogs to the average of the acreage and throws himself into the fray, a man ramming himself adjoin bedlam teenagers in a billow of dust, alarming his blare repeatedly.
“When the bandage starts playing,” Kelley says, breathless, barrier out of the pack, “you apperceive it’s time for football.”
All Doc Bonner capital was to beddy-bye in for a few hours, but now his buzz is active and he is, reluctantly, bisected awake.
“Hello,” Doc says quietly, so his two adolescent brothers, sleeping in the applesauce bed a few anxiety away, don’t deathwatch up, too.
“Doc!” shouts Dartmouth Drillmaster Buddy Teevens. “It’s bold day. Acceptable luck adjoin Bethesda-Chevy Hunt tonight!”
They allocution for a few account afore Doc pushes himself out of bed, starting his last, aboriginal aerial academy bold day aloof afterwards 8:30 a.m. Dartmouth has been recruiting him hard. In a few hours, Army Drillmaster Jeff Monken will ambition him luck in a Twitter message. Abutting to 10 Division I schools are afterwards the arm that rifles passes into bound spaces, the legs that carve up defenses, the A student. And it all makes Doc, the oldest of four kids in a ancestors that has struggled financially, a slinging, scrambling assurance of a bigger future.
“I appetite it so my parents don’t acquire to anytime anguish about money again, because it’s been hard,” Doc said. “You’re accouterment for your family. That’s consistently been the goal.”
Senior quarterback Doc Bonner generally takes walks in the dupe abaft the family’s home to accumulate his thoughts. Doc still has his aboriginal football, which his parents bought aback he was in elementary school. Doc plays with his dog, Charlie, in the family's aback yard.
Before he walks bank for breakfast, and afore he runs for the aboriginal touchdown in a 55-7 blast of Bethesda-Chevy Hunt that night, Doc stares at the decrepit white jersey blind by the aperture of his room, the jersey emergency medical technicians scissored off his anatomy afterwards he was agape out of the accompaniment championship accident to Wise aftermost December.
With Quince Orchard abaft 35-7 adjoin the end of the third quarter, Doc accolade to his left, was addled helmet-to-helmet by a Wise apostle and was larboard apoplectic on the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Amphitheater acreage in Annapolis. Coaches and trainers rushed to him. His parents, Linard and Latoya, hopped bottomward a five-foot ledge and assimilate the field. Their son was blacked out for a moment and could not move his accoutrements or legs. Doc remembers alive up to the complete of his mother, alone to her knees in fear, arrant abutting to him.
After about 15 minutes, they put Doc on a stretcher and aloft him into an ambulance. A few blocks abroad a helicopter airlifted him to the Shock Trauma Centermost at the University of Maryland Medical Centermost in Baltimore. He had never aureate before. His ancestors arranged into their argent 2003 Ford Expedition, and Linard sped 29 afar to the hospital, their eyes agee aerial to try to atom Doc.
He was in and out of alertness in the helicopter and clumsy to say his name clearly. Aback his ancestors got to the hospital, Latoya rushed to the board and asked for Kendell Bonner.
The alone accommodating they had on book was a John Doe.
“I was so afraid at that point. It was him, but he wasn’t able to acquaint them his name,” Latoya recalled. “You apperceive this being can appear in football, but you never anticipate it will appear to your kid.”
Doc Bonner checks to accomplish abiding his ancestors is advancing to the aggregation barbecue afore the alpha of the season. Doc takes a breach during the aboriginal day of practice. Doc jokes about afore his blow baseline test, but he and his ancestors are able-bodied acquainted of football’s risks.
He was diagnosed with a blow and had abiding acquire anguish that kept him out of offseason training for a month. He and his parents were beholden it wasn’t worse.
Latoya gave bearing to Kendell Bonner aback she was 17 years old in Edenton, N.C. Linard was additionally 17 and formed a cardinal of jobs to abutment Latoya and their son, but Edenton offered few career opportunities. Linard and Latoya saw adolescent men abutting gangs instead of activity to school. They confused to Maryland aback Kendell was 4 years old, acquisitive for a activity Edenton couldn’t provide.
That was aback Latoya started accepting affection problems and her son never larboard her side. They gave him a appellation afterwards he told Linard, “I appetite to be a doctor so I can accomplish mommy feel better,” and “Doc” stuck. The Bonners hid any banking burdens from their growing family. Aback Doc was 6, the lights shut off because the electricity bill was late. They ate banquet in the aphotic and slept in the basement together, artifice the summer heat. Linard promised that would never appear again. He was alive as a aegis bouncer at the time and generally chose amid affairs his kids new clothes or accepting abundant advantage to aftermost a week. But he did save up to buy a $30 college-sized football that about fit in Doc’s 7-year-old hands. Linard alleged it an investment.
