My Team Are Different (Patreon)

I'm trying not to be paranoid because no self-respecting alpha man like myself should be anything less than confident twenty-four-seven but there's something wrong with my team. I've been like a father to every single guy on my football team ever since they've signed up and I know my boys inside and out - perhaps even better then their real damn father do. 

You can say I'm crazy or whatever the hell you like but I know for a fact that something weird is going on with my team. It all started with our kicker, Jason, who became angry and selfish all of a sudden. Being the smallest guy on the team, Jason had always been pretty laidback so both the his teammates and I were surprised by his sudden outbursts. Eventually I discovered he'd been in an after-school detention with Mr Sanders, the Psychology teacher, and figured that the punishment had simply pushed the normally well-behaved student to a breaking point.

Just a few days after Jason's sudden shift in attitude though, something similar happened to one of my linebackers. Then a wide receiver. Then the reserve quarterback. One by one, members of my team became angry young men who only seemed to care about themselves and it was crushing the rest of the team's morale. They no longer felt like they could trust each other and I was finding it increasingly difficult to reach those whose personalities had taken a turn for the worse.

Feeling stressed out by the situation, I found myself at a total loss. I didn't know what had gotten into my boys and even discussions with their parents didn't help, as they had noticed the same things I had about their sons without any proven methods of returning them to the polite young men they had been just weeks before.

The only thing each of them have in common is being put in an after-school detention with Mr Sanders shortly before their attitude shift. From what I can tell, they're in one-on-one detentions but I know the psych teacher pretty well and I can't imagine he'd ever say anything that would cause such a severe change in their attitudes. Besides, he's a big supporter of school sports so why would he try to sabotage our championship-winning football team?

My star quarterback, Aiden, told me yesterday that he had been given a detention with Mr Sanders for pushing a smaller kid into some lockers. He claimed it was an accident and I believed him but no amount of pleading would get Mr Sanders to drop the punishment. Fast forward to this morning and there's just something different about the look in Aiden's eyes. It's a look that sent shivers down my spine as our gazes met for the first time across the football pitch and his suddenly ultra-aggressive attitude is beginning to mirror his teammates' in the worst ways.

As much as I don't want to believe it, I think Mr Sanders might have something to do with this after all. My wife jokingly suggested that maybe he's hypnotizing the boys on my team and I had laughed the idea off at the time. Whatever he's doing, I've got to make sure it stops. We have a game soon and my team has a reputation to uphold as the best damn team in the state! 

I'm sure a chat with Mr Sanders will have us back on the same page in no time at all...