Life Its Ownself

author of Semi-Tough

T. J. Lambert said he would fold me up like a taco if I didn't stop in Fort Worth for TCU's home opener against the feared Rice Owls. Texas Christian University was my old school, the place where I used to crack open a 220-pound can of whip-ass every Saturday afternoon.

I rented a Lincoln from Budget at the D.F.W. airport and pointed it west on the freeway. The skyline of Fort Worth sprang up and loomed ahead of me, taller and fatter than ever, and I marveled at how my old home town was beginning to resemble Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, those cities that were striving to become a bigger Dallas.

Prairie geography was responsible, I was convinced. Fort Worth was almost the same size and had the same lack of pretension as a Jacksonville, but it didn't have an Atlantic Ocean, a St. John's River or an intercoastal canal to keep the land developers from shredding every outlying oak into mortgage paper.

I dropped off my bags at the Hyatt Regency and drove to the TCU campus for an audience with T. J.

His office had a big window looking out onto my old stadium. The office was almost entirely decorated in purple and white, TCU's fighting colors.

Each new head coach over the past two decades had (continued on page 120)Life its Ownself(continued from page 99) added more purple decor to the coaching offices. He had then lost more football games than the coach he had replaced.

The carpet in the office was purple, T. J.'s desk was purple laminate, the walls were purple with white trim and there were the mandatory messages on the walls that were intended to motivate the college athlete who could read.

One sign said: Make Something Happen!

Another said: Angry People Win Football Games!

My eyes lingered on the catchiest sign in his office. It said: Pretty Coeds Don't Suck Losers' Cocks!

"Has the chancellor seen that?" I asked T. J. innocently.

"He's a good ol' boy. Wants to win."

T. J. was probably right about the chancellor, Dr. Troy "Tex" Edgar, a man with an ever-present smile who wore purple Western-cut suits and was more interested in raising funds for the university than anything else. Dr. Edgar could live with a T. J. Lambert who won football games. Like most chancellors, Edgar had no doubt been promised by his well-to-do alums that he could scare up more endowment in the end zone than at all of the Christian-fellowship dinners he attended.

One of the things T. J. had in mind for me while I was in town was an appearance in the TCU dressing room before the game. He wanted to introduce me to his players, whereupon I would say something to make their little hearts beat quicker.

"Tell 'em one of them bullshit Gipper things," he said.

"Like what?"

"Fuck, I don't know. Tell 'em how you went whistle to whistle against Rice one time when you had three broken ribs and a sore on your dick."

T. J. also instructed me to attend a reception for the coaching staff in the Lettermen's Lounge after the game. It was going to be a very nice function. I would see a lot of ex-teammates, probably, and several ex-TCU greats who had progressed from honorable mention to first-team ail-Americans in the 30 years that had elapsed since they'd worn the purple.

"Tonsillitis will be there, too. I want you to meet him," T. J. said.

"Who?"

"Tonsillitis Johnson."

"Is that his real name?"

T. J. looked at me sternly. "Tell you what, son. Tonsillitis Johnson can turn our whole program around if we can get him."

Tonsillitis Johnson was something to behold, if I could believe T. J. He was a once-in-a-lifetime running back from Boakum, Texas, a little town in the central part of the state. He was 6'3", 235 pounds and so fast, he made Herschel Walker and Earl Campbell look like paraplegics.

Fast was only half of it. Tonsillitis had a 34-inch waist, a 52-inch chest and could bench-press the King Ranch.

"He has a three-point grade average, right?" I said. "Over a thousand on his S.A.T.s?"

T. J. blushed and looked away for a second. He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a document.

"I hadn't ought to show you this," he said, holding up what looked like a questionnaire. "Lord knows, I wouldn't want no English professors to see it."

T. J. studied the questionnaire.

"They's a conference rule what says a high school athlete has to fill out one of these in the presence of the head coach. I asked Tonsillitis to fill it out this morning. He said he'd take it home and send it back to me. I said, 'Naw, you got to do it here, hoss. It ain't hard,' I said. 'Just put your name down there ... your address ... your high school. That kind of thing. Your momma and daddy's name.'

"He started to fill it out. When he come to the place where he was supposed to put down his favorite sport, he looked at me and said, 'What we be doin' ratch ear?'

"I said, 'Put down your favorite sport. It's football, ain't it?' He gimme a nod. I said, 'Write it down, hoss.' So he did. Only ... here's what he wrote."

T. J. handed me the questionnaire.

Tonsillitis Johnson had written down the word booley.

"Booley?" I looked up at T. J.

"Something like that."

