Author's Note: This is a companion piece to Double or Nothing, providing a bit more backstory and linking up with a few more Friday Night Lights characters.

Chapter 1: Practice Makes – What Exactly?

Ray Fiorentino learned things by observing people. That was how he functioned, by watching and listening. He'd only been on the Monsignor Bonner High football team for a week, but he could tell Coach Eric Taylor was disappointed about one particular thing, and nobody else seemed to have noticed.

At the end of every practice so far, Coach gathered the whole team together. If there was something to focus on for the next practice – since it was still a week early for games – that was when he'd say it. If there was anything particular that had happened in those two hours that bothered him or pleased him enough to tell the whole team about it, that was the time. And then, right after that, even if he'd just spent fifteen minutes criticizing what he'd seen, there was the same parting slogan: "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts." And the players and coaches would repeat it right back to him, some of them with their hand on their heart.

Right then, Coach would frown for about half a second before walking off. The first time, Ray thought it was a coincidence, or that Coach had something else on his mind. The second time, he shrugged it off as part of Coach's personality. Eventually, though, even after what seemed to Ray's eyes like a successful scrimmage against Penn Wood, the same frown was there, and the realization hit him like a blitzing linebacker: there was something missing, something that Coach Taylor expected his players to know and say back to him. And nobody, absolutely nobody was getting it.

If he'd been Joel Bishop, the senior quarterback who went seven straight games without throwing an interception last year, he could have just asked Coach straight out. Same if he'd been defense captain Jay Kaczynski or his own best friend Leo Anconitano, the inside linebacker that everyone who wasn't Italian called Anaconda. They were respected starters. He'd just scraped through onto the squad on a bet and was playing a bit of special teams, plus backing up at tight end and linebacker. Low man on the totem pole didn't dare raise his voice that quickly.

He wasn't a reporter on the school paper for nothing, though. And he wanted to find out, because Coach Taylor had given him a chance when all the guys dismissed him as a school kid who analyzed NFL games every week but couldn't back up his talk with any real playing experience. "You think you know so much about the Eagles and Penn State and every game they've won or lost, Ray, gimme a break here." Jay had said at lunch ten days ago. "You've never put on the school colors and stepped on the field, so all your talk don't mean squat to me. Just because you blocked me a couple of times doesn't make you a goddamn expert. If you got the guts to play on the team, then we can talk." And then Leo had turned around and made it into a bet: he and Jay would pitch in to pay him fifty if he tried out for the team, but if he played chicken, he owed them twenty-five each.

"Ma sei pazzo, Leonardo? Che stai cercando di combinare?" Ray'd said to Leo in the language they'd both learned from their grandparents. (Are you crazy? What are you trying to do?) Then running back DeSean Croston had thumped him on the back and jumped in with "Hey, hey, no paisano talk here. Come out to practice tomorrow and ask Coach for a tryout. Make a change from all that reading and writing you do, dude. You like the game, so stop bein' a watcher and get to bein' a doer. I think you got it in you to be a Friar. Whattaya say, Ray, you in or out?"

Leo's hand on Ray's shoulder helped him make the decision. Saying no was not on the map. He wasn't big enough to tackle Jay anyway. His voice shook, but the words still came out. "You're on. Jay, make sure you bring twenty-five tomorrow – you'll need it."

DeSean and a couple of other players let out a whoop and banged the tables. "Woohoo! Fiorentino's goin' out for the green and white! Be one of us, baby!" Leo looked at his friend and whispered "Dai, fallo per me. Forza." (Come on, do it for me. Be strong.)

And Ray kept his word. In spite of vomiting onto Coach Taylor's clothes when he asked him for a chance to be on the team. In spite of Coach changing the bet in front of everyone, so he'd be out a hundred bucks if he failed. Even after getting outrun and leveled in the first few drills and being sent to run a mile for punishment because one of the assistant coaches didn't like how he did jumping jacks, Ray didn't leave, although the thought did cross his mind. When he came back from the run, he felt like his skin was falling off his body, or maybe his body was trying to ooze outside of his skin while his lungs tried to jump out his mouth. Coach Taylor took him aside and said "Look, son, I know nobody likes drills starting out."

Ray couldn't catch enough of his breath – or his brain, at that exact moment - to produce an answer to that, so he just tilted his head in Coach's direction and kept his eyes focused to show that he was listening.

"This here's the building blocks. The fundamentals. What we work on so you use it right in the games. It's not fun. It's work. It's self-improvement."

"I can understand that, Coach, but I just don't seem to be any good at it."

