Divine Celebrity 45 (Patreon)

“What a start,” I murmured as I collapsed on the floor after completing the punishment round. 

I had pushed myself hard during the terrible twenties, and the four sets of fifty burpees that followed as punishment were hardly the easiest thing to complete — the punishment the backups earned after predictably losing the competition with the starters.  

Yet, despite my painful exhaustion, I did my best to finish the burpees as fast as I could manage, managing to stay in front of the other linebackers for each set even with the pain it caused me. 

“Impressing the coaches doesn’t come for free,” Thad replied as he stood next to me while I panted hard, trying to recover. He wasn’t the only starter that was standing next to the collapsed backups, teasing and mocking. “Too bad you collapsed as soon as this simple exercise is over.” 

I didn’t bother replying, just focused on breathing. I wasn’t the only one that was struggling. Every single backup player was on the ground, panting badly. 

Yet, after a few more breaths, he helped me to stand up, and I followed his clue despite the temptation of staying on the ground. As much as resting a bit more was tempting, I wanted to be one of the first players to stand back up. 

The details were important if I wanted to get any playing time before the season was over. 

“Someone is determined to get that first-string status,” he commented. 

“If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” I said with a shrug, aware that before even having the hope to get that coveted first-string status, I needed to actually get some playing time, even if it was just for the special teams. 

And to do that, I needed to prove I was strong enough, smart enough, and most importantly mean enough. I had already shown I was tactically amazing. Yet, no matter how much I showed up during the tactical meetings, it wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t prove myself strong enough to handle the field. 

Before Thad could say anything else, Coach Bill started speaking once more. “That wasn’t completely horrible. Now, it’s tackling time,” he said as he pointed at the dummies. “Get in line, and start working until I call a pause.” 

“Yes, coach,” the team replied loudly despite the exhaustion, and we started delivering repeated hits on the dummies. It was a grueling exercise even under normal conditions, but it hurt even more under the biting cold, well below freezing. 

Yet, whenever it was my turn, I dashed forward and slammed my body without flinching, ignoring the radiating pain on my cold skin. “Keep your shoulders down, your center of gravity is too high,” called the linebacker coach as I returned, correcting my tackle.

Yet, surprisingly, I wasn’t the one that was receiving the most corrections. A part of it was about my detail-oriented approach, but the real credit belonged to Coach Juana, and the detailed technical training she had conducted the day before which helped me to fix a lot of my mistakes. 

A private coaching session like that was much more helpful than a group session, where one coach was responsible for almost ten players, his attention split. 

I didn’t complain about that part out loud since I wasn’t a complete moron. With the challenges I was facing, I could hardly challenge  I just kept my head down, doing my best to integrate every single comment as I gave one hundred and ten percent effort.

Amusingly, as I pushed, I could see the rest of the backup players pushing, even more, not wanting to be shown off by a newbie. I had no doubt that, without Carter’s explicit push and the weight he carried as the defensive captain, they might have reacted differently. 

But with that, they had to react to my threat more directly. Showing themselves qualified. Ultimately, trying to get a crack into the playing lineup was challenging. Players needed to impress a wide jury, one that consisted of the defensive coordinator, the position coach, and the captain. It was just like a beauty pageant. 

A painfully violent beauty pageant. 

I kept my mouth shut, doing my best to follow the requests of the coaches, enjoying the benefits of my Recovery Trait to the limit. More than one backup player was looking at me angrily, but that only made me push even harder. 

Because, with their gaze, I could feel intent flowing toward me faster. It wasn’t as intense as the explosion that followed the photos Megan had revealed, but the more Intent, the sooner my guide would awaken. 

And the sooner I could focus on gathering more Traits.

I still tried to channel the flow towards the System whenever I felt a spike, of course. Unfortunately, without a significantly thick flow of Intent, the success proved elusive. I needed to impress the other players more, but, unfortunately, just pushing harder from them was not enough to be shocking. 