"Booleyball," I said, rolling the word around, unequipped to fend off a grin.

T. J. snatched the questionnaire away from me. He put it back in his desk, locking the drawer hastily.

"Booley," I said again, repeating it to myself as I gazed out the window at the stadium, a fine old gray-concrete edifice.

"He can make a difference around here, son," T. J. said firmly. "We get Tonsillitis Johnson wearin' that purple, we'll kick some serious ass."

•

Before the quest for Tonsillitis Johnson, T. J. had worn out a set of tires in the pursuit of a most-wanted running back named Artis Toothis, a 188-pound speedster from Willow Neck, Texas.

T. J. made six illegal trips down to the Big Thicket, to Artis Toothis' home, a little shack that harbored the athlete's mother, father, aunt, eight younger brothers and sisters, three of whom were squealing infants, not to mention six cats and four cur dogs.

On each visit, T. J. would sit for two and three hours with the family and animals, everyone watching soap operas on daytime TV. T. J. would smile politely as he bounced the babies on his knee and let the cur dogs hump his right leg.

As only T. J. Lambert could describe it, the house smelled like six hairy dykes playing anthill in a room with no ventilation.

On his last visit, Artis Toothis was not at home, but T. J. was promised the kid would be along any minute. Four hours went by. T. J. bounced the babies on his knee, gasped for fresh air and watched the dogs hump his leg.

Artis Toothis finally stuck his head in the door and said, "Be right back, Coach, I forgot somethin' at the library."

Seconds later, T. J. glanced out of a window. He saw Artis Toothis slide behind the wheel of a new white Jaguar in the company of an assistant coach from SMU.

Driving back to Fort Worth that night, the battle lost, T. J. almost turned his Ford Escort around three times.

"I wanted to go back and kick them fuckin' dogs," he said.

•

I was obligated to have cocktails with Big Ed and Big Barb, my in-laws, that evening, but I didn't mind. They were sometimes more fun than whiskey. They had long ago secured their places among the most self-important people God has ever put on Texas soil.

I met them at River Crest Country Club, the oldest and most exclusive club in Fort Worth, a haven for local peerage and new WASP money. The club had a funky old golf course woven through well-shaded two-story homes. The homes would have been considered mansions in the Twenties and Thirties. The clubhouse had once resembled one of those tasteful homes. Now it had been rebuilt into something that was either an architectural masterpiece or the Babylon Marriott.

Big Ed and Big Barb were physically attractive people. Big Ed had wavy gray hair. He wore finely tailored suits, kept an out-of-season tan. Acapulco was close if you owned a Lear. Big Barb was a regal brunette with the Rolls-Royce of face lifts and butt tucks. The worth of the diamonds and emeralds she might wear on a given night would feed West Virginia for a year.

We got around to talking about their daughter, my wife, Barbara Jane, and were we having any marital problems Big Ed and Big Barb could solve with money or phone calls to Senate subcommittees?

Then the plight of TCU's football (continued on page 178)Life its Ownself(continued from page 120) program came up for discussion. Big Ed was an influential TCU alum, a major contributor to the athletic fund. Through the years, he had provided new lights for the stadium, artificial turf, a modernized weight room, four or five quarterbacks who excelled at throwing incompletions, a dozen or more ball carriers who ran backward, a bevy of linemen who never learned to block and a vast amount of purple paint for the coaches' offices.

All Big Ed wanted for his untiring generosity was one more Southwest Conference championship. TCU had won championships regularly when he was a kid, but he hadn't enjoyed one since I had led the Horned Frogs to an 8-3 record in the early Seventies.

T. J. Lambert was the right man at the right time, Big Ed was convinced. He was the coach who could get the job done if the Frogs could only recruit a little more aggressively. "I don't want any N.C.A.A. probations, but I can live with a few reprimands."

He was aware of Tonsillitis Johnson.

"Tonsillitis can do it all. He can take us to the Cotton Bowl straight as a Indian goes to shit."

"That's quick," I said.

Big Ed reached for another Sherman's Cigarettello. "T. J.'s worried we can't outbid Texas or Oklahoma for Tonsillitis. They'll give him a car, an apartment, a summer job that'll make him richer than two orthodontists. I said, 'Hell, I know how we can get that nigger. We'll give him his own 7-Eleven, tell him he can rob it any time he wants to!' "

Big Barb shushed Big Ed with a look and a gentle tug on the sleeve of his coat.

I had never been able to shush Big Ed. Neither had Barbara Jane. Big Ed had been saying nigger for as long as we could remember.

