Team Manager COACH!
Chapter 4
“YES. WE HAVE a rolling equipment cage out at the baseball diamond. I didn’t think about that. The football team is using the locker room. We’re requiring a shower after every practice. Otherwise, you’d smell the team from across town. We’re starting them with shoulder pads today and you know how that just builds up the smell,” Jim said. The boys were getting ready for the morning practice in the locker room and the coaches walked out to the field together.
“Look at that!” Torvalds said. “Somebody mowed our field. We need to get some striping done.”
“Probably our chief team manager,” Jim said. Andy nodded.
“He did it right after your afternoon practice yesterday,” Andy said.
“Have you noticed how the guys have picked up the level of their workouts?” Torvalds asked. “Putting the challenge of beating the team manager in a race for a guaranteed spot to play in the first game really lit a fire under them. Of course, now I’ll have to figure out how to get them all in the first game.”
“Oh, you won’t need to worry about that,” Andy said. “You might have one or two who can run faster than Dennis, but not for three miles.”
“You’re kidding. If the kid was that athletic, he’d be playing sports instead of managing the teams.”
“Money on it?” Andy said casually.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Fifty says at least ten of our backfield and ends beat the manager and all the cross country runners.”
“Hmm. Okay. I’ve got another fifty that says we’ve got a girl who’ll beat all but your fastest five,” Andy said.
“You’re on. You want in on this, Jim?”
“No. I’ll hold the money. I’ll be back in a few minutes after I show Andy where the baseball equipment cage is.” Jim and Andy walked on to the baseball field as Torvalds inspected the mowing job on the football field.
“He has no idea, has he?” Andy asked.
“None whatsoever. He promotes the idea that footballers are the best, the fastest, the strongest, the toughest in a school. He’ll figure it out. I think it’s just his enthusiasm for getting a new team up and running. And who knows? The team has buckled into their workouts more since he issued the challenge. Do you really think Dennis is up to it?” Jim asked. He opened the shed next to the diamond and they rolled the cage out. It took a few minutes to empty it of the remaining equipment and then relock the shed.
“Yes. The only thing Dennis lacks is confidence in himself. He’s doing everything he asks the rest of the team to do in conditioning, including running multiple sessions in a day. He’s running with the team and is a natural leader. I’ll tell you, Jim, he may be a fifteen-minute cross country runner when he’s fully trained. Maybe not at the start of the season, but he’ll be among the fastest in the state by the State Tournament in Fort Dodge,” Andy said. They rolled the portable cage with them to the bleachers in the stadium and left it there as Jim went to join Torvalds in getting football practice started.
By that time, of course, Dennis and all his girlfriends were at the Abernathy farm and had the hay baler moving. There was less lifting of the bales than there had been at the Browns’ farm, but there, all hay was loaded straight onto flatbed semi trailers for transport. As soon as they had the first wagonload, they pulled it over to the stacking area and hitched an empty wagon to return to the field. The crews split and half unloaded and stacked the bales so the trailer would be ready for the next transfer.
They were nearly halfway done when the volleyball crew had to leave to get ready for practice at four. Two hours later, Dennis and the remaining six girlfriends had to quit and eat before Cross Country. It would take a second full day.
“Okay, Lady Wolverines. We’re beginning to see a team come together. We’ll keep pushing through the next week and by the end of the week we should know who will dress for our first match on the 24th,” Pat said to her team.
“Um… Excuse me, Coach,” Amy said. “We’re the Angelines.”
Pat shook her head. “What? The school site says Wolverines.”
“That’s the boys’ team. A female wolverine is an Angeline. We’re just as fierce but we have angel in our name,” Daniella said.
“I… Hmm. I’ll check that out with the department chair. Did you hear about that, Renée?” she asked her assistant.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure if it only applied to the basketball team,” the other woman said. “The cheerleaders have been practicing both.” Renée was working with Janet Mills on cheer choreography as well as assisting Pat.
“Okay. I guess. I’m still going to check with the athletic director.” She looked at the team for a second. “So, how is working out with the cross country team working for you?”
“It’s great, Coach,” Natalie said. “Dennis works us hard, but he does every exercise with us. So do the other coaches. The cheerleaders have joined as well as boys who want to play basketball this winter.”
“I don’t want you injured. Don’t do ridiculous exercises designed for boys.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girls responded. They headed outside to hang out until the XC team had gathered. Daphne approached her mother.
“I want to go work out with the team as well,” she said. “Can you pick me up after?”
“No. Not tonight. Grace and Zeke have a Little League game tonight. We need to get home. You can shower at home.”
