Chapter 29, enjoy! Shoutout to datia for inspiring this chapter with your review on chapter 27. I love reading your reviews, they help get me put of slumps! So thank you for all the wonderful support!

I totally forgot (until that review reminded me) that the Pemberton Pioneers were playing an "easy" team this Friday, so let's see how this goes...

The locker room before the Pemberton Pioneers's game was an interesting sight. With fifteen minutes to kickoff, Coach Taylor was anything but pleased by the image he saw when he walked in the locker room to give his pre-game speech.

Only a handful of players were fully dressed in their uniforms, only about half of the others had managed to put their pads on, snd the other half were barely changed out of their regular clothes. One undressed player was leaned against a locker snap chatting his girlfriend. Another undressed player was playing rock paper scissors with a half dressed player.

Coach Taylor stood speechless before the boys. He was truthfully speechless, on top of the mountain of disappointment

"Do you all want to be 0-14 at the end of the season?" Coach Taylor finally asked. His question went in one ear and out the other for several players. A few shook their heads no and the rest blankly stared at their coach. "I want a verbal answer."

"No sir!" Three-fourths of them answered. It took Coach Taylor a minutes to think of what to say next, he was slightly shocked they had finally picked up on using "sir."

"Our record could be 1-6 tonight," He announced. "But it will take a small amount of effort, and I'm not seeing it."

"We'll do better coach," A player apologized.

"I'm tired of you telling me you'll do better, I want to see you do better," Coach Taylor replied. He looked at the boys, most of whom's attention he now had. One player in particular, the starting wide receiver, was half dressed and snapping his girlfriend. "Scott, is there something interesting in that phone?" Coach Taylor asked when he noticed the player's lack of attention.

"Uh yeah," The player answered.

"What is it?"

"My girlfriend."

"You're girlfriend," Coach Taylor snickered, though he found no amusement. "We are playing football damn it! You all ought to be focusing in football!" Coach Taylor yelled, loosing his temper.

"Sorry Coach," The player mumbled.

"I tell you what, I'm here to play football, with or without you. It's your choice. If you don't care, I don't want to stand on the field with you. The game starts in ten minutes, I'm going on the field right now, you can choose to leave or play," Coach Taylor announced before leaving the locker room.

Tami quickly noticed her husband alone on the sidelines with around ten minutes left until kickoff. No players joined him on the field.

"What is your dad doing out here already?" Tami asked Julie who was engaged in a conversation with Jason.

"How would I know?" Julie responded before turning back to Jason.

Tami observed as the players trickled onto the field. She didn't know all the players, but when she compared the numbers of the players on the field to the list of players in her program, she noticed the players Eric praised were the ones joining him on the field. At kickoff, she noticed that a handful of players never made it on the field.

The small crowd of Pemberton fans watched as the Pioneers got destroyed by a team they should have easily beaten. During the first three quarters, Pemberton didn't score. Finally during the fourth quarter, the opposing team out in their second string and the Pioneers were able to score a touchdown.

Eric was downright disappointed. They got their asses handed to them when they should have handed the opposing team their ass. He thought by his pregame speech he would have inspired the team to at least try. He was beyond frustrated with the team. Not even the East Dillon team he built from scratch disappointed him as much as this Pemberton team did and half of the East Dillon players had never played a game of football.

After the players returned to the locker room, Eric took a minutes to himself on the field. He was at a loss for what to do. He had tried everything he knew to try and he still couldn't motivate them.

He finally returned to the locker room, but the mood in the locker room only fueled his disappointment in the team. The players were laughing and cracking jokes. Several of them had already changed out of their uniforms - a big pet peeve of Coach Taylor's.

Eric stood before the players with his hands on his hips. Eventually, the players quieted down and took their seats on the benches.

"I'm pissed," He simply stated. "And I figured you all would be too. You just got your asses handed to you and you are all joking and carrying on. We have four games left this season. I need to see a little more, actually a lot more, effort and want to than I saw tonight. I want to win, and I hope you all want to win, but I need to see it. I need 110% at practice and on game day. This weekend, you all need to decide if you want to play football, if you want to give it your all. If you don't, I don't want you in my locker room."

Hope you enjoyed!