We all said it as kids without realizing the hurt it caused. But if you have any feelings, you change when you get older and life drops some smart on you. You can even get pissed off when you hear it applied to a teammate who blocks his ass off for you and accepts you as his equal. But I didn't have a black friend who wouldn't understand that you can't shush anybody worth $60,000,000.

At River Crest, all I did was seize the moment to excuse myself from Big Ed and Big Barb's company, telling the lie that my knee was starting to act up. What I really intended to do was go back to my hotel and get drunk alone.

It had become a pregame ritual. After all, I had to help that other liberal, T. J. Lambert, beat the Rice Owls the next day.

•

Blue and gray crepe paper--Rice University's colors--cluttered the ceiling, crawled up the walls and wrapped around benches in the TCU locker room. Over in a corner, a stereo blasted away with a scratchy recording of Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet, the Rice fight song.

"It's inspired," I remarked to T. J. as we stood near a coffee urn, watching the Horned Frogs lazily suit up for the game.

"We've had it lookin' like this all week," T. J. said. "The equipment people done it. I've had 'em playin' that song all week, too. I figured it was a way to get our crowd sick to death of them Chinese cock-suckers."

"Chinese?"

"Yeah, fuck them rice-eatin' turds."

T. J. wheeled on his squad.

"Fuck Rice! Fuck ever' grain in Uncle Ben's fuckin' box! Piss on China!"

T. J. was getting his game face on. Two players responded with zeal.

"Rice eats shit!" somebody hollered.

"They eat owlshit!" came another cry.

I stirred the coffee in a paper cup. "Uh ... T. J., what's China got to do with anything?"

"Chinks eat rice, don't they?"

I said, "T. J., they haven't moved Rice from Houston to Peking while my back was turned, have they?"

"Fuck Houston!" T. J. reminded the room.

"T. J., you do know where the name comes from, don't you? An old rich guy named William Marsh Rice founded the school. He was a person, like a Duke or a Vanderbilt or a Stanford."

"Them's schools," said T. J. He bit off a chunk of chewing tobacco. He said, "Let me explain something to you. Rice pricks is engineers, ain't they? Scientists? Computer technology and all that shit? Well, who knows more about computers than anybody? Chinamen, that's who."

"It's the Japanese, isn't it?"

"Japs, Chinamen. Goddamn, Billy Clyde, gimme a fuckin' break!"

"I'm beginning to understand."

"Awwright, then," T. J. said. "Fuck Rice!"

Out on the field during warm-ups, I met three of T. J.'s assistant coaches. Like the head coach himself, they were all dressed in purple knit shirts, khaki trousers and purple baseball caps. They all had a mouthful of gum or tobacco.

It was a warm September afternoon. Being down on the field was a good feeling, a fanciful experience. I was looking around at the crowd, which filled only half of the 46,000 seats in TCU's stadium, when Mike Homer came up to me. He was the Frogs' offensive coordinator.

I asked Mike if TCU was ready to play a good game.

"You can't ever tell," he said, his eyes fixed on a cute TCU cheerleader who wore a white tank top and a short, pleated purple skirt. She had frizzy blonde hair and tanned, curvy legs.

"That there's old Sandi," he said.

Now I was staring at the cheerleader.

Mike Homer said, "Lord, I know she's somebody's daughter, but I'd wet her down."

The assistant coach then raced onto the field to slap a player on the side of his purple helmet for not throwing the ball with enough steam on it.

The next assistant coach I met was Ronnie Bob Collins. He was in charge of the defensive secondary.

"Looks like we have some speed in the secondary," I said to coach Collins. "Will they hit?"

"Not like that little shit over there," he said, looking at Sandi. "How'd you like to get hooked up with her? Tell you one thing. You wouldn't need no kick starter on your tongue!"

The teams returned to their dressing rooms for last-minute instructions and nervous pisses before the opening kickoff. That was when T. J. formally introduced me to his valiants.

The introduction was moving enough. I was an all-American, an all-pro, a man who had once sneaked out of a hospital where I was recovering from three broken ribs to beat Notre Dame almost single-handedly on a Saturday very much like this one.

I didn't know what in the name of the Gipper I would say to the TCU players until I sat on the edge of a table and looked out at their farm-kid faces, their street-smart glances, the white numerals on their purple jerseys.

I began by saying how fortunate they were to be playing football for a character builder like coach Lambert and his dedicated staff.

Fear of losing an audience may have accounted for what I said next.

"Men, I saw something out on the field a while ago that reminded me of another Rice game," I said. "I saw one of your cheerleaders. Cute little girl named Sandi."

"Awwrright," said Sonny Plummer, the quarterback, there on the floor in front of me. He and Webster Davis, the tailback, exchanged a high five and pointed at their crotches.

