The Rise And Fall Nobody ever said life was going to be easy. No one ever said that they were going to give you everything you ever wanted. No one ever told me that if I wanted something I had to go get it, I couldn’t let someone give it to me. I’m Devon McGowin, former star quarterback at Lake View High School. This is my story, my glory, my defeat, my life, and my death. I was a nerd in Junior High, I was always worried about my grades and my studies. Nothing came before them. But when my dad died before the end of eighth grade everything changed. School didn’t seem so important anymore. My dad had always told me that my education was my future and now with him gone there seemed to be no future. There seemed to be no reason to live any longer, I didn’t understand fully how he could go and leave my mom and me here by ourselves. But with him gone there was something missing. Something that burned deep inside of my soul. I dug deep within my self to find what it was but all I found was a hole that went into permanent nothingness. By the time I reached freshman year I was a mess. I had been in and out of counseling and almost arrested a couple times. I was involved with bad company and finally my mom decided to move from where we were living and high tail it to another county, so I could get out of a bad spot. I promised my mom that I wouldn’t let her down in high school. But deep down I didn’t know how I couldn’t. There was still something missing, a deep hole that needed to be filled. My father was a sports fanatic. Especially about football. And although I could never say my dad was never proud of my academic accomplishments I knew that he wanted me to take advantage of my young age and strong build and play some sport. So entering high school I decided to play football. Who would have known that I was on my way to glory, to stardom. Freshman year seemed easy to me. I was doing well with my grades pulling straight B’s and my mom had found a steady job and ditched the two jobs a day. I had good neighbors where we now lived and beyond that I made the JV football team as the starting quarterback. To tell you the truth I had little to no clue what the hell I was doing or what I was supposed to do when I was out there. But none-the-less I was always able to take something really ugly and make it work. I led the JV team to an eight and zero record through the first half of the season and that led to! the rise of my popularity. Girls began to pay attention to me and upper class man began to call me ‘rookie’ and all types of names. I was becoming everything that I wasn’t in Junior High. And I was loving every minute of it. By the tenth game of the football season I was a star at the school. With our varsity quarterback being a senior I was bound to be the quarterback next year because his backup was also a senior. I was expected to do big things. Bigger things than the quarterback at the moment, who had led them to two undefeated seasons, along with two division titles. But everyone expected more from me, they wanted state and I was their man to deliver. By the end of the season I had led the JV team to a perfect season, sixteen and zero. The summer of freshman year I spent partying. My mom was working ten to twelve hours days at a law firm so I had free reign to do what I wanted and my mom had no clue. I often left for two days at a time to go to the beach with guys from the JV and varsity teams without my mom ever noticing I was gone. And to tell you the truth if she did she did give a damn. I was the man and I made sure everyone knew it and if you didn’t you were going to find out. I was the biggest thing to hit Lake View High, or so I thought and if I was wrong everyone sure let me think ! it. I was cocky and everyone loved it, especially the ladies. By the end of the summer I had found my first girlfriend Amanda Hemingway. She was about 5’2, maybe 110 pounds, and drop dead gorgeous. Her hair was brown and her eyes were hazel with three quarters of the way to a hunter green near the pupil. Her lips were nice and full and her body was amazing. She was the girl of my dreams and go figure the new captain for the varsity cheerleading team her sophomore year. Sophomore year began and I was totally stoked about the football season. By the time school started everyone knew me by first and last name. Everyone knew my nobody girlfriend now that she was with me and everyone knew that I was ready to take our school to state. This was the year. The year that I would make my self bigger than life. I wanted so badly to be that guy that went down in history that would live forever, I didn’t just want to be a hero I wanted to be a legend. My grades remained solid and my mom had graduat! ed from college and now was a big shot lawyer that had gone four for four in her cases so far. She was making bank and I was living what I thought was the best life ever. Football season began and the expectations couldn’t be any higher. Practice