“We never had the adventitious to save up for a academy fund, because a lot of your activity you absorb paycheck to paycheck and aggravating to breach afloat. Doc will lift all of us because God gave him a gift, and that allowance is football,” says Linard on the afternoon of the division opener, authoritative a cafeteria of broiled beans and turkey burgers in the kitchen of their North Potomac row home. Doc sits on the access about a corner, agilely alert to his dad allocution about all that Doc agency to the family. Linard and Latoya are not alive because of medical issues, and the ancestors lives off accumulation and affliction checks.
A anniversary afterwards the Cougars exhausted Bethesda-Chevy Chase, they are down, 7-0, on a air-conditioned atramentous at Blair. Doc stalks the sidelines, agreeable at his abhorrent line. Recruiters from Dartmouth and Towson watch him. Linard and Latoya are two rows up in the visiting stands and see their son bang over a metal armchair in frustration.
“You charge to acquire to me! We charge you!” Doc screams afore demography over on the abutting possession. He runs for two big gains, all 6 anxiety and 190 pounds of him slicing abysmal into Blair territory, and finishes with a 16-yard hasty touchdown up the middle, Quince Orchard’s aboriginal account in a 34-7 win. He jogs aback to the amusement afterwards abundant celebration, grabs the armchair he kicked over and sits bottomward to bolt his breath. Chief abhorrent accouterment Mike Fierstein settles in abutting to him and offers a attenuate anchor bump. Doc curtains Mike’s helmet to get his attention, and Mike turns to see two billowing eyes abaft Doc’s red face mask.
“Mikey,” Doc says in a abreast whisper. “They can’t stop me.”
The fourth bold day of the division starts afore aboriginal bell, with a accumulation of dads continuing over bristles buckets of acrylic aloof afterwards 7:30 a.m.
Steve Wong, advancement quarterback Eric’s dad, organizes the volunteers as kids airing into academy with melting Starbucks Frappuccinos. Aaron Derwin Sr., ancestor of chargeless assurance Aaron II, begins painting white numbers aloft the assortment marks. Pete Moyer, appropriate bouncer Logan’s dad, pushes a aerosol aloft the acreage to actualize backyard lines. Sheldon Feuer, who no best has a kid on the team, mixes red and white paint. Their assignment anniversary Friday morning is to about-face a big rectangle of Bermuda grass into a football field.
“We’re activity to be actuality for a while, I may charge added than a bisected day off from work,” Wong says at about 9 a.m., abrading his forehead while scanning the abandoned Cougar Dome, which is not absolutely a domed stadium. They do not accomplishment for about three hours.
Inside the academy lobby, a continued bandage of students, all cutting red, delay to buy a $3 ticket. The Bullis bold is a attenuate adventitious for the Cougars to analysis themselves adjoin a arresting clandestine school. Bullis charge costs added than $41,000 per year, and Cougars players antic about those kids’ “big mansions” and “fancy cars.” The Quince Orchard association is economically diverse, with townhouses, sprawling accommodation complexes and houses with advanced lawns and two-car garages. Bullis additionally has no restrictions on recruiting, and accessible schools are rarely advantaged adjoin top clandestine academy teams.
“Once you leave aerial academy football, it’s not the same,” Kelley says.
“High academy football is different. It’s grass roots, bottomward to the bottom.”
“The community, everything. Anybody loves you.”
The Cougars abrasion their jerseys in school, and the cheerleaders are in compatible by aboriginal afternoon. Arch Carole A. Alive is in all red, from her glasses to her shoes. Quince Orchard has abutting to 2,000 students, about bisected white, about a division Hispanic and a few hundred black. Not all of them affliction abundant about football. But hundreds accomplish up the Red Army apprentice breadth anniversary game, and altercation of the Bullis antagonism fills the hallways. The Cougars are advancing off a 63-8 win at Clarksburg and acquire absent four home amateur aback Kelley took over in 2014. Alone four. How could that change tonight?
“This has an important allotment in the adeptness of our school,” says Working, who became arch in 2006. “Friday nights are aback we all appear together. It’s a community-building tradition, and the football aggregation is at the centermost of that.”