I acknowledged them soberly and continued.

"My junior year, we had a cheerleader who looked enough like Sandi to be her older sister--and it was. Her name was Tracy. I guess you could say Tracy was the most popular girl on the campus. Pretty little blonde devil ... vivacious, outgoing. Well ... the Saturday of our game against Rice, right here on this field, she started walking over to the stadium from her room in the Tri Delt dorm and a terrible thing happened. That great little girl--Sandi's older sister--she got run over and killed by a crazy, drunken Rice student in a sports car. Our team ... we didn't find out about it till after the game--a game we lost."

I paused a minute, as if the thought of Tracy's death had made me nauseated all over again, then I went on.

"Maybe you guys know what I'm gonna say next. Sandi's going to be out there yelling her heart out for you this afternoon: She'll be yelling for you to beat the Rice Owls the same way her sister would have cheered us on if she'd lived. So how 'bout it, gang? Let's even the score. Let's win this one for Sandi and her sister!"

T. J.'s voice boomed out, "Get them low-life fuckin' murderers!"

The Horned Frogs tore out of the locker room like maniacs, whooping, cursing, banging on locker doors, aching for the blood of the Rice Owls.

T. J. shook my hand.

"You did real good, son."

"Thanks, Coach."

"Was that a true story?"

"Part of it. We did have a cheerleader who looked a lot like Sandi."

"What'd she do?"

"The main thing she did was give Shake Tiller the clap."

•

The score was 12-3 at half time in favor of Rice.

No touchdowns were scored. Rice recovered four fumbles inside TCU's 20-yard line and kicked four field goals to get its 12 points. The Frogs salvaged three points on a field goal in the last minute before the half. A 40-yard pass-interference penalty gave TCU the ball on Rice's one-yard line. Three running plays lost five yards, and T. J. settled for the field goal.

In the locker room, T. J. was livid. He wasn't outraged so much at the score, at the fact that his team was down by nine points, as he was at the indifferent way the Frogs had performed.

They had shown no zip. They weren't hitting. They weren't alert. They didn't even look concerned.

"I'm takin' the blame for the way you puked up them two quarters," T. J. said to the team. "It ain't a question of no guts, it's a plain case of no energy, and it's my fault. Your problem is, you done left your blockin' and tacklin' in a bunch of that sorority whup!"

Girls were the enemy of football players, T. J. said. "If the truth was known, ever' damn one of you got spermed out last night. Don't nobody look at me like I'm wrong!"

He spit tobacco juice on his pants leg, wiped off his chin and said:

"I've give up on this game, fuck it! You can let them slant-eyed sumbitches embarrass you if you want to, but next week things is gonna be different! The women on this campus is gonna get a lot less football cock on Friday night!

"When I was a young shit-ass, they said it was bad to mastrebate. Well, it took some time, but we put an end to that myth--and you're gonna do the same thing! Mastrebation is good for a football player! It's particularly good for a football player on the night before a game. Mastrebation takes the pressure off. Mastrebation has been the secret to more than one football team what kicked somebody's ass!

"You're gonna find out if you mastrebate instead of dippin' your wick, you'll conserve energy. It'll take the pubic hair off your brain. You fuckers done pubed me out in the first half. Embarrassed yourselves in front of Billy Clyde Puckett, a great all-American, and a good many of your mommas and daddies, no doubt. If you'd mastrebated last night--right hand fast, left hand slow, don't make a shit--it wouldn't have happened, and it ain't gonna happen again to the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, you can bust my ass if it does! Now get outa my sight! I ain't got no more time today to watch worms fuckin'."

The Frogs thoroughly dominated the second half. Sonny Plummer flapped his seallike arm for two touchdown passes--they were end over end, but they worked--and Webster Davis plowed 12 yards for another touchdown, the longest run of his career. TCU won the game, 24 to 12. T. J. was triumphantly carried off the field on the shoulders of three beefy linemen.

I may have been the only observer who could appreciate the jubilant gestures the Frogs made with their left and right fists as they trotted past the south goal posts and disappeared into the tunnel leading to the coliseum dressing room.

It might also have been true that others down on the field couldn't have understood what several of the Frogs were chanting as they pumped their fists up and down:

"Right hand, left hand, don't make a shit!"

•

Tonsillitis Johnson was a staggering sight.

There would have been no mistaking him as he stood in a corner of the Lettermen's Lounge after the game. Apart from the maroon-satin warm-up suit and yellow mirrored sunglasses he wore, he was the young man whose terrifying thighs threatened to burst out of his pants, whose chest, shoulders and arms were carved from granite and whose towering, rounded Afro looked capable of nesting a flock of tundra swans.

