Alexander Rose : Rise To Stardom - Chapter 18

November 8, 2013

(1 week later)

in the locker room Alexander now standing at 6ft and half an inch tall is currently lacing up his practice cleats which are the black with neon green accent adidas nitrocharge 1.0’s, his game cleats are the blue ones, and he’s wearing black socks that go just high enough to cover his blue nike shin guards, black nike shorts, and a blue nike Dri-Fit shirt he wears the same thing every practice but In different colors like black,gray,white,blue or red he used his money to go buy this stuff the day before they started training camp at a sporting goods store.

After he finished getting ready he got up and closed his big locker, which they got just yesterday because the football team lost in the first round of the playoffs so they became available for the varsity team Jv and the freshman team have to use their P.E. lockers, and he starts walking out of the locker room while thinking ‘Damn it’s been a week and I’m still so sore and feeling the effects of the drills we do. And coach says we’re still doing something at the first level of difficulty of what they did in professional practice I can only imagine how the new guys feel’

He gets to the field and starts leading what was left of the guys trying out in stretches. there’s only 30 out of the 50 they started with left still trying to get one of the 20 spots on the team.

“line up, …Lunges Ready Go!”

In the beginning of the week coach Jason really didn’t waste any time he cut 5 people after the first practice.

“High knees Ready Go!”

He said if you can’t handle his practices you shouldn’t even be here and he was true to his word and cut people right one even being a senior.

“Line up and spread apart 5 to a row”

He has high expectations of everyone especially me because I’m the captain of the team every time I mess up we all have to run a lap around the whole soccer field when it comes to the team as a whole he counts our mistakes and we have to run that many timed suicides at the end of practice from one sideline to the other and back.

“20 jumping jacks Ready Go! 1! 2!..”

And then after practice he has me work on penalty kicks and free kicks against Jared his brother who has also been the starting goalkeeper the past 2 years this will be his 3rd and he’s a junior but I don’t mind the extra work I love doing it Cora even comes to watch me after the girls are done with their practice.

I finished the stretches with the guys and coach blows his whistle and says “alright we’re starting today with shooting drills give me 2 lines of 14 and go to each side of the field Keepers come here Jared go to the left side Andrew to the right side we’re doing against the keeper to start everyone gets 3 shots until I say stop let’s go!” The keepers stay in by the Goal they don’t come out their small area and everyone continuously gets 3 shots until the coach says to stop.

I’m on the side with Jared and I’m first

Jared yells “don’t worry I’ll go easy on you today!”

I yell back “if you go easy on me I’ll make you look like you belong on the freshman team!”

He looks offended then he just glares at me and tells me to go.

I do and I dribble the ball from where the line starts half way to midfield I’m one of the fastest on the team so I’m already one yard in front of the penalty box and I shot a long shot that looks like it’s going to the side of the goal and Jared looks at that and just stands still because he thinks it’s going out and he looks like he’s about to laugh but then it starts to curve and goes straight into the net an the rest of the guys on this side laughed at him then I make the second one too and he looks made at himself then he takes my third shot completely seriously and he blocked my shot.

I tell the guys lined up to hold on then I walk up to him and say “Jared you need to take this seriously your brother told me that there is interest from professional teams for you but if you don’t take this shit seriously your not going anywhere just look at Andrew does he look like he’s joking around to you”

Jared looks at Andrew who is a sophomore and was on Jv the year before and he sees what I see somebody giving everything he’s got every rep …someone who’s coming for his job.

I look at him and say “you see it don’t you so why don’t you stop messing around he looks just like I did when I was riding then bench behind your brother if you think your safe you got another thing coming coach already cut Steven he probably won’t cut you but he will start Andrew ahead of you even if he knows there will be scouts watching for you” I walk to the back of the line and tell the guys to start when I look at Jared he looks locked in now ‘good took care of that for Jason like he asked me to’ then I hear Jason yell “why did you guys stop that’s 1!” I say quietly to my self “damn ungrateful coaches”

With that done practice moved along smoothly we did long shots after that then, a passing drill called between the cones, he had us do tackle drills, then we practiced corners which I had to do because I was the best at curving the ball the other guys couldn’t really do it the only other guys almost as good as me is Jared but he’s the goalkeeper and coach Jason doesn’t want to risk leaving the goal without a keeper so I take those responsibilities as well, then we had 17 timed suicides which means it doesn’t count as one unless everyone makes it back on the time the coach gave.

(After practice)

Jason says “alright Alex you got 1 more penalty kick to go”

I look back at him and nod I put the ball down I take two steps back and two steps to the left I take a deep breath

Cora yells from the bleachers”you got this!”

When I hear her I smile and I go and kick it to the right corner and Jared fully extends his body diving for the ball and he just tips it with his fingers but it still goes in Jared gets up and looks frustrated with himself even though he blocked 14 out of the 20 I kicked.

I can hear Cora yelling excitedly and Jason looks happy probably because his two best players are getting better every day.

Jason looks at me and tells me to come over to him when I get there he says in a whisper “how did you do it?” While looking at Jared who was busy talking to himself about something.

I say “I just told him the facts and that he isn’t untouchable”

He says “thank you”

I said “it’s my team right and I want everyone focused”

He nods and says “I knew making you captain was the right call”

I smile and said “thanks coach means that means a lot”

He frowned at me and said “when it just us four call me Jason we’re best friends man”

I laughed then I said “alright coach”

He mock glares at me then I say “alright calm down Jason” I laughed and he joined me.

(With Cora)

After I finished changing and come out of the locker room I see Cora waiting for me so I sneak up on her and I wrap my arms around her waist and hug her close she screamed and pushed me away. When she turned around she glares at me and says “what’s your problem!”

I say “I just wanted to hug my girlfriend”

She says “you could have said something before you scared me like that” while she was saying that she walked towards me and put her back against my chest and wrapped my arms around her and I just hug her closer and kiss her Cheek and said “I’m sorry”

After a minute we heard two people clearing their throats from behind us Cora blushed bright red because she remembered we were still in public and she’s a shy person so she ran away like a scared cat.

I turned around to see two smirking brothers Jason said “so you finally grew a pair huh” Wuxiaworld for visiting.

I Ignored the insult and said “we’ve been together for a little over a month now and why are you smiling Jared I barely met you this week”

Jared said “my brother would talk about how annoying it was that you guys would never tell each other how you felt so when my brother announced you as captain I instantly knew who you were”

Jason said “you better hurry up befor she leaves you”

(Parking lot)

I knocked on her window she looked and then unlocked it I got in then she said “sorry I left I was just embarrassed”

I said “I know”

Then she said “I know what I want you to do for me”

I said “ok what is it?”

She said “I want you to take me on our first date”

I smiled and said “no problem I’ll gladly take you on a date” She smiled back and kissed me.