“I can get a ride. It’s no problem,” Daphne persisted.
“Are you saying you would rather go do another hour of exercises than watch your brother and sister play ball?”
“Um… Yes, ma’am. They never notice if I’m there or not anyway,” Daphne said.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like a boy taking over conditioning my athletes and I don’t like my daughter missing family events in order to participate in it.” Pat glared at her daughter. Daphne stood solidly staring her down. “Fine. I expect a call when you are leaving to tell me who you are riding with. No boys!”
“Everything is no boys,” Daphne grumbled. “Yes, ma’am.” Daphne turned to go join the other teammates who were working out with Dennis. There were only five volleyballers who weren’t joining his workouts now.
Pat watched her daughter go and wondered if she’d made a good decision leaving a girls’ school to move to this little town in the middle of Iowa. Well, this moved her one step closer to the college position she really wanted. She just needed to turn out a winning team.
Tomorrow, I’ll go observe this workout for myself. An extra workout just can’t be good for my team.
“Okay, people, we’re getting hot and sweaty, but you don’t look like you’re having fun!” Dennis yelled at nearly sixty kids and coaches who were in his workout that evening.
“How can we have fun when you’re working us this hard?” Dave called out. “I can barely stand up.”
“You can do it. Cheerleaders, what’s the first rule that a cheerleader must obey?”
“Um… No means no?” Sara suggested. Dennis was happy the cheerleaders had that driven home.
“That’s a good one, but I mean while you are cheering,” he laughed.
“Oh, I know,” Fred said. “Smile!”
“Right! Let’s see if we can all help you wear that smile. Let’s get some rhythm on this next one. We’ll do a four-count lunge. Watch once and then we’ll practice. Lunge, clap, pivot, close! Lunge, clap, pivot, close!” He demonstrated the lunge step that began to look almost like a dance routine. “Ready? Right foot. Lunge, clap, pivot, close. Other direction. Lunge, clap, pivot, close.” The first few were a little ragged, but the cheerleaders took over the count and encouraged their people to follow along and smile. A few thought smiling was more work than the exercise.
“Everybody grab your water bottles and walk a lap to cool down. Harriers and those who just want a little extra, stow your gear in the cage. We’re going to do a full five-k run today. It’s a slow one, but we’re going to run all the way. Cool down and get ready,” Andy called to everyone.
“Dennis, you have point tonight,” Ardith said. “We want a nice easy lope. Andy will take the middle of the pack and call out to you if it’s too slow or too fast. I run drag on this one. We’ll shoot for about a five-minute kilometer pace. I think everyone can keep up with that. Check your time with your stopwatch.”
When they’d finished their cool-down lap and had another drink of water, they locked their personal gear in the cage and followed Dennis out on their first full run of the course. Dennis was pleased with the condition of the course as it was his first time on it since he’d mown and swept it the day before.
Andy checked his cadence with a stopwatch and was pleased with the pace. They finished the course in just over twenty-five minutes. It took a few more minutes before the last stragglers came in, encouraged by Ardith. As Andy watched the runners, he was pleased to see three of the cheerleaders and five of the volleyball players took the full run with them.
He was pretty sure that even at the easy pace Dennis set for this jog, he’d beat most of the football players. Running steady five-minute kilometers was nothing to sneeze at. He was still sure Dennis could cut nearly a minute and a half or two minutes a kilometer off that.
Amy linked arms with Dennis to walk home and Brenda joined them in the parking lot.
“Are you as tired tonight as you were last night?” Brenda asked.
“Not quite. I had this fantastic massage last night and slept like a baby,” Dennis said.
“And woke up like a baby, sucking on my tit,” Brenda laughed. “Well, Numbers Two and Four would like a piece of you tonight, but we promise not to keep you up too late. We worked hard today, too.”
“No kidding,” Amy said. “It was hard to go from working in the field to volleyball practice to conditioning, to a three-mile run! I might not be able to do the run every day if Coach Pat decides to work us harder. I think she might be upset that we told her we needed more conditioning so we wouldn’t be out of shape when basketball comes around. But really, volleyball just isn’t as taxing as basketball. We don’t run more than a couple of steps and then jump. We’re all feeling it will improve our jumping, though.”
“Every sport uses different muscles,” Dennis said. “I’m trying to condition players for four different sports at once. If the basketball guys stick it out, they’ll be in a lot better shape in November than they were last year.”
When they arrived at Dennis’s house, it was nearly time for reading with Peg. She loved having her sisters Brenda and Amy there. Once she had happily skipped down the hall to bed, the three teens fixed a snack and a cup of tea. Dot joined them at the kitchen table.