Before meeting him, I asked T. J. to refresh my memory about something. Wasn't it against the rules for a Southwest Conference school to bring in a prospective athlete to visit the campus before his high school football season was over?

T. J. answered with a suitably logical question of his own:

"Who the fuck's gonna tell anybody?"

Tonsillitis was accompanied by his older brother, Darnell, a confident-looking man of about 27. Darnell wore a beige-polyester suit, a wool checkered tie, and he carried a valise. He was built as if he might have played football himself, but his physique was nothing to compare with that of Tonsillitis.

And it didn't take a person from Harvard grad school to figure out that Darnell was his brother's agent and financial advisor. Come to think of it, a person from Harvard grad school wouldn't have figured it out.

"Lookie here," Darnell said. "We can max out at Oklahoma at thirty thou a year. At Texas, we can max out at twenty-five a year, but Tonsillitis be startin' as a freshmans in Austin. Tonsillitis don't be needin' that E.O.S. shit, you dig?"

"E.O.S.?" said coach Lambert. I was equally puzzled.

"End of sentence, baby. OU don't guarantee freshmans to start. Tonsillitis be winnin' the Heismans his first year."

"We'll start him as a freshman," T. J. said. "He can call plays if he wants to."

"Tonsillitis don't be callin' plays. Tonsillitis' bran be needin' to res' up for G.B.O.S."

"G.B. who?" I said.

"Get bad on Saturday."

Tonsillitis was also a person of character, Darnell said. When February eighth, the national signing date, came around, Tonsillitis would honor the L.O.I. he signed.

"Letter of intent?" I said.

"You cool."

I attempted to engage Tonsillitis in conversation by asking if he was worried about injuries this season, his senior year in high school. "It could be expensive," I took pleasure in saying.

"Tonsillitis don't be gettin' hurt," Darnell said. "Tonsillitis be hurtin' other folks."

T. J. patted Tonsillitis on the back. "You're the best, hoss. Best I ever saw."

I kept looking at Tonsillitis for his answer. I would have liked to have seen his eyes, but I could only see my forehead in his yellow sunglasses.

Tonsillitis said, "You have ast me if I am worried about injurin' myself in my las' season. My answer to you is no. That would be undue worriation."

Darnell related a story about their childhood, the purpose of which was to convey to us that Tonsillitis had always been a tough competitor.

There was this night when the two boys had been taken to a double feature by their father, a handy man. Tonsillitis was only seven years old at the time. The movies they had seen were Blood Beach and My Bloody Valentine.

"Kids is funny," Darnell smiled. "We came home and the first thing Tonsillitis said was, 'Daddy, I'm gonna get a knife and cut you up.' "

Darnell and I laughed together, he at what Tonsillitis had said, me at the double feature their daddy had chosen.

Tonsillitis' name had been intriguing me. I was compelled to ask Darnell where it had come from.

"He was named for his uncle, Tonsorrell," Darnell said. "Everybody had trouble sayin' it right. We started callin' him Tonsillitis when he was little. Might as well be his real name."

The meeting adjourned with T. J. urging Tonsillitis to have a great year at Boakum High and not make any college decisions until he checked with the Horned Frogs.

TCU's head coach was asking for the right of last refusal.

"What number you want to wear on that purple jersey, hoss?" T. J. squeezed Tonsillitis' shoulder lovingly.

"Thirty grand," I answered for him.

"My man!" said Darnell, offering me his palm to slap.

•

A month later, T. J. Lambert was on the phone with the joyous news. TCU was going to win a national championship next season. Not the conference championship; the national championship, the one that puts a coach in a class with "all them Darrell Royals." The Horned Frogs were going to be number one in so many polls, the mascot might have to be changed to a Trojan or a Cornhusker.

T. J. was a little drunk, but he said he had good reason to be. And he just wanted to share this happy moment with an old friend and stalwart Horned Frog.

He said, "It looks like I'm gonna have me a Tonsillitis Johnson and a Artis Toothis in the same backfield!"

T. J. coughed, then belched. I heard him holler at Donna, his wife, "Damn, honey, I done cheated my ass out of a fart!"

Now he came back on the phone to explain how this recruiting miracle was going to happen.

"I got Tonsillitis in my pocket," he said. "Ain't no question about that. Big Ed Bookman gimme a blank check and said, 'Here, T. J., throw a net over that nigger and haul him in.' I done laid a Datsun Two-Eighty on his ass and six charge cards. My coaches has talked to our sororities. Tonsillitis has got so much white pussy waitin' for him in Fort Worth, he's gonna have to get a wooden dick!"