Once academy lets out, Kelley wades adjoin the sea of acceptance cloudburst into the parking lot. By the advanced entrance, inferior linebacker Johnny Hodges, inferior advanced receiver Brendan McGonagle and inferior abhorrent lineman Jack Williamson angular adjoin a accurate wall, talking to girls. Kelley walks up to them, raises his arrow feel and leans in abutting to say to anniversary player, “We acquire a bold tonight! . . . We acquire a bold tonight! . . . We acquire a bold tonight!”
Kelley keeps blame through the crowd, a beam tugging at the abandon of his mouth. Johnny, Brendan and Jack beam and go aback to their conversations.
Students bless a touchdown adjoin Bullis by amplification a ample Quince Orchard flag. A affiliate of the Red Army apprentice breadth gets his face corrective afore a alley bold vs. Blair. Chief abhorrent accouterment Mike Fierstein goes able with the eye atramentous adjoin Clarksburg.
“Football aloof takes so abundant time and energy, I consistently anticipate today is the day I acquaint Drillmaster Kelley I quit, I’m done, I appetite to focus on academy and added stuff,” said inferior larboard bouncer Mark Echiverria. “But afresh you get to Friday, and it’s like, how could I anytime accord this up? There’s annihilation like Friday.”
The Cougars’ pregame accepted starts with an on-field walk-through at 2:30 p.m. Abutting is a aggregation meal of pasta, red booze and Caesar salad, able by the aforementioned moms anniversary week, in the cafeteria. Arresting accouterment Desmond Johnson leads a aggregation adoration during warmups. Afresh it’s bottomward to the locker room, breadth the players backpack into the bound space, about-face off the lights and bawl rap lyrics while their eyes acclimatize to the darkness. At aboriginal they cannot see a thing. Afresh they can accomplish out the outline of the abettor aloft from them. Then, as the playlist switches from one song to the next, 55 pairs of white pupils dot a atramentous canvas.
Then Kelley bangs on the door, the lights flick on and anniversary amateur drops to one knee. Kelley kneels in the average of his team, places his easily on the asphalt attic and delivers the aforementioned pregame accent catastrophe with, “But best chiefly we ask that aback this bold is over, anniversary and every affiliate of this football aggregation can candidly say . . . .” And afterwards a abbreviate abeyance the accomplished allowance yells, “That I did my best!”
The Cougars blitz assimilate the acreage to “Enter Sandman,” its ample guitar riff igniting the home crowd. But the activity is anon snatched by Bullis as the Bulldogs acquisition a accent on the arena and booty a 21-7 advance into halftime. The visiting army aloft the acreage rings baby cowbells and chants, “This is our house!”
“Most chiefly we ask that aback this bold is over,” Kelley says.
“each and every affiliate of this football aggregation can candidly say … ”
“That I did my best!” the aggregation yells.
The Cougars account aboriginal in the additional half. Bullis answers with a touchdown. Quince Orchard array again, and a four-down stop by the aegis sends the coaches leaping forth the sideline. Now the cowbells are quiet. The Red Army stamps on the metal bleachers. Bottomward eight, Doc scrambles all the way to his left, auto about at the Bullis amusement and, as he moves appropriate to mend a burst play, finds a streaking Brendan McGonagle for a 72-yard touchdown that armament bags of admirers to acclamation as loud as they can. The Cougars catechumen a two-point about-face as Doc helicopters into the end breadth to bond the account at 35. He leaps assimilate a metal bench, pumps his chest and screams “Let’s go! We’re not done!”
But the bliss is anon replaced by despair. Bullis array on its aboriginal control of overtime. Quince Orchard, afterwards scoring itself, curve up for a two-point about-face that ends with Doc adverse burden and throwing the brawl out of the aback of the end zone. The Cougars bead to their knees in tears. Some Bulldogs, affected with emotion, do the same. The Bullis acceptance run assimilate the acreage and brawl on the red “QO” corrective at the 50-yard line, and the scoreboard shows what no Cougar anticipation accessible aback the day began: Bullis 42, Quince Orchard 41.
The players clarify off the acreage and into the accoutrements of parents, or friends, or girlfriends, and assuredly into the aphotic of the elimination parking lot. Chief abode article Evan Judge, mad about the acreage ambition he absent in the game, stays in the Cougar Dome to assault 40-yarders through the uprights. Inferior assurance Nahiem Howell refuses to booty off his pads.
And as the army thins, inferior linebacker Aaron Blooming ducks into the stairwell that leads aback bottomward to the locker room. There he sits by himself, staring at his phone, afraid his arch over and over at a touchdown bandy he gave up in the fourth quarter. The alone complete in the abandoned academy is besom abrasion adjoin concrete, addition Friday night anesthetized by.
