CHAPTER 12
A.N
Hope you all are enjoying the story so far. Drop a comment/review if you're enjoying it, or if you have any feedback/advice for future chapters. I am looking for some plot points for later in the story so let me know what you want to happen and to who. Enjoy!
"This seat taken?"
Blaine looked up from his seat on the bleachers of the football field and saw Marcus standing over him. He immediately smiled at the teenager and shook his head.
"No, have a seat man."
Marcus sat down on the seat that was on the edge of a row with Mercedes, Rachel, Kurt, Tina and Blaine - all of the members of Glee club who weren't members of the football team or the Cheerios. It was 8 o'clock in the evening, and finally time for the football team's opening game of the season. They were approaching the end of September, and were deep into the season of Autumn, and chilly, gusty winds gently prickled against their cheeks. The sun had long begun to set, and only a few rays continued to peak out from above the horizon. Marcus was wrapped in a scarf, gloves, a hoodie and a thick Rugby sweater, and yet he was still shivering in the cool Ohio air. The air's chilliness was made more so by the tension that was in the air. It was palpable. Every single person sitting in the packed bleachers was nervously looking onto the field, waiting for the players to make their way onto the pitch. After warmups, they had retreated back to their respective locker rooms, and would be arriving onto the field at any minute.
"You ever play football?" Marcus asked Blaine, who was sitting beside him. As the only two new members of the New Directions and two of the very few new students at McKinley that year, they had actually gotten pretty close over the past week. Blaine, Marcus had found out, was actually a really nice guy. So was pretty much every member of the New Directions to be honest. He had come from a private school in Ohio, and had transferred so he'd be able to spend his senior year with Kurt. If only he had someone who loved him that much, Marcus thought to himself.
"Um… no, not really." Blaine replied. "I mean I like watching it, and I like playing casually for fun, but I don't play competitively. I think I'd get killed in Game 1."
"You could always be the kicker." Marcus commented. "Get all the praise for playing football and yet might as well be playing darts given how they never get tackled. Saddest position in the game, I swear."
"Hey! I was the kicker in sophomore year!" Kurt exclaimed from further down the row, where he was listening to their conversation.
"You were?" Marcus raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Why? I thought you didn't even like football."
"I thought it'd impress my dad to see me playing a tough guy sport like football." Kurt admitted honestly. Marcus chuckled.
"You wanted to be tough, so you decided to be the kicker?" He laughed. Kurt rolled his eyes at him.
"Well you seem to know a lot about the sport. You ever play yourself?" Blaine asked. Marcus shook his head.
"Like you. I played for fun. Watched it a fair bit with my old friends. But it was too much of a commitment on top of everything else I was doing."
At that moment, the football team finally took to the field and instantly, the entire stadium erupted in cheers. School spirit had increased a hundredfold after their State Championship win last year, or it had at least improved when it came to football. There was not a spare seat in the entirety of the bleachers, with all of them being forced to sit directly shoulder to shoulder to fit.
Finn couldn't help but smile as he listened to the cheers, stomps, yells and screams coming from the supporters as he stepped onto the crisp, frosty field. For a moment, he felt like an NFL player, being serenaded by his incredible fans. No, not just an NFL player. They had made it to the top of the mountain last year. He was a superbowl champion, eager and hungry to defend his crown.
"Alright, guys, bring it in!" Finn called, and the football team all gathered in a close huddle on their side of the field. He had to shout for his teammates to even hear him over the glorious roaring of the crowd. The game hadn't even started and they were in full force, egging their team on. Finn took a deep breath and began to address his team. "Look, this is the first game of the season, but it might as well be the final. Every single game we play this year is going to be like a final. As State champs, we're the favourites now, the ones to beat in every game we play. We know that, they know that, which is why they're going to throw absolutely everything they have at us. For many of us, this is our senior year, so we're going to be trying to focus on getting scouts' attention all season. That's great, but when the whistle to each game blows, I want you to forget all about that and just play the game the way we've always played it. Play for yourselves. Play for your teammates, who are all putting their asses on the line for you. And most importantly… play for the Titans!
The football team all yelled and whooped, hyping themselves up for the game. This was it. It was game time.
"McKinley on three!" Finn bellowed. "1! 2! 3!"