Artis Toothis was another story, a bit more complicated. The speedster from the Big Thicket, last year's most wanted blue chipper, Artis Toothis had wound up at SMU, all right, but he had dropped out of school. His explanation to the press was that he had been lonely and unhappy in Dallas, which was to say that he had been forced to enroll in a freshman English class, and he had heard a rumor that his meal allowance of $3000 a month was far below the figure a running back at the University of Texas was getting.

Artis had gone home to Willow Neck in the sleek white Jaguar he had decided to keep. He was mostly just lolling around the house now, playing with the cur dogs and watching one of the 240 TV channels he could pick up from the satellite dish an SMU alum had installed in the yard.

SMU's coaches couldn't very well complain about Artis' keeping the Jaguar. It would be an admission that he had received an under-the-table gift.

But the vital thing was that Artis Toothis hadn't played a single down of football for the SMU Mustangs. From the start of two-a-days, he had complained of a pinched ankle, giving himself time to shop around for better opportunities. Under the rules, therefore, he could lay out a season--this one--and be eligible to play for another school next year. And the other school was going to be TCU.

I asked T. J. why he was so certain of it.

Big Ed Bookman was arranging it, the coach said. Big Ed had come to the conclusion that looking for chaparrals was more challenging than looking for dinosaurs. He had already proved himself in the oil business. He had realized that if he could bring the number-one college team to Fort Worth, it would be the accomplishment of his life. They would probably rename River Crest Country Club after him.

Any project this big had to have a solid foundation. Big Ed had begun laying the groundwork for it by hiring Tonsillitis' brother, Darnell, as his personal assistant at Bookman Oil & Gas. He was paying him a whopping salary and he had given him a big office next door to his own. Darnell's job had nothing to do with oil or gas, of course. His job was to put Tonsillitis Johnson and Artis Toothis in TCU's backfield.

Only today, T. J. reported, Darnell had visited with Artis Toothis down in Willow Neck, and it looked like they weren't that far apart in the negotiations. It was nothing Big Ed couldn't handle with Grovers. Grover Clevelands. Thousand-dollar bills.

"You know Big Ed," T. J. said. "Ain't nobody gonna out-Grover Big Ed when he gets that look in his eye."

He let out a delirious hoot, then said:

"Can you imagine what it's gonna be like to have them two burners in my backfield? Good God A'mighty! I won't have to do nothin' but get out of their way and mastrebate!"

The head coach of the Horned Frogs couldn't wait for the present season to be over so he could start putting in his two-back offense for next year. Since the victory I had witnessed over Rice, the Frogs had beaten only one other foe, UT-Arlington. They were two and four, and they still had to face Ohio State in an intersectional game, along with the strongest teams in the conference, Houston, Baylor, Texas and Texas A&M.

It looked like another 2-9 record for T. J.

"I done writ' this sumbitch off," he said.

Of the gloomy prospect of having to go to Columbus, Ohio, T. J. said, "I don't know what pea brain scheduled that cocksucker!"

I congratulated him on his rebuilding job. I had never dreamed the day would come when TCU would operate like a big-league school. Now it was upon us.

"This thing could snowball," said the coach. "Big Ed wants Darnell to keep representin' athletes as a side line."

"Side line to what?" I said, laughing.

T. J. said, "Darnell is a geologist, in case anybody wants to know. We got a fuckin' scroll hangin' on his wall."

I said, "Coach, it looks like we could be good for years to come if we don't go to jail."

"I ain't worried about them N.C.A.A. phonies," said T. J. "They can come down here and sniff around all they want to. We'll strap some perjury on they ass and send 'em home!"

I owned up to T. J. that a thought was making me dizzy but giving me considerable pleasure at the same time. I said it was not easy for me to envision a black man--Darnell Johnson--sitting in an office in Big Ed Bookman's oil-and-gas building, not far from River Crest Country Club, right there on the fashionable West Side of Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.A.

"Big Ed don't give a shit if he's polka dot. All Big Ed wants is a winner."

•

The distressing news from Fort Worth in early December was that Tonsillitis Johnson's mind had been warped by an Indian swami--and T. J. Lambert's future was heaving in a sea of disaster.

Just when T. J. and Big Ed Bookman had been so sure that everything was under control, that Tonsillitis was as good as theirs--TCU's, actually--Darnell had brought them word of this sudden and unforeseen complication.