“Are you all getting enough to eat with the calories you’re burning?” she asked. She set a plateful of celery sticks stuffed with peanut butter on the table.
“Mmm. These are good,” Amy said. “It might be too soon to tell, but I do feel like I’ve lost weight this week.”
“Dennis, we should set up a chart for people that shows their calorie burn from the workout and their practices. Everyone should be sure to eat near the same number of calories,” Brenda said. “You need a website. And a blog with tips and directions for injury prevention and conditioning exercises.”
“When and where am I going to do that?” Dennis laughed. “Not that it isn’t a good idea.”
“Why don’t you talk to your coach about getting a page and blog on the athletic department page in the school website. About the only thing that gets posted there now is the schedule for events and seasons,” Dot said.
“Mom? How do you know that?”
“I visit the page to get information.”
“You do?”
“Kids, I was pretty out of touch last year. Things just spiraled out of control with the attacks on you and Amy, the girls suddenly wanting to ‘help,’ and then with Dad being injured and then killed. I know it all affected you, but I don’t think I was being a very good mother. I’m still not sure how it came about that you have a girlfriend or two over to sleep with you whenever you want. That’s not normal,” Dot said.
“You won’t… You aren’t… Mom, I love them,” Dennis said.
“And they love you,” she answered. “I’m not going to try to curtail your activity now. I don’t want you hiding or sneaking around to do what you’ve been doing openly for a year. But I’m going to try to be more present and available—more of a mother.” She reached out to touch each of the three on their hands, then hurriedly went on. “Your two morning classes at DMACC this fall will help to relieve some of your schedule at school.”
“It’s nice that we’ll have those two classes together on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” Brenda said.
“The intro to phys ed should be interesting,” Dennis added. “I’m glad there’s enough time that you can run me back here to Bartley and still get back for your afternoon class.”
“I think that points out what I’m getting at,” Dot said. “You don’t need to be back to Bartley until eleven o’clock, on any day. That should get you clear to handle all your homework and still have time to do something educational for others—like manage a webpage or blog.”
“I’ll talk to Coach about it. I think it’s a good idea. Just hope I can come up with something to write about on a regular basis,” Dennis said.
It didn’t take long for the teens to clean up, complete their bedtime routines, and get naked in Dennis’s bed. The two girls were so quickly involved with each other that Dennis thought he might just go to sleep and let them enjoy each other without his interference.
“Don’t be shy, lover,” Brenda said. “We want your hands and mouth and man stuff involved with our loving.”
“You’re just so beautiful together, I don’t want to interrupt you.”
“I don’t think having your cock in my pussy while Bren licks my clit would be an interruption at all,” Amy giggled. Dennis snuggled up to her and handed a condom to Brenda. After giving him a quick suck, Brenda rolled the condom on and Dennis rolled onto his back. Amy mounted him in a reverse cowgirl position and sank onto his rigid pole with a huge sigh. Brenda wiggled her way between his legs and began licking at Amy’s slit, bathing Dennis’s cock with her tongue in the process.
They weren’t frenzied. Dennis did very little thrusting as Amy provided the up and down movements that slid his cock in and out of her tight passage. Brenda played with them, sometimes having Amy wait while they were fully connected and using her tongue on her clit and his balls. Before long, though, Amy lost her rhythm and began jerkily bouncing on Dennis, bringing them both to a rousing finish.
“Oh, God, that was good,” Dennis said. “Amy, you’re just amazing.”
“I couldn’t believe you lasted so long!” their younger girlfriend panted.
“Bren pinched off a couple of close calls while she was licking down there,” he laughed. No one answered and Dennis realized Brenda and Amy were deep in a passionate kiss. He pulled out of Amy and stripped the condom off to toss in the wastebasket. It took a minute of maneuvering them around until he was between Brenda’s legs, giving her the kind of tongue lashing she’d given Amy a few minutes before.
“In me, Dennis. I want to feel you in me!” Brenda gasped. Dennis raised up on his knees and Amy quickly applied a condom to his renewed erection. He swooped down to lick from Brenda’s pudendum to her chin and then kiss her deeply. As they kissed, he slid into her welcoming center. Amy immediately responded to Brenda’s hand gestures and straddled her girlfriend’s face, squeaking happily as she leaned forward to kiss Dennis.
Even though he had just come a few minutes before, Dennis mounted the curve even faster than Brenda did, beginning to spurt into the condom as she jerked up against him. The feeling of his pulses managed to bring her over the edge before he was quite finished.