was hell, much different from JV practice. The coaches never stopped screaming at you and when they did it was because they were so pissed at you that they couldn’t get words to come out of their mouth. At times I wanted to cry from them screaming and at other times I wanted to deck them with a right hook dead in the mouth. I never did either; instead I tried to force my self to play harder. To work harder, to be the man that ever! yone expected me to be, but at that moment it seemed damn near impossible. The first game came and as I walked out onto the field I almost passed out. The lights seemed extremely hot, the noise unbearable, and the pressure close to knocking me out. During JV games we were lucky to get fifty people in the home stands and now there was five thousand. I had never realized how big football was to this town. I had never realized that if I didn’t get us that state championship that I would never be forgiven. By the end of the first half that night I was dead. We were losing by ten points and the cro! wd was on my ass every time I made a mistake. The game was way different. Bigger guys, bigger hits, and bigger stakes. I began to think this was a big mistake when my coach came over and put his hand on my shoulder. For the first time he lightened up, he looked me long in the eyes and finally he licked his lips before he opened his mouth to speak. "You okay McGowin?" I couldn’t speak but I nodded my head as to say yes. "Well you damn well better be because you’re doin’ okay, don’t let the crowd get to you, you got this, don’t go against the flow, go with it, let the game come to you don’t try to take it, but remain a step ahead. You understand?" "Yes sir." I responded with a smile as I slid my helmet back on. The coach slapped the side of it with his open hand and smiled. I ran back onto the field where I was met with a roar of boo’s and curse words. I wanted to flip everyone in the crowd off and tell them up yours but I remembered what my coach had just told me. So I just shook my head and ran over to the side line as I watched our team receive the kick and bring it up to the fifty. "See McGowin, piece of cake." Said Jeff Harding as he came off the field. "We got you to the fifty, now you do the rest." I looked at him with an unsure look as I shook my head. Jeff smiled at me and then continued, "you got this baby, come on now." "Yeah but the crowd is riding my ass." I answered. "To hell with the crowd man, look get some confidence and go out there and play, you do that you’re unstoppable. Hey, shut em’ up alright." I smiled back and for the first time in the whole night I felt relieved. I felt like nothing was going wrong even if I screwed up horribly. The first play I threw a forty yard bomb that was caught and ran in for a touchdown. The crowd went crazy and I went from zero to hero once again. I led my team to victory that night. Not with effort ! but with heart and a clear mind. That night we went out and partied hard. I was beyond drunk and I didn’t care. I don’t think I could walk without help and I was feeling bigger than life. My girlfriend got pretty pissed when she couldn’t get me to stop drinking and she left the party. When she did this I simply shrugged my shoulders as to say her loss or she’ll be back. Not knowing what an idiot I was. That night I got home at one in the morning. My mom didn’t know, just like I have said. She could care less even if she did see me come in. I threw up that night. A few times and I promised myself that I would never drink like that again until we won state. The next day at school felt like a normal day and I wanted to know what I had to do to convince every one that I am the man that they think I was. No one believed the hype, not after my crappy performance in the first half. I was told I was lucky and I played like a true rookie. A guy named Aaron Cristiani started bashing on me at lunch. And for the first time since I had entered high school I felt that anger that I had, had in Junior High and I punched him dead in his mouth. My whole team cheered as I pounded his face with my hands clinched in a ball as tight as ! I could get them. Thanks to Cristiani I had to run one hundred hills at practice. The coaches went off on me and I might get benched for the next game. When the coaches told me this I put on the tough guy act and turned away with a big smile and said under my breath bench me and watch you lose. Sure enough on game day I was called into the coaches office and told that I was being benched the whole game and that I was to wear my uniform but no chest pads or pants, just the jersey and I was to sit on the bench not stand with the team. That night we lost by twenty-four points. I was glad, glad that we had lost because I felt like me lost because I wasn’t in. I thought I was the team but I had suddenly forgotten that this team was good way before I got there. Football season came and went and I broke the tradition of not winning a division