Tonsillitis, it seemed, had fallen under the spell of Swami Muktamananda, and the blue chipper was seriously thinking about giving up football. Swami Muktamananda, also known as Haba, had all but convinced Tonsillitis that he should move to New Delhi, live in a ditch and seek life's fulfillment by washing down elephants.

"Mooka banana who?"

I had asked the question sleepily, because T. J.'s phone call had awakened me in the dead of night.

"I don't know how you say it," T. J. said, "but the sumbitch is about to ruin my life."

The point of his call was to beg me to go to Fort Worth as soon as possible. There would be a meeting between me, T. J., Big Ed and Darnell to try to figure out what to do about reclaiming Tonsillitis' mind.

On the phone that night, T. J. told me some of the sordid details of what had happened to Tonsillitis.

Because of the swami, Tonsillitis had refused to play in his last high school football game, Boakum's annual blood bath against archrival Eula. Swami Muktamananda had passed through town and had given a lecture at Boakum High. Tonsillitis, being president of the student body, had met the swami. They had talked about the "value of life." And the next thing anyone knew, Tonsillitis had been in a trance before the Eula game and wouldn't move from the bench.

Boakum's coach, Mutt Turnbull, had pleaded with his star to go out on the field and defend the honor of Boakum. Tonsillitis had only mumbled, "What I be wearin' a helmet for? What I be doin' on this planet?"

Darnell was more frustrated than anybody. He had been at the game, and he had reminded the running back that big money was at stake, never mind the hatred for Eula that one had been born with.

Tonsillitis had said to Darnell, "Folks be hittin' one another for no reason. I wants to quit football and grow my own food."

Darnell had said, "Hey, baby, we're talkin' gusto here, you understand? Mucho dolores."

"Swami say life don't be measured by numbers," Tonsillitis said. "Swami say happiness don't be livin' in no end zone."

Darnell had almost lost his temper.

He had said, "Yeah, well, swamis be fuckin' with incense and shit. Get your ass off that bench!"

Nothing had worked. Tonsillitis hadn't played in the game and, as of now, he wasn't planning to play for TCU or any other college. He was meditating and eating rice and lentils.

Neither T. J. nor Big Ed had seen Swami Muktamananda. Darnell had been in contact with him, however, and was trying to work out an economic solution.

For enough money, Swami Muktamananda might be tempted to persuade Tonsillitis to play football again.

"I ain't sure you can buy swamis," T. J. said.

T. J. sounded very low on the phone.

He said, "It's a hell of a thing, ain't it, son? I got me the greatest football player in captivity and somebody's done jacked with his brain. What does that tell you about our goddamn educational system?"

I asked if there was anything new on the Artis Toothis front.

"Looks like we're OK there," T. J. said. "Artis Toothis is an ambitious young man with a good business head on his shoulders. He's the kind of person America can be proud of."

Artis Toothis was ready to wear the purple and white and look after his real-estate investments. Only the nuts and bolts of his contract were yet to be worked out. For example, he was insisting on a guarantee that he would play the same number of minutes and carry the ball the same number of times as Tonsillitis.

T. J. returned to the mournful subject of Tonsillitis by saying, "Can you believe TCU's luck? I just wish somebody would tell me how a robe-wearin', meditatin' cocksucker can get a nigger worried about the value of life!"

T. J. was badly in need of friends around him.

He said, "I'll tell you the truth, Billy Clyde. I feel like I been ate by a coyote and shit off a cliff!"

•

Through the two glass walls of Big Ed's office on the eighth floor of the Bookman Oil & Gas Building, you could almost see every stump, scorpion and mesquite tree in West Texas.

On the two wood-paneled walls of the office, you could see a dozen paintings of the drilling rigs and producing pumps that had brought immense wealth to Big Ed.

And on Big Ed's face that morning, I could see the look of a man who wanted to have Swami Muktamananda measured for a cement robe.

Big Ed, T. J., Darnell and myself were sitting around a conference table, warming up our coffee cups, as Big Ed said:

"You think I can't get it done? I'll call Vegas! I can get it done quicker than that swami can say shish kabob! It won't cost me a wink of sleep, either! Foreign sons of bitches are bad enough when they wear their black suits and their mirrored sunglasses and try to tell me how to run the oil bidness! Now I got me a Hindu lunatic who's fucking around with college football! Goddamn, I wish I had my own hydrogen bomb!"

"India ain't good for shit," said T. J. "What they got over there? A bunch of fuckers in bed sheets makin' mud pies."

Darnell said, "Swami's a tough dude. I've had three meetings with him. Mr. Bookman gimme the authority to offer him three hundred thou, but he just sit there cross-legged." The number impressed me. So did Darnell.

