Silo: "Neely called for an onside kick, and it almost worked. The ball bounced around and got touched by every damned player on the field until some guy with the wrong jersey finally found a handle."
Ronnie: "They ran twice for two yards,then tried a long pass that Hindu broke up. Three and out, except that Hindu leveled the receiver out of bounds.Unnecessary roughness.First down."
Donnie: "It was a horrible call."
Blanchard: "We went crazy in the stands."
Randy: "My father almost threw his radio on the field."
Silo: "We didn't care. They weren't going to score."
Ronnie: "They went three and out again."
Couch: "Wasn't the punt return somewhere around here?"
Nat: "First play of the fourth quarter."
He turned up the volume.
East Pike back to punt on the Messina forty-one, the snap, a low, hard kick, taken on the bounce by Paul Curry at the five, wide to the right to the ten, cuts back—He's got a wall! A perfect wall! To the twenty, thirty, forty! Cuts back across midfield, picks up a block from Marcus Mabry, to the forty, the thirty, along the far sideline! He's got blockers everywhere! To the ten, five, four, two, touchdown!! Touchdown Spartans! A ninety-five-yardpunt return!
Nat turned the volume down so they could savor one of the greatest moments in Spartan football history. The punt return had been executed with textbook precision, every block and every move choreographed by Eddie Rake during endless hours of practice. When Paul Curry danced into the end zone he was escorted by six green jerseys, just the way they'd been drilled. "We all meet in the end zone," Rake had screamed, over and over.
Two East Pike players were down, victims of vicious, but legal, blindside blocks that Rake had taught them in the ninth grade. "Punt returns are perfect for killing people," he'd said, over and over.
Paul: "Let's listen to it again."