title. I was not hated but definetly disliked by a lot of people in the area. Mean looks were given, and to those who gave the looks I gave the finger. I could give a rat’s ass if I didn’t win the division title. All I cared about was me. All I cared about was where I got, how far I could go. The team didn’t matter, my mom didn’t matter, and I didn’t matter, just the future. Due to this mind set! my grades dropped to C’s and my mom flipped out about a couple fights and a few detentions. Sophomore summer I spent at home, doing yard work and helping my mom. I wasn’t allowed anywhere unless it was a Friday night or a Saturday night and even then I had a one o’clock curfew. Junior year began and this was the year I could feel it. My mom riding me the whole summer had done me some good. It had shown me that I am just as human as she was and with that in mind I had become the person that I had set out to be. I was acting normal again. Some of that cockiness had gone ! away and that which was still in me was not enough to show. I had screwed up last season and now I wanted some revenge. I was going to state this year but with the right attitude. It was going to take work and I knew it. I was still the man, but I had no clue what the man was. I was still liked at school though I didn’t know why. Maybe football wasn’t everything that was me. Maybe I wasn’t just football. There was a girl that always didn’t just take me for football and she was still there, going out with me for almost three years. When football season began this year everyone was standing there as one team. For most of us we had two more shots, for some only one. Some of my best friends were graduating, and for them this was the last season of football that they would be playing for the rest of their lives. And I was going to do everything that I could to make it special. By the sixteenth game we were on a role. We had only lost one game and that game was to the best team in the state. And we had only lost by one lousy point. It was fourth down and we were at Elsendor’s twelve yard line. Fourth and ten and we needed a first down and a quick time out. If we got into the end zone we were guaranteed state, if we didn’t we tied with another team and a coin toss would determine who would get to state. It very stupid rule but that was how it was determined. I caught the snap and dropped back three steps. My receivers were fighting hard to get open but no one freed up as a line backer charged at me. I scrambled out of the pocket, rolling to my right. As I got around the corner another linebacker closed in on me. He hit me from the front as the one who had been chasing me hit me in the small of my back. As this happened I herd my bones popping and shattering as I lofted the ball up. My tail back caught the ball and scampered into the end zone. The crowd went ballistic. Or as I am told. I am also told that I was not moving, I! was laying at the twelve yard line face down, out cold. I came out of sergy five hours later. Well I came out but not awake. The doctor came out to the waiting room where my whole team stood along with my mom, my girlfriend and her parents, and a few other various people that I had grown close to. The doctors had hoped that the surgery would fix the bones that had been broken. They were able to place my spinal cord back where it should be and fix a couple muscles that had been damaged. But the damage had been done, done beyond repair. The blow had made me paralyzed from the ! waist down. I could no longer walk, run, or use my legs to function in any way. Everyone put their heads down I am told in shock, my mother burst into tears, why I don’t know where I was just happy to be alive. Or so I thought, however, I had no clue that I was still alive because the surgery had knocked me out for about six hours. Finally when I came to I wheeled my self out into the waiting room where now just my mom sat by herself. Everyone else had given up hope, I had let them down. I was done, and that was it. My mom forced out a smile. That I met with tears. It finally came t! o me that everything that I would normally be able to do I could no longer even attempt. My life that I thought was great was now over. There was no way that I could get into the car by my self and my mom struggled in helping me. I got pissed and yelled at her for even trying. This was all so new to me. Here I was at seventeen being helped into a car when about seven hours ago I was about to win a football game that I still didn’t know the final outcome. My mom finally shoved me into the car and slammed the door. She sat outside the car for a minute, perhaps trying to get her thoughts together on what to say to me. How to act, as all this was new to me,! it was just as new to her. She knew that if she said sorry I would get mad, but that’s all she could think of to say and that’s all she got to come out of her mouth when she finally got in the car after about five minutes. Strangely