Once home, Doc showers afore aggressive into the ancestors Expedition with his mom, dad and three adolescent siblings. They alpha a 500-mile drive to Hanover, N.H., at about midnight and access for Doc’s official appointment to Dartmouth aloof afterwards 7 a.m. Linard drives the accomplished way, alike afterwards Doc, comatose off in the aback bench and activity anniversary hit he took in the Bullis game, offers to booty the caster as aurora nears and the New England mountains booty shape.
The ancestors loves the campus, abnormally the library with its alpine bottle windows and abstraction spaces that are sandwiched amid bookshelves. They watch Dartmouth exhausted Holy Cross in overtime at Memorial Field, and Doc is accessible to verbally accomplish by Sunday morning. As he tells Buddy Teevens he is advancing to comedy for the Big Green, with a accepted handshake in the alley alfresco the coach’s office, Linard’s eyes alpha to water. He collection Doc up and bottomward the East coast, analytic for offers and opportunity, sometimes administration a basin of aliment from KFC aback money was short. And now his son, a son of Edenton, is activity to an Ivy League academy to comedy quarterback and abstraction accounting.
“It agency the apple to me to do this for them,” Doc said. “I feel like this is my job. To accomplish my parents appreciative and afresh accommodate afterwards if I can. They deserve it afterwards all their adamantine work.”
The aforementioned night Doc and his ancestors larboard for Dartmouth, President Trump stood on a date in Huntsville, Ala., and rekindled a adeptness war that anon consumes football aloft the country. His comments about agitation NFL players appear 13 months afterwards Colin Kaepernick, one of six African American quarterbacks to alpha in the Super Bowl, aboriginal didn’t angle during the civic canticle afore a preseason bold to beef badge atrocity and ancestral inequality.
Tapping the aggregation assurance is allotment of the bold day ritual for Quince Orchard players. Doc stands abutting to his brother Phillip as the bandage plays the civic canticle afore the division opener. Aaron Blooming augments his Quince Orchard compatible with gold cleats.
The country was aback breach on football, of all things, and the conversations surrounding demonstrations by NFL players, coaches and owners fabricated their way to Quince Orchard. The Cougars never altercate protests as a team, and while Kelley says his appointment aperture is accessible if anyone feels the charge to talk, no amateur visits. But it is discussed in quiet conversations in the hallway, over texts at night, or at practice, such as aback Mike Fierstein and abettor drillmaster Darnell Evans stood side-by-side on the bend of the acreage that Tuesday.
“Some things you aloof do,” Mike says. “And one of them is angle for the civic anthem.”
“But you acquire to realize, this has been swept below the rug for so long, man,” says Evans, the Cougars’ arresting backs drillmaster and one of two atramentous varsity assistants. “I’m animated Kaep did it, because it brought acquaintance to it.”
“I know,” Mike answers. “Black bodies don’t get a fair shake, and it’s not right.”
“Think about it, Mike, allegory was not that continued ago, so you acquire to anticipate about the message,” Evans says. “Maybe you don’t accede with kneeling, but do you apprehend the bulletin now?”
“Yeah, I acquire it more,” Mike says. “And I absolutely anticipate it was a acceptable affair that it came up. I do.”
Doc discussed these issues with his dad while growing up. Alfresco of Quince Orchard, he has acquainted discounted as a atramentous quarterback, his administration and throwing adeptness put into catechism afore he alike accomplish on the field. He knows the disadvantages he will face as a adolescent atramentous man aloft entering the absolute world. But a agitation about football, the American banderole and the support, or disrespect, of veterans tugs at two abandon of him. He has ancestors associates in the aggressive and would not kneel himself. “But it’s a acceptable affair because this country is not equal” Doc says. “It’s aloof reliving history again, and that’s article we charge to allocution about.”
In the Bonners’ basement, in a bound alley abutting the access to a comfortable ancestors room, a Pan-African banderole is draped central an American banderole on the wall. This, Linard says, is because the Bonners are African American and appreciative of both heritages. He credibility to anniversary blush on the banderole to acquaint its meaning. The red console represents the claret of slaves, the atramentous console is for the faces of the African people, and the blooming console is for the African fields, emblematic hope.
And that is why, aback Linard spreads out the blooming flap, a photo of Doc is taped to it.
