The Waivers Wrap - Week 4

THE WAIVERS WRAP – BY SUE NAMI 

Waiverton. Implacable late-September weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth. Smoke lowering down from mountainside stacks, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow flakes gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Tackling dummies, scarcely better. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street corners, where thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. 

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows through brown valleys; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of this dirty city. Fog down at the Waiverton marshes, fog up on the Olde Mine Heights. Fog creeping into the classrooms and locker rooms of the University, fog lying out on the quads, and hovering among the limpid stadium flags; fog drooping on dorms and the billboards for the all new Diet Mt. Dew Suicide Squad Suicide flavored soda. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Waiverton retirees, wheezing outside of the Casey’s General Stores and Dollar Trees; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon bong of the fraternity stoner; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of cold and tired ball boys. Chance people on the railyard bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds. 

On such a day in the heart of coal country, a corps of press huddled under the eaves of the Chester Cheeto Athletic Complex on the campus of Dave Waivers University waiting for the eponymous head himself to arrive from the practice fields. 

In time, a tall, wiry figure emerged through the mist, flanked by a moving wall of lineman. 

The man approached the complex, at first ignoring the press, stopping before the open heavy metal doors as his players passed before him in silence. Shivering slightly, soaked to the bone, and chewing the end of a sodden Lucky Strike, Dave Waivers cut the form of Grim Death itself. 

He waited several minutes, unmoving, before approaching the press, in his walk perceptible only slightly the vestige of an old injury. Eyes hidden behind the mirrored glass of his aviator shades, Waivers’ thin, mustachioed lips barely moved as he spoke in a voice cracked and broken, “I asked you to meet me out here only because I’m a petty man, and misery loves company.” 

He paused again, now rifling his t-shirt pocket for a second soft pack of Luckys. He withdrew one, lit it, and smoked it halfway down before speaking again. 

“I didn’t insist on meeting you out here because I wanted to talk about our record. I don’t want to talk about T. Morgan’s -3 points. I don’t want to talk about how S. Rattler’s failures are killing M. Mims’ wide receiver production. And I don’t want to talk about the Vineyard Vines crowd pouring Chateau Latour on our players as they exited the tunnel in defeat last week. I only want you to feel the cold and rain, to know how 1-3 feels.” 

He stepped closer to the press, a full-inch of glowing cherry dangling precipitously from the end of his cigarette. But when he spoke again, it was as if he spoke to himself. 

“I’m a Blue Wave. I’ve always been a Blue Wave. When I was born, the nurses told my mom I came out with my hands doing the “crash-em” sign. I don’t know what it is to lose like this. This university doesn’t know what it is. Sure, this year’s been hard. First, it was COVID. Then…most of us got it again. D’Eriq King got hurt. And the Huskers quit feedin’ Markese Stepp for no apparent reason. We could go round and round, pointing fingers that like clever Spider Man meme I’ve just seen. But I’m not going to do that, and I’m not going to publically call out Brian Kelly or Manny Diaz for playing coy with their QB depth chart. I’m not that guy.” 

He stood hunched in thought, smoke drifting through the droplets dripping from the bill of his “#DewTheWave- branded baseball cap. When he spoke again, it was as if he had come out of a reverie. He was angry. 

“You all [the press] are going to go home to your dead-eyed, cow-like spouses, and write stories talking about the upcoming game’s “narratives,” and second guess the play-calling, and wonder out loud about what the donor base is making of this season. And you’ll sit up there in the press box on Saturday, warm and snug and dry, while we’re down on the field in the elements, living life, not commenting on it, but actually living it, fighting, dying out there, with our royal blue blood spattered all over the field.” 

“So that I’m sure you know what that’s like, I’m gonna stand here and aimlessly tell old stories from past coaching jobs, while you get wetter and colder.  And none of them will contain a single anecdote interesting enough to publish. And I’m gonna swear profusely as I do so, so you won’t be able to just lazily film me and throw it up on your shitty blog. So get out your pens and recorders, boys and girls, and prepare to record a whole lotta nothing.” 

Waivers commenced with his stories, and continued throughout the afternoon and evening, as the weather worsened. As of press time, he was still going. 

The Fighting Blue Waves take on Howie Koachemup in the E-Town Beatdown this Saturday.