Especially when I was competing alongside starters, each faster and stronger than me. I could try to challenge some of them for more attention, but doing so in my first match would hurt my chances of getting a starter position. And, the Intent I would generate from a few football players was nothing compared to the potential represented by a stadium full of people. 

I kept my head down, doing my best to impress the coaches with my diligence instead, even after we moved from basic training and started working on various formations, testing us on the formations that we had memorized during the previous evening. 

“Start with a base cover six,” called the coach as the starters quickly followed the orders, taking the appropriate layout. “Now, they are using three receivers, and two tight ends,” the coach called, and Carter, standing at the center of the defensive formation, quickly called a few adjustments before letting the defense launch. 

“Not like that, morons,” called Coach Bill, his tone biting. “Fifteen, you’re a step too deep into the formation, you can’t properly cover the receiver with your step. Twenty-three, your footwork is not appropriate to cover a slant, be more careful. Forty-six, you’re too slow…” he started, delivering several biting criticisms to every defensive player on the field, showing that his great reputation among the players was not unearned. 

It was not easy to catch all those mistakes with a glance. I certainly didn’t catch even a quarter of the issues he raised, and that was with the assistance of my Traits. 

Such a deep experience was hard to beat. 

For the next fifteen minutes, the backup players watched the first string players cycling through many plays, some simple, some complicated, but one thing was constant. No matter the play, every single player received insulting corrections, often followed by some colorful language that would make a sailor blush. 

Yet, none of the players reacted, showing it was just another day. 

I watched carefully, admitting that Carter really knew his role well. He was not only fast and strong, but also he was able to deliver the required corrections rapidly even as he got exhausted. In comparison, Thad looked rather ordinary, though that wasn’t too surprising. He was a defensive tackle, and his actions usually required the least adjustments. 

His true ability would only appear when playing against the defensive players. 

After fifteen minutes, the coach started calling for some replacements, allowing the backups to get some reps, though I noted that not all starters had been removed at the same time. 

Nor their rest was a reward. The ones that were making the most mistakes were the ones that were pulled the first, and, their sharp expression showed that they were aware of the reason, as well as the implications for their playing time. 

Carter was clearly not exaggerating when he said every player had to work for a spot regardless of the situation. 

Though, the danger wasn't exactly catasthrophic. As the backups replaced some of the positions, the smoothness of the defense had been displaying all along vanished. The players started stumbling on the adjustments more, which threw the coherency of the defense out of sync. 

After all, there was a difference between first-string players and backups, both in terms of years of experience, but also in terms of pure ability. Combined, the drop in performance was not a surprise. 

As a newcomer, I only had the opportunity to take a practice snap half an hour into the practice, and the correction came almost immediately. “Fifty-eight, don’t be an idiot and keep your shoulders tighter and your center of weight lower, or the running back would kill you,” the coach shouted, immediately catching a significant mistake. 

Luckily, it wasn’t a mistake big enough to make me lose my turn, and I stayed on the field for the next few repeats. After them, the number of corrections I received lessened, the issues raised getting lower and lower, though the space they would otherwise occupy started to get replaced by insults and slurs. 

Interestingly, Carter, still at the center of the defense, holding the mike position to call the adjustments, started favoring the complicated schemes that were challenging for the side I was holding. 

And since we spent the whole night practicing those formations, it was clearly a favor from his end. I caught Coach’s gaze jumping between  Carter and me after a particularly challenging blitz combination that required me to fake an outside dash before coming through the offensive line to take down the quarterback, yet he didn’t raise an issue. 

It was an understandable choice. While what Carter was doing was favoritism, giving me a chance to perform more than the other players, considering it allowed me to show just how much of a complicated defensive playbook I was able to display after just one day, Coach Bill clearly had no problems with it ethically. 

Though, soon, I noticed the plays he was calling started to get more and more complicated, blitzes disguised as zone, zone disguised as man-defense, and formations that ordered to change completely unrelated patterns. 

I even caught several plays that hadn’t been studied during the study session, yet I managed to implement them successfully thanks to our study session, even when half of the starters stumbled on the field. 

Seeing the coach’s intrigued expression, I could say that the first training was a success.