On the third Saturday afternoon of October, a day afterwards Quince Orchard exhausted Wheaton, 43-13, to advance to 7-1, a baby accumulation of players are at Uncle Julio’s in Gaithersburg for post-practice Tex-Mex food. They allocution about Friday’s win, how anime comics are easygoing air-conditioned and whether it’s bigger to booty selfies or mirror pictures with your girlfriend. They all accede selfies are way better, and they aces at the enchiladas, tacos and tortilla chips, all coated in guacamole and salt, that awning the alpine board table.
“Yo, did you see that Wise alone exhausted Eleanor Roosevelt 21-14 aftermost night?” says chief arresting aback Brayden Allemong, staring assertive at his iPhone.
“They’re not as acceptable as aftermost year,” says Matt Steinwandel, who was a Quince Orchard ballboy from fourth to eighth brand and is now a inferior advanced receiver. “We can exhausted them.”
From August to December, they all absorb six canicule a anniversary together, in school, appropriation weights, in the bandage allowance watching blur and at convenance into the aboriginal evenings. Sunday is generally spent icing Friday night’s wounds and scrolling through Snapchat or Instagram. They consistently babble about girls, but few absolutely date. Sometimes a amateur is absolute with a babe — talking to her, but not absolutely together. But best of the time it’s aloof talk. A lot of talk.
Now the accustomed mile markers of the division zoom past. Homecoming comes and goes. So does Chief Night. So do blast wins over Kennedy and Acrylic Branch and Einstein and Wheaton. The players antithesis SAT and ACT belief with homework. For seniors, there are academy applications due Nov. 1, afresh real-life decisions to make.
Quince Orchard players amount up on pizza and absurd craven during a aggregation barbecue with ancestors members. Mike Fierstein works on a birdhouse in ceramics class. Inferior quarterback Eric Wong relaxes on the way to a playoff bold adjoin North Point.
But for now there is the accessible Northwest game, one of the bigger football rivalries in Montgomery County. Northwest is aloof four afar away, and abounding of the players went to average academy calm afore agreeable off for ninth grade. They played on the aforementioned adolescence teams. They go the aforementioned parties. They like the aforementioned girls.
“I abhorrence these bodies with a passion,” chief linebacker Tyler Terry says of Northwest, the aggregation that agape Quince Orchard out of the playoffs in 2013, 2014 and 2015. “I mean, they’re my friends, but not during football season. I don’t alike say ‘what’s up’ if I see them.”
Four thousand bodies clasp into the stands and bandage the clue and backpack the sidelines Friday. The Cougars, afterwards falling abaft 17-7 in the additional quarter, absolutely assignment advanced with hasty touchdowns by Doc and blooming active aback Marquez Cooper. Admirers are still cat-and-mouse in bandage for tickets as night avalanche and halftime comes and goes. Quince Orchard seals a 38-29 win on Aaron Derwin’s additional interception of the game, and the chief is still captivation the ball, aerial and tight, as the final abnormal run off.
As Northwest leaves the Cougar Dome, Kelley is already cogent his aggregation that the win agency nothing. They will about absolutely see Northwest afresh in three weeks, in the quarterfinals of the playoffs. Bless tonight, he tells them, afresh balloon it by the morning.
“Three weeks from now is all that matters!” Kelley yells as the players accumulate for a aggregation photo, alive their smiles through the army of cameras and iPhones. “I will bake this picture! Three weeks!”
John Kelley is the aftermost drillmaster larboard at school, arranged abaft his board watching film, alert to a Brothers Osborne anthology on echo as Saturday morning turns into Saturday afternoon.
Another antagonism with Northwest is six canicule away, as the Cougars accomplished the approved division with a 60-21 win at Gaithersburg and sprinted accomplished Einstein, 62-0, in the aboriginal annular of the playoffs. The Cougars are 10-1, and Doc accomplished the approved division with 20 casual touchdowns and 11 added on the ground. Brendan McGonagle will anon set academy annal for accepting touchdowns and accepting yards in a season. The aegis is clicking.
This is the time of year aback Kelley reminds his players how appropriate all this is. Cutting the jersey to academy on bold day. Active alongside adolescence accompany into a arranged stadium. Accepting annihilation to anguish about except aerial academy football and the abutting down. He doesn’t apprehend the boys to apprehend it. He never did while he played. But that’s why this affairs so abundant to anybody else. The coaches, the parents who sit in the aforementioned seats every game, the dads who acrylic the acreage or assignment the grills, they are all aggravating to feel like they are 17 years old again, in some baby way. Maybe it was football, or ballet, or arena the violin. Anybody has article they admired until activity got in the way. This is how they bethink that, if alone for two hours a week.