"Good at it?" Coach's eyebrows and voice both went higher in an instant. "Listen, Fiorentino, you think I was born a Texas state champion coach, or Croston was born running a four point four forty, or any of these guys was born with a helmet and pads on? Or that you were born winning an essay contest and knowing how to write and talk four languages?" Ray almost jumped. Coach hadn't known his name or face forty minutes ago, and now he already knew that? "Y'all worked at it, that's the point."

"I'm – I'm trying to do that, Sir." This didn't look good to Ray. He'd have to beg Leo's father to let him wash dishes at Da Bruno for a few weeks. Or mow every lawn west of Lansdowne Avenue. And what would he tell his own father? The man had no respect for anything but success. His head dropped and his eyes started to sting. How many more minutes until he got sent away, and how much time until people stopped laughing at him? Thought he could play with the big boys, but turned out to be just a school kid with a mouth on him, good for nothing but the books. Ray was already feeding everyone their future lines.

"Your best friend says you think you're slow. Turn that into an advantage. If you can't run fast, run hard. Change directions. Throw your whole body into the play. You got big shoulders, use them. Everyone else here's had a month of practices already – I don't expect you to be where they are yet. You know what Coach Lombardi really said?"

"Not sure what you mean, Sir." Why hadn't the axe been wielded yet?

"He really said 'Winning isn't everything, but making the effort to win is.' That's all I expect from you or anyone, that effort. Just do what you can, and then keep trying to do more than that."

One nod. Laughingstock status delayed. "Go run over to Coach McCandrick now, he's working with special teams." If Leo told him about that too... His legs burned and he almost fell over, but he crossed the field like half the school was chasing him, which wasn't a completely unknown experience. The words "I said run, not sprint!" flew through the air behind him.

"Here's the deal, people." Coach McCandrick was a human tank with thick graying blond hair and a full beard, wearing only a golf shirt and shorts in spite of the cold. "This is Trickeration Day. We're going to prepare for all the weird and goofy stunts that other teams might get it into their head to try on us: onside kicks, fake punts, fake field goals, multiple laterals on returns, you name it, we try to defend against it. And we'll try to run them ourselves, so us coaches can see if you've got what it takes to work a few stunts if we ever need them. You get split up into kicking and returning squads and I'm gonna keep moving people around so you try several spots. Each time I'll tell the units what to do. You will be surprised, just like you're supposed to in a real game."

Everyone's head picked up a bit – the special teams squads were the second and third-stringers, the guys who weren't trusted with the real plays unless a first-teamer hurt himself or made some colossal mistake. Unless they could show some spark that made them get considered for a new chance.

"OK, kickoff play this time. Kicking team's just scored a touchdown to bring them within three points. Fourth quarter, just one minute and twenty left. Receiving team has one timeout left, kicking team's out." He began to say which players were on which team, identifying them by number rather than name and ending with "Receiving team, you've got 51, 64, 73, 29 and Nothing up front. Unless you want to switch them around, you got thirty seconds to do it."

Ray's face went red when he realized what he'd been called. It didn't help that Eddie Maurer, one of his bad memories from junior high, was lined up opposite him. He and a couple of other guys from the kicking team started taunting Ray with "Hey, they got Nothing up front" and shouts of "No boobs, no boobs!". Coach McCandrick proceeded to give the kicker some instructions, but none for the receivers. The kicking team went into a quick huddle and came back out. Obviously, some sort of onside kick was coming, but there were no instructions as to how to prepare for it. The taunts started flying again.

Ray focused on watching the kicker, how he'd move his body and his leg, to see which way the kick would be coming. The way the kicking team lined up could be a trick, or could change at the last second. The kicker started running and then chipped the bottom of the ball with the front of his foot so it would arc ahead to the right. Ray figured out in a second that it was coming his direction, but not right at him. "This side, this side!" He yelled out and he saw the teammate on his left, number 29, head for the ball. It bounced while two or three of the kicking team's players were headed in the same direction. Ray ran right into Maurer's side, knocking him towards the sideline. 29 caught the ball on his second attempt and fell on it. An opposing player touched him down and McCandrick blew the whistle to show that the play was over.

"Nice hustle," the special teams coach said. "95, you see why trash talking is a sign of stupidity?" Maurer glared. Ray ignored him and waited for the next instructions and then he felt a tap on his right shoulder. "Nice block, new guy." a teammate he didn't know said and they bumped fists quickly. It was better than getting called "Nothing", that was for sure. Coach Taylor would never have called him that.

Ray tried to throw himself into each specific role: blocker, rusher, coverage team member, and then all of a sudden he found himself in the offensive huddle – his first – for a fake punt.

