Eyeshield 21: Hang on Sloopy
Chapter 1: The New Arrival and a New Team
Girls don't play the game. You hit like a girl. You throw like a girl. I have heard it all, but that doesn't stop me from playing the sport that I love. I train hard, and work as hard as everyone else on the field. Anyone can do anything they like as long as they put their mind towards a goal, and a plan in action. My name is Molly Wright, I play football.
Most people I know have seen the movies where girls play the game. Sometimes they are the quarterback, and sometimes they are the kicker. Who says a girl can't be a wide receiver and punt returner? That's what I do. I am a wide receiver and kick returner for the Nishimura American Academy football team. Everyone on the team calls me 'Sloopy'.
"Day one," I said, looking out at the practice field, "looks pretty promising,"
It did not start out that way. I started playing football when I was a kid in California, playing in the Pop Warner leagues. As I grew up, so did my love for the game. The team I played for in the states almost won the State Championship. People have told me I shouldn't play. They say that I'm not fast enough, smart enough, or strong enough to play.
That's the drive that keeps me going. I wonder if they say I'm not smart enough because I'm blond? Joking aside, I was brought to Japan to bolster the team. The team used to be the Pride. This was a team that accepted their fate before the season began. Their first two seasons they went 0-32. I don't think I have seen any team stoop that low.
I jogged onto the practice field for day one. The team was sitting around on the fifty yard line. There was no sign of a head coach anywhere, "Looks like they'll let just about anyone on this team," said the quarterback, a handsome brunette of a guy if I should be honest, Kyle Cade, "hey honey, we don't need a 'Quarterback Princess' around here,"
"Oh, that's cool, I'm not a quarterback, I'm a wide receiver," I replied back,
"Oh ho ho? A wide receiver? I got something you can receive," said another player, a free safety named LeCharles Kingston,
"Very funny," I chuckled, seeing him make pelvic thrusts, "say, where's coach?" I asked openly,
"We ain't gotta coach, blondie, the last one just resigned yesterday, the guy looked mad happy to get outta this joint, real talk," said the starting center, the only center on the team, Laquan Strong, that was until a whistle blew off in the distance, "Heh, looks like we got one now," it was a lady in her mid-thirties walking with an authority in her step.
She wore tight blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a whistle around her neck. She had black hair in a mane of curls that went down to her back. She wore oval, wireframe glasses. She was tall, buxom, and curvy in the hips just like me. Something tells me she used to play football too, "You, blondie, off the field," she said to me, I shook my head 'no' to her.
"Are you deaf? I said...get off the field," she repeated, with more authority. I stood my ground, and this time I put my practice helmet to further tell her that I was not leaving. I could hear her gritting her teeth behind her lips, "do you know who I am? I'm the coach of this team, what I say goes, now get off the field, NOW!" she blasted on the last word,
I am 5'10 and 170lbs. I'm not going to be pushed around so easily. My hips and my thighs help with that, "No," I said simply, the coach got up in my face, and pulled me by the facemask to face her eyes at point blank range. I stared right back at her, blinking a few times but keeping my brown eyes focused right back at her. She let go with a yank.
"Good, that's what I like to see," said the coach with approval, though lacking a smile of any kind,
"Now then, I'm Coach Reed, and I expect all of you to set a good example out on this field, you're not the same old team," she explained,
"To be honest, I'm thinking the last team to play here was glad to get back to the states, that's the case here," she added,
"You're all new here, I handpicked you from your respected schools to play here," she explained, "I'm overhauling this entire program, that means we start fresh and new just like you guys, don't worry about the little things, the uniform you will get is something that has to earned, right now, you all start by showing me what you can do on the field,"
The summer sun was as relentless as the training regime. We were going back to the basics: running, exercising, up-downs, the works. She expected a lot out of us, "Everything you do on this field, and in the classroom, do everything the best that you possibly can do, and just a little bit more, you guys are not the same old sad sack team anymore!"
It was dark by the time practice was over. There wasn't a part of me that wasn't sore. That means you worked out, and you worked hard. Coach Reed faced us with a hand on her hip, "Remember team, you're not the Pride anymore, that ship has sailed along with all the seasons with the senior class, now's the time to rise up, now you are Griffons,"