“The faces change every year, it’s consistently a new accumulation of players and parents and fans,” Kelley says. “But I consistently get to appear aback and see what the bold agency to everyone, and I anticipate that’s why it’s still so important here.”
He anon active home to absorb the blow of Saturday with his wife and kids. Molly is 7, Brooklyn is 5 and Brady is 3, and they’re maybe acumen that amoroso works a lot from August to December, that he’s on his laptop more, that the barn is abounding with too abounding shovels and a burst treadmill, ataxia he won’t apple-pie out until the spring. “John is the aforementioned guy I knew in aerial school. The exact same,” wife Jill says as Kelley bliss a blush soccer brawl with Molly in the advanced yard.
They met aback Kelley was a blooming at Seneca Valley, arena on both abandon of the brawl and a year abroad from the aboriginal of back-to-back accompaniment championships. Jill was a cheerleader in the brand below him. Now Jill brings the kids to anniversary game, ambience up a barbecue absolute forth the track, and the four of them acclamation on the coach.
“The faces change every year, it’s consistently a new accumulation of players and parents and fans,” Kelley says.
“But I consistently get to appear aback and see what the bold agency to everyone,
“and I anticipate that’s why it’s still so important here.”
Late abutting Friday, coaches and parents arch to Quincy’s Bar & Grille in Gaithersburg, a post-playoff-win tradition. Waiters blitz Bud Ablaze bottles and glasses of wine into the restaurant’s dining breadth as a awning bandage plays hits from the 1970s and ’80s by the bar.
They are adulatory a 31-20 achievement over Northwest that pushed Quince Orchard into the accompaniment semifinals. It was additionally the aftermost time this division they all aggregate in the Cougar Dome. The aftermost time the parents came aboriginal to mark their seats with old bank towels, the aftermost time smoke drifted off the Grill Shack aloft the far ancillary of the bleachers, the aftermost time accessible abode anchorperson Lee Faris anecdotal a Doc Bonner achievement — “another looooong run for the Doctor” — heard through adjacent neighborhoods.
And it was about the aftermost bold of the season, with the Cougars abaft 20-17 afterwards three quarters, until Doc and Marquez Cooper ran for touchdowns in the fourth. Aaron Green’s additional interception closed the game. Now the parents at Quincy’s cull up admonition to Waldorf, Md., breadth the Cougars will face a 12-0 North Point aggregation abutting week. They adjustment 50 wings, bisected covered in barbecue booze and the added in Old Bay seasoning. But one being is missing as the army swells to 75 people.
Quince Orchard bless afterwards assault archrival Northwest. The Red Army apprentice breadth abutment the Quince Orchard football team. Appropriate teams coordinator Aaron Moxley, left, and Drillmaster John Kelley game-plan.
“Here he comes, actuality he comes,” says Mark Steinwandel, ancestor of advanced receiver Matt. And aback Kelley walks in moments later, a shy beam on his face, the accomplished abode erupts in cheers.
Those acclaim are alike louder at North Point, as Quince Orchard opens up a 26-point advance in an closing 40-21 win. Afterwards Doc catches a touchdown canyon from Brendan McGonagle on a ambush play, one of Doc’s bristles absolute array in the game, the traveling Red Army chants, “We appetite Wise! We appetite Wise!” In Prince George’s County, the Pumas ran assimilate the acreage through a banderole that apprehend “Not Your Average Pumas,” afterwards an Eleanor Roosevelt amateur alleged them “pretty average” in the lead-up to the game. Wise wins in a rout, ambience up a accompaniment championship rematch.
Quince Orchard boards two academy buses aback to Gaithersburg, and the ride starts with amusement and anniversary until players alluvion to beddy-bye aural 20 minutes. Quarterbacks drillmaster Paul Belkin scribbles abhorrent schemes on the aback of a notepad, application his iPhone for light, and abhorrent coordinator TJ Changuris leans aloft the alley to look. Maybe, if the Cougars bandage up this way, the aegis won’t admit the bound end. Or maybe stacking receivers could work.
They accumulate cavernous up Sam Eig Artery and adjoin a accustomed objective: Exhausted the aggregation that never loses.
The aboriginal convenance of the aftermost anniversary of the division is awash with Wise-themed inspiration, shouted over the abode music Kelley blares to adapt his aggregation for animated army noise.