On Friday, the girlfriends were all out in the field with Dennis getting the last of the hay baled and stacked. Six girls ran to the locker rooms at three-thirty to shower and get in practice outfits for volleyball. The other six finished in time to get to their homes for a shower and dinner before cross country practice.
“Before we get started, I want to alert you all to what’s coming tonight,” Andy said to the sixty people in lines for conditioning. “It’s date night and I know you all want to get to it. But the weather is perfect for a run. I’m going to ask Dennis to hold exercises down to forty-five minutes instead of an hour. Then we’re going to run the course ‘at speed.’ That means, you run it like you would in a race. We’re a week away from the big challenge race. I hear the boosters have made a big deal about starting the Bartley 5k Challenge and people are registering to run in it. So, it won’t be just our team and the football team. Dennis, take it away.”
Dennis looked out at the group and started at once on the basic warmups and stretches. He’d short the amount of aerobic work they did, but not the prep. He noticed there were six coaches in the back of the group now along with Brenda. Andy, Ardith, Janet, Neil, Pat, and Renée were all following along. He wondered about Pat and Renée being there. Pat had not been in favor of him leading workouts for her volleyball team, but most of her team was out here with him tonight. He wished he was leading the full regimen so she’d get a good feeling for what it was really like, but he’d work them as well as he could.
When they got to the strength exercises, the cheerleaders started adding some additional dance steps into the routine. They didn’t say anything, but the steps were easy to pick up and when Dennis started doing them, everyone just added them into their work. People were tired and sweaty when they finished their workout, but not as gut-wrenchingly exhausted as usual. After drinks and getting their bags in the cage, the team lined up. Ardith pulled Dennis aside.
“Have you ever done this at full speed, Dennis?” she asked.
“Um… No, ma’am. I guess not.”
“You have your watch?” He nodded and pulled the stopwatch out of his kit. “I’d like you to pace yourself at about 3:45 per kilometer. You know where the posts are, so you should be able to just glance at the watch to make sure you’re on target.”
“Wow! I’m not sure I can make it at that pace.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do something I didn’t already know you can do. I timed you on the course at eighteen minutes one day when you were out here alone. And according to you, you’ve never run it all out. You shouldn’t have to tonight, but I don’t want them left so far behind they get discouraged. What I’m asking you to do is not run all-out. There will be time for that in the future.”
That was a bit of a shock to Dennis. He really didn’t know that he’d run that kind of time on the course. It was still freshly groomed and should be fast. He noticed Janice had been given a stopwatch as well and wondered what pace she would be setting. There was no time left to wonder. The coaches called the runners to the start and Andy blew his whistle and they were off.
At the one kilometer marker, Dennis was in the middle of the leading pack and was a little off the pace Ardith wanted at 3:55. He picked it up and noticed several of the guys matching his pace. Janice was in the back of the leading pack with both boys and girls strung out behind her.
At three kilometers, Dave Overman and Donnie Oswald were step and step with him and several meters ahead of the pack. Dennis checked his watch and bumped the pace up a little more to make up the time. Dave was doing well, but was a sprinter at heart and had exceeded his limit. He began to fall back as Donnie moved with Dennis, just a step or two behind.
When Dennis made the final turn around the meadow and could see the stadium lying ahead, Donnie was a good fifty meters behind him but was trying to pick up speed for a kick. The rest of the team was at varying places around the cemetery and all the way back to the wooded portion by the river. Dennis didn’t pick up speed for the finish, but made his circuit around the track to the finish line at exactly 18:15. Donnie was a minute behind. They started their cooldown walk around the track as those who hadn’t run but stayed to watch cheered them. Halfway around the track, more runners began coming into the stadium. They cheered their teammates on.
As they returned to the bleachers, the runners grabbed their water bottles and sat to wait for the coaches.
“How did you guys get here so quick?” Rick asked as he finished his lap and sat near Dennis.
“Oh, we took the shortcut,” Dennis laughed. Several people looked back out toward the trail, trying to see where there might have been a shortcut.
“There’s no shortcut,” Donnie said. “This man is like a machine. He never falters, never changes pace. Just eats up the trail.”
“That was a good run,” Andy said. “You all have a benchmark now and we’ll post the times after we get them typed up so you know what you need to improve on. Janice, nice run out there. 19:40 would have won most high school girls’ races—even some of the boys’ races. We’ll be running full speed Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday next week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday will be special needs, form, and more conditioning. The Saturday practice is a special race of the cross country team against the football team. However, everyone is invited to participate and we’ll have a lunch provided by the boosters for all fall sports teams to celebrate the last weekend before school starts.”
There were a few boos at the idea of school starting, but Ardith and Andy shooed people out and told them to have a good weekend.
Comments
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