"MCKINLEY!"
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"I honestly couldn't believe it." Coach Beiste told Mr. Schue the next day as they sat in the staffroom and she tucked into her traditional lunch of an entire roast chicken. "I mean I genuinely couldn't believe what I was watching. It was like I was coaching a completely different team."
She wasn't wrong. The team that she had watched play last night had absolutely no similarities to the team that took State last season. They were… awful. From the very first kickoff to the final whistle, they struggled to keep up with their opponents, losing to them by 41 to a measly 3.
"Come on, coach. It's the first game of the season. The players were bound to be a bit rusty."
Beiste shook her head.
"It's not even that. God, I wish it was that." She stated. "Shockingly, it wasn't technique where we were lacking. Finn made his throws. The receivers made their catches. It was actually on defence that we had our biggest issues. With so many of our big boys graduated, we lacked physicality and size from our offensive and defensive linesman. It was almost like some of the guys were scared to get hit. I tell you… with the way we played last night, we barely even have a shot at making the playoffs, let alone winning State again."
"Wow. So what are you going to do?" Mr. Schue asked. Coach Beiste shrugged.
"I really don't know, Will. Something clearly has to change, but I honestly don't know what to do. I had to take nearly 25 new players this year to replace all the graduates, so I'm sure they'll get better as the season progresses. But we have games almost every week now. We can't afford to just wait around for them to get better, or it'll be too late. We need to change something now. We're looking weak. We're looking sloppy. We're looking horrible."
"Can I give you some advice?" Mr. Schue asked.
"Please." Coach Beiste nodded.
"We actually had that exact problem in the New Directions two years ago. My kids saw that their competition for Sectionals wasn't the best, so they got complacent. They stopped participating in rehearsals and our quality visibly dropped."
"How'd you fix that problem?" Beiste asked.
"We did a mash-up competition where the boys and the girls both created their own mashups. Winner got to take the opening number for Sectionals."
Beiste chuckled.
"Yeah, no offense Will but I don't think my boys are doing a mashup competition." She remarked. Mr. Schue rolled his eyes.
"My point… is that pitting them against one another in competition is the easiest way to get the best out of them. Better yet… recruit more players, as it'll give your current group a scare and give them competition for their spot on the lineup."
"More guys? Will, I don't think that'll really help. I recruited the best players I saw in the tryout, and I'm already having a problem with the new recruits. We're missing leaders - older guys who can use not only their bodies, but also their voices to direct the team. Wouldn't adding more new recruits just amplify that problem?"
Ms. Pillsbury, who had just sat down with them and had been listening to their conversation, decided to speak up.
"Well maybe you're just looking for the wrong types of players." She suggested. Beiste chuckled.
"Emma, pumpkin, I don't think that's the issue. I'm sure that without a doubt, I picked the very best players who tried out." Beiste replied. Emma nodded.
"That's my point. The best players who tried out." She remarked. "If Will only had the Glee members who tried out…"
"We'd only have the 5 people we started with, and we'd absolutely suck." Mr. Schue said, starting to understand his girlfriend's point. "It took finding people who despite no formal experience, had talent, for us to grow as a group. I found Finn, who's become one of our leaders, because I saw potential in him that he didn't even know was there himself."
"So you suggest I try to find non-football players in the school who look athletically gifted?" Beiste asked.
"Would that be the worst thing to do?" Ms. Pillsbury remarked. Coach Beiste thought long and hard for a while, before shaking her head.
"I guess not. Thanks Emma." She replied. "But let's say I do find some people who look promising, how do I convince them to join."
Mr. Schue chuckled, thinking back to his somewhat 'questionable' methods in recruiting Finn.
"You do whatever it takes!" He told her. "You get creative. You don't take no for an answer! Don't tell anyone this, but it took me practically blackmailing Finn to get him to join Glee."
Beiste nodded thankfully as she finished eating.
"Thanks, guys." She said, her mind now thinking in a completely different way to this morning. As she walked down the hallways of the school that afternoon, rather than seeing students, she saw potential recruits. She looked for those who looked big and strong, those who were smaller and nimbler, those who had experience playing organised sports and those who didn't. However, none of the people she saw had the spark she was looking for. That was, until she walked into her fourth period phys ed class that afternoon…