Special teams coordinator Aaron Moxley: “There’s activity to be a guy aloft from you. He’s activity to be good. But he’s not Superman.”
Offensive bandage drillmaster Chuck Oswald: “There isn’t a tomorrow afterwards this one. Those guys aren’t assured a lot from you. Appearance them.”
Kelley: “You are the bigger team, gentlemen. Alpha assertive that.”
Wise has now won 41 beeline games, back-to-back best seasons with a accompaniment appellation at the end of anniversary one. Chief arresting aback A.J. Lytton is committed to Florida State. Inferior advanced receiver Isaiah Hazel has offers from Maryland and West Virginia, amid added aloft programs. They acquire 300-pound players on the line, on both abandon of the ball.
Quince Orchard’s agenda is a bit added lean. Doc is activity to Dartmouth. Tyler Terry verbally committed to Monmouth at the end of November. A scattering of seniors are aggravating to comedy in Division II. But abounding are in their aftermost anniversary of football, afterwards affair anniversary added at their aboriginal adolescence practices about a decade ago, watching blur during cafeteria periods, appropriation all those weights. One added week. The juniors still acquire addition year. The sophomores acquire two. And the freshmen, well, they acquire a lifetime.
“It doesn’t feel absolute that in aloof a few canicule it will all be over. Football will be over,” chief arresting accouterment Bryan Ramos says at the end of Tuesday’s practice, staring at a acreage that went from blooming to anemic chicken as the temperatures dropped. “It’s like we acquire two options now. Win, and you allocution about it forever. Or lose, and you anticipate about it forever.”
Doc has been cat-and-mouse for this bold aback aftermost December, anytime aback that third-quarter blow larboard him lying on the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Amphitheater turf. Aback the spring, his buzz accomplishments has been a photo of the Wise amateur continuing over him at the end of the play. On Thursday night, he hangs out on the access at home in advanced of a baby assurance that reads, “QO Acclamation Loves Doc!” It was taped to the Bonners’ advanced aperture the day afore the season, aback the cheerleaders covered anniversary senior’s advanced backyard with atom chrism and toilet cardboard and Saran wrap. It has afraid up central anytime since.
“If we win tomorrow, I’m activity out afterwards the game,” Doc says.
“What did you say?” Latoya, his mom, answers from the kitchen.
“I was allurement for permission to go out if we win tomorrow,” Doc says with below confidence.
“I didn’t apprehend the allurement for permission part!” Linard, his dad, cracks, and the accomplished ancestors laughs.
Doc all-overs his head, smiling, and walks to his allowance to echo his night-before-the-game accepted one final time. He fishes his white jersey off a angle aloft his bed and starts ambience up his compatible on the folding armchair by his closet, aloof below the white jersey that was cut off his anatomy the aftermost time the Cougars faced Wise.
The scissored-off jersey is a admonition of a loss, sure, but additionally of football’s dangers and how a dream, how everything, can be taken by this action if two players bang the amiss way. Doc acquainted that. His parents did, too. But they acquire the risks as allotment of the game, and Doc doesn’t accept in arena scared, alike as words such as blow and arch abrasion and abiding alarming encephalopathy, or CTE, befitting assuming up in the news. Football will be football, for one added aerial academy bold and four added seasons at Dartmouth, and Doc will acquire to assure himself.
The gold convenance shirt, the one he’ll never abrasion again, is balled up on the attic at the bottom of his bed. He stuffs browned white socks into his atramentous cleats, apparel his acquire pads over the aback of the chair, balances his atramentous helmet aloft the acquire pads and, already aggregate is in place, accomplish a backyard aback to get a acceptable look.
“One added bold in a Quince Orchard uniform,” he says. “That’s crazy.”
School advisers apple-pie up the Cougar Dome afterwards Quince Orchard defeated Northwest. Aaron Blooming collects his thoughts afore the accompaniment championship game. Quince Orchard players active up to be taped for the North Point game.
Just afterwards 2 p.m. Friday, two drillmaster buses chase a badge escort out of Quince Orchard and, afore ambience bottomward the artery to Annapolis, booty a quick detour.
“You may appetite to accessible up your shades, guys,” John Kelley suggests from the advanced of the bus. Aback they do, they see acceptance from Rachel Carson Elementary lining a continued amplitude of sidewalk that apprehension through the school’s parking lot. There are hundreds of kids, maybe some approaching Cougars amid them, captivation signs, jumping up and down, agreeable encouragement.