"Five minutes from the end and you're up by one," McCandrick narrated the scenario in an edgy voice. "Two timeouts left and it's fourth and twelve on your own forty. You really don't want to punt it away because your defense stinks, but the punter's out there so it's not obvious. Fifteen," he said, turning to Ian Desmond, the punter, "it's your call if you pass or run, or another guy steals the snap and does it. Play clock starts once I walk away, so get in your huddle and figure it out quick."

"Guys, which ones of you can throw? Cause I sure can't." Ian asked and three or four hands went up. "Nick," he said to number 82, "you play protector and grab the snap." Then Nick pointed to two other players and said "Take the ends. You're my first reads." Then he pointed to Ray and said "Act like a tight end. Block somebody and run a slant across the middle. Everybody get open quick." And then they broke the huddle and lined up.

The words kept sounding in Ray's head: block somebody and run a slant. Block somebody and run a slant. He heard Ian call for the snap, pushed the first white jersey he found in front of him, and then changed direction, moving diagonally across the field. How far was ten, twelve yards? He looked back and Nick was throwing the ball right into his path. His heart felt ready to explode – the ball was coming, the ball was coming, and before he had time to think about how to do it, Ray had caught the ball and was running forwards. He needed to make that first down for the play to work. Another white jersey caught up with him and grabbed his side. Ray tried to push his tackler back with his left hand, kept trying to bring his arm back, push again, and move forward. It wasn't working: he felt himself starting to fall. Could he stay up for one or two more yards? Keep trying to do more than that. He kept pushing back, trying to pull himself forward, to keep himself up a little longer, slipping and sliding, fighting off the other guy... SPLAT! And the whistle blew. He'd been brought down, but he didn't lose the ball.

"That worked." Ray heard Coach Taylor's voice before he'd stood straight up again. "You gained twenty-two on the play." How come he was watching special teams? Ray looked around, getting his bearings, and then pitched the ball over to Coach McCandrick, who proceeded to berate the defense for not having come back quickly enough to help with coverage and tackling. "You don't give up on the play ever, you hear me? What do you call that? He made six more yards while you were watching your teammate try to take him down!" A couple of heads were bowed.

"Second effort's important." Coach Taylor intervened. "Until the whistle, you stay involved. Everyone! If you're being tackled, you keep fighting it. If your guy is making the tackle, get yourself over there and help him. If you can throw a block, throw one. You never take yourself out of the fight. Split 'em up again, Rod." And then he walked back to the first-teamers.

The plays went on. Ray knew that he made some mistakes: his blocks and tackling attempts weren't always successful, but sometimes they were. The only time he felt embarrassed was on defense against a fake field goal, when Nick clearly outran him on his way to a first down and he saw McCandrick shaking his head. He felt much better, though, a few minutes laterwhen he brought a kickoff returner down on what would have been a game-ending play.

"Last one, now," McCandrick said. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, except it's a kickoff and both teams want the ball real bad. Figure it out on your own." And then he repeated which the teams were, except that he pointed to Ray and called him "you" as the seventh member of the kicking team.

"I heard somebody likes recovering onside kicks," Ian said with a smile – what had Leo been doing, talking Ray up to half the football team? "so let's make it a trap. We bunch several guys on the right so they think it's coming that way, and then Ray, you dig it up on the left."

"Him?" one of the players was offended at the idea. "This ain't seventh-grade flag."

"Shut it, Rob." Ian retorted. "It's my call and I say he gets it." Then he told all the players where to position themselves and the team lined up. The returning team noticed their formation and shifted three players over to what was going to be the wrong side. McCandrick blew the whistle and the play started. The rules said the ball had to travel at least ten yards in the air, so Ian kicked it in a low arc so it would hit the ground just beyond that point. Ray was running as hard as he could towards where he expected the ball to bounce. The kick was low, so anyone hoping to grab the ball would have to bend down or dive for it. Ian's strategy had worked: the returning team's players had shifted too far over, expecting the kickoff to land on the other side. The fact that they had to change direction gave Ray a couple of seconds' worth of advantage. He caught up with the ball and dove for it, only to feel it bounce off one of his hands. No, that wasn't supposed to happen! He pushed his feet into the ground, tried to lift his body slightly, and made an awkward flop onto the rolling ball, covering it with his entire body and both his hands like he was protecting an injured kitten. Well, not quite, because a kitten needed a little room to breathe and you weren't supposed to squash it. He held his breath, waiting for someone from the receiving team to jump onto him or run into him and try to dislodge the ball. Keep it under your body and they can't dig it out. His mind traveled three years into the past. Do something to get those dogs away, Leo... and then he blinked and remembered that Leo was on the other side of the field, he'd been touched down, the play was over, and his perfectly healthy cat was safe at home.