enough I didn’t get mad. Instead I cried. Something I hadn’t done in a long time, not since me dad had died. I had been told that I needed to be strong for when my mom needed a man to take care of her. That crying was no longer okay but now to me it was. Now I was helpless and now, yet again, I had no future. It was well into the early morning by the time we got home and I fell straight asleep after a five minute struggle climbing into my own bed. A task that before took no thought. The next day was the longest day of my life. The second seemed like minutes and the minutes seemed like hours. I sat there tapping a pencil on the table every time the second had ticked away. My mom had not gone into work but she couldn’t stand to be around me so she sat up in her room God only knows doing what. My Algerbra 2 book sat open. But I payed no attention to the book that I had opened. The numbers no longer seemed worth looking at. Numbers only meant one thing to me now, the number of days that I had to now suffer, being uncapable of being a natural, normal human being. Sunday came and went with me sitting in the same spot. My mom went into the office just to get away from it. It looked like she had been crying for the last twenty four hours which pissed me off because she had no reason to cry. It wasn’t her that now had to use a wheel chair to get around. That now could no longer drive because she couldn’t use her legs. She had no idea what it was like to have something that you’re born with taken away in the matter of seconds, she didn’t know what it was like not being able to walk. ! Monday came and the drive to school felt like it took forever. I kept glancing over my shoulder at my wheel chair that sat in the back seat of my mom’s Escalade. A million thoughts were running through my head. What would people say. What would people do. How would they treat me, my own girlfriend for three years hadn’t called me in two days. If she didn’t know how to talk to me, not a single damn person would want to talk to me at school. It was hard for me waiting for my mom to bring my wheel chair around the car. I looked out the window as I watched what felt like a million eyes stare back at me. My heart was picking up pace and at! the same time melting away. My mom finally reached my door with my wheelchair. As I swung the door open I heard what felt like the whole world took a deep gasp for breath. I struggled to get out of my seat in the car. I had to use the door and my mom to hoist myself out of my seat and into my wheelchair that was three feet away. By the time I got into my wheel chair I was tired and I had forgotten about everyone else. But that all came back to me when I took my first look up and saw every person that was there that day looking at me not in aw but in shock. I figured this was it. This was the fall of my rise. Now there was no more girls, no more friends, no more popularity, no more football, and no state championship. There were no more scholarships and the one’s that I had gotten were no terminated. I was yet again a nobody and now I had no power to change that. My throat grew dry and my eyes watery so I put my head down as I wheeled myself forward. My father had always told me when facing diversity be brave but this I could not face. This wasn’t who I was. How could I be okay with what I was now, how could anybody be okay with this? And from the look on everyone’s face I could tell they sure weren’t. I saw my girlfriend as I wheeled forward, but she acted as if she didn’t know me which burned me pretty bad as she walked on with her friends not even glancing down at me. The burn deep inside began to turn to anger and I called her all kinds of names below my breath. The guys from the football team all stared as I approached them. I couldn’t tell if it was the stare of oh here comes Devon or get the hell away. But I figured they were my friends and not! hing should be able to change that. As I got over to them none of them said a word, none of them blinked. Hell I don’t even think they took a breath. I nodded my head towards all of them as to say what’s up? They all continued to look and then something amazing happened. As they all parted the showed a long banner that read ‘Welcome Back Devon, You’re Our Hero.’ A sense of joy came over my body. I was overwhelmed with emotion as my girlfriend came up and planted one on me. That was the day that I learned you do! n’t have to be something that you’re not to be liked. Just be you and no matter what happens nothing can change who you are. Hell I did what I wanted I got our school to state and that was an accomplishment itself. Plus my grades were good enough to get into any college that I really wanted and I could compete in the handicapped Olympics or something like that. That year my team won state, and I had been there on the side line the whole game. They dedicated the win to me, but I dedicated something to them as well, my life.
Copyright © 2005 Erik J Lowe |