“This is so abuse cool,” Kelley says as he gives a accede to his wife’s first-grade class. Aaron Blooming mouths “Wow” as he pushes his adenoids adjoin the window. And in the average of the army is a row of 17 kids, anniversary captivation one letter of an important message: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.
“Most guys are activity to comedy 12 minutes, and that’s 12 account for the blow of your life,” Kelley barks three hours afterwards as the aggregation gathers in the visitors’ locker allowance for a pregame walk-through. “That’s 12 account for the abutting 60 years of your life. You guys acquire been arena football aback you were 7 years old. Your parents abutment you, your friends, everybody in the community, you owe it to them, for those bristles seconds, to go as adamantine as you physically and mentally can.”
It all happens so fast already the bold bliss off. The Cougars get a big red-zone stop on Wise’s aboriginal possession, as Aaron Blooming makes a diving accouterment to anticipate a touchdown. He injures his larboard arm while hitting the turf, has it captivated in a bendable casting and plays the blow of the game. Doc break off a 50-yard run. Quince Orchard pushes advanced on a abbreviate hasty touchdown by Marquez Cooper. Wise ties it, afresh array afresh to booty a 13-7 lead.
The Cougars account on the aboriginal control of the additional half, with Doc award Brendan McGonagle on a bridge route, to go up 14-13. Linard Bonner, eyes wide, smile wider, embraces the acceptance sitting abutting to him in the aboriginal row. Kelley and abhorrent coordinator TJ Changuris bang amateur afore advertisement instructions into their headsets, adopting their choir to attempt with deepening army noise.
The Cougars backpack a 14-13 advance into the fourth quarter, and their admirers go crazy. They believe. They are all 12 account abroad from Quince Orchard’s aboriginal accompaniment appellation in a decade. Twelve account for the blow of their lives.
But afresh the Cougars punt. Wise takes a five-point lead. The Pumas account afresh and afresh and afresh and Kelley gnaws on two pieces of blush Added gum and Doc, his animation arresting in the algid night air, looks at the alarm on the big awning and . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat . . .
It’s over.
“Most guys are activity to comedy 12 minutes,” Kelley says.
“and that’s 12 account for the blow of your life.
“That’s 12 account for the abutting 60 years of your life.”
The Cougars lose, 38-20, in the final hours of the aboriginal day of December. As the Pumas bless their 42nd beeline win, with their army chanting, “Three-peat! Three-peat! Three-peat!,” the Quince Orchard amusement is quiet abreast from broadcast sniffling. The Wise bandage blasts music while the Quince Orchard bandage packs up. Wise’s admirers brawl as associates of the Red Army, their face acrylic already chipping away, fix bare stares on the field. Abhorrent accouterment Mike Fierstein, eye atramentous anointed by diaphoresis and tears, can’t booty his eyes off the arctic scoreboard. Green, larboard arm blind at his side, walks to the stands, and his dad, Zane, leans over to kiss his son’s forehead. An X-ray afterwards showed that his arm was burst from the aboriginal division on. Doc goes up to anniversary chief teammate, all-overs his duke and says, “Hey, this was fun.”
“Be appreciative of everything,” Kelley says, his aggregation awash about him one aftermost time, as he holds the runner-up plaque. His articulation is blatant and cracking, and for a moment it is drowned out by acclaim from aloft the field. “One affair you’re consistently activity to be is a Quince Orchard Cougar. Always.”
Just afterwards midnight, as the bus waits to accomplish the aftermost larboard assimilate Quince Orchard Road, as players activity alive and cockle bite wrappers into their pockets, the disciplinarian turns to Kelley.
“What bold was it tonight?” he asks.
“It was the accompaniment championship,” Kelley responds.
“So the also-ran goes home?” the disciplinarian asks as the ablaze turns blooming and the bus rolls into the intersection.
“Well, the champ goes home, too,” Kelley says through a aside smile. “No amount what, you go home.”
They esplanade in advanced of the school, and the players book off afterwards talking much. They crawl into the parking lot, one afterwards another, abrading the beddy-bye out of their eyes, accustomed accessories and the ambiguity of whatever comes afterwards football ends. They scrape December frost off their windshields. They flick on their white headlights. The Cougar Dome is aphotic and empty, those lights off until abutting fall, and the admission alarm alfresco the locker allowance is shut bottomward for the winter.
But in aloof a few months it will alpha active again. Abutting division isn’t too far away.
Doc Bonner searches a nightstand for his socks on the eve of the accompaniment championship. He has committed to comedy football for Dartmouth in college.
Design and development by Virginia Singarayar.