"That was not a move for the highlight reel, but it worked." McCandrick's voice brought him all the way back to reality. "Think you can give me the ball back, or are you taking a nap down there?" Ray let go of the ball and pushed himself back into a standing position. He looked down quickly and saw that three-quarters of his shirt was covered with mud and grass stains. "Get up faster next time. If the clock was running, those seconds you were down could make a real big difference."

"Coach, I think that play might be worth trying in a game," Ian said.

"Next time kickers call plays, fifteen, I'll ask you about it." McCandrick shook his head abruptly once and pointed to his right. "Everyone head to the fifty, Coach Taylor wants you for the last bit." Twenty-two players started jogging towards midfield, where the rest of the team was already gathering. As Ray headed with them, he noticed several of the special teamers flashing him crossed fingers or the thumbs-up sign. Incredibly, somebody besides Leo actually wanted him on the team. Eddie Maurer flipped him two middle fingers and spat in his general direction, but made no other attempt to bother him. Ray hoped he wouldn't try anything out here.

Once everyone was within hearing range, Coach Taylor began to speak. "Gentlemen, the good news is that you looked pretty solid in the teamwork department. But before anybody's head gets swollen, we need to do a lot of work on the basics, especially tackling and ball security. That's part of every single play, which means there's no excuse for not getting it right. This week the plan is we concentrate on the basic formations and plays, next week we go into subpackages and situational work. Three times around the field, everyone, we need to keep that stamina up. And before I forget, y'all have a new teammate, Ray Fiorentino, which means two members of this team owe him some money." A mixture of cheers and chuckles, plus a few slaps on Ray's back, greeted the last part of the announcement. "What'd I say? Three times around the field, get going!" And everyone started running around the field. To Ray, it felt more like floating. Especially after his new teammates decided to get surreal on him. It started with Leo, of course. He caught up with Ray, not a difficult thing to do, and told him "This is going to be the best-spent fifty bucks of my life so far. Che pensi di comprare coi cento?" (What are you thinking of buying with the hundred?) Ray's answer was "Some contacts so I don't have to squint out there all the time like today."

Then DeSean got in on the act, which meant a decisive turn towards raucous clowning. He slowed his pace and moved over to Ray's left. "Yo Fiorentino!" he called out and tapped Ray's shoulder with his fist. "You made the team! Lemme hear it from you."

"I made the team."

"Not like that, Italian bro. Like it matters to you – 'cause I know it does – and you mean it. You made the team?"

"I MADE THE TEAM!"

"Whoa, man, don't knock my ears off! You gonna block for twenty-seven?" Meaning himself, of course.

"I'm gonna block for twenty-seven!"

"We gonna win some games for Bonner?" How on Earth did a guy manage to run and shout like that at the same time?

"Yeah, we gonna win some games for Bonner!" A few other players had joined in.

"Awright, now catch me!" and he started running twice as fast. Ray tried to keep up, but it was way beyond the bounds of possibility. As he ran in DeSean's direction, a few teammates, mostly but not only the special teamers, held their hand out for a high five. As he passed Joel Bishop, the quarterback punched his hand and said "Hey, if I ever throw something at you, make sure you catch it."

After the whole team – with about half of the coaches, surprisingly – had finished running, they gathered around Coach Taylor again. He reminded them of the timing of the next practices, and informed them that they were going to start scrimmages later in the week. And then Ray heard it for the first time: "clear eyes, full hearts." The players repeated it back, and he saw the frown on Coach Taylor's face. After being relieved that he hadn't caused it himself, Ray moved on to wondering what did. His most frequent guess was perfectionism.

When he reached the field house, Jerry the equipment manager was there. He told Ray which locker he was going to have and what the combination was, and then gave him various sorts of equipment, and finally his practice and game jerseys, one green and one white, with the number 41 covering most of the front and back.

"Forty-one, like Keith Byars. Not bad." Ray couldn't help smiling at that.

"Congrats." Jerry said. "Oh, and one more thing. Here's your copy of the playbook." He handed him a volume that looked like a small phone book. "Get this whole thing into your head as fast as you can."

Ray looked up for a second. "When did you have time to copy this? Coach Taylor just told me I made the team a few minutes ago."

"He told me right at the start of practice, after he doubled the bet with Jay and Leo. Guess he believed in you."

And that was the real issue. Coach Taylor had believed in him and made him happy. That made Ray want to accomplish one thing: to return the favor.