"Would you really pay three hundred thousand for Tonsillitis?" I said to my father-in-law.

"For a national championship?" said Big Ed. "I'd go a lot higher. That's all it'd be. Tonsillitis and that Toothis kid can take us straight to number one."

"Where would you max out?"

While Big Ed was making up his mind about it, Darnell said, "Swami don't care about money. Swami be talkin' about America--how Americans confuse style with substance."

"Hear that?" T. J. said, a little wild-eyed. "Try that shit on!"

"Half a million," said Big Ed, arriving at a figure. "But I'd damn well want the assurance that Tonsillitis was back to normal and wasn't hangin' upside down in his bedroom."

"Upside down?" I looked at Darnell.

Darnell said, "Tonsillitis be hangin' upside down thirty minutes ever' day before lunch."

Tonsillitis was also into incense, meditation, exercises. He was staying in shape; that was one good thing. Darnell didn't know what you called it when Tonsillitis placed his hands on the brick magnets and hummed for an hour.

"Chanting," I said.

"Rrright," said Darnell. "You know about that shit, baby."

"What the fuck difference does it make, hummin' or chantin'?" T. J. said. "All I know is, the best football player in America is sittin' down there in Boakum, Texas, with his head out of whack, and I'm sittin' up here at TCU, tryin' to pull a string out of a duck's ass."

Big Ed came up with a plan. He wanted me to go to Boakum, make an effort to talk some sense into Tonsillitis. There was a chance he would listen to a famous football player. If I had no luck with Tonsillitis, I was to meet with Swami Muktamananda.

I was to offer the swami $500,000 to convince Tonsillitis that the only way to purify his soul was to play football for TCU. The swami could take the money all at once or in deferred payments; whatever his taxman suggested. This was Big Ed's final offer. He could take it or leave it.

"If this don't work, we'll just have to find us another nigger." Big Ed sighed. "Excuse me, Darnell."

Darnell had a good feeling about the plan. Five hundred thousand dollars was "mucho dolores." Big Ed might have bought himself a swami, he said.

•

By appointment, I met Tonsillitis Johnson at K's Restaurant in downtown Boakum.

Downtown Boakum was a courthouse surrounded by four blocks of deserted storefronts with head-in parking for the only other vehicles we could see, which were four pickup trucks and a Datsun 280Z--Tonsillitis' car, courtesy of Big Ed.

K's Restaurant looked like a place I had spent half my life in. Leatherette stools along a serving counter. Linoleum-top tables. Tile floor. A black-and-white TV on a shelf playing a Gunsmoke rerun. A blue-and-orange Boakum Bobcats pennant on the wall above a squad picture of last year's class-AA state champions, the Boakum Bobcats. Antique-brass cash register. George Jones on the jukebox. Meatloaf special on the menu. Tired K cooking in the kitchen and tired Marvene behind the counter. And two fence menders trying to beat the pinball machine.

"Finesse that fucker, Dace!" said one of the fence menders as the machine clanged and flickered.

Tonsillitis was seated at a table in the rear of the place. I sat down with him as Marvene brought coffee I hadn't asked for and put another cup of tea in front of Tonsillitis.

Tonsillitis was wearing a Levi's jacket over a T-shirt and his yellow reflective glasses.

Marvene came to the table with a Polaroid camera.

"I'm flattered," I said. "Will I be on K's wall?"

"Honey, you are the Red Cross!" Marvene said. She snapped the pictures and brought me a slice of homemade chocolate pie.

I asked Tonsillitis if he felt the same about football--was he still confused?

"Haba say to probe for the inner truth," he said.

"You can probe in college and still play football," I said.

"College be havin' material value. Haba say material value is the road to evil."

I said, "Tonsillitis, would you play football again if Haba said it was all right?"

"Haba don't like football."

"Haba might change his mind."

"Who gonna change Haba?"

"Grover."

"Grover who?"

"Grover's the boss swami."

"I never heard of Grover."

"Haba has."

Tonsillitis said he would follow Haba's teachings, even if they led to playing football again.

That was all I needed to know.

"Where can I find Haba?" I asked.

Tonsillitis said Swami Muktamananda was waiting for me across the street in the square. The swami refused to patronize K's because the restaurant served carbonated sodas.

I left Tonsillitis in K's and walked over to the square, where I found Swami Muktamananda sitting cross-legged under a hackberry tree.

The swami was a black man in a beard and dark glasses. He was wrapped in a bed sheet, wore a baseball cap that said Blue Sox and a pair of high-top tennis shoes. There was no other swami in the square. It had to be him.

I plopped down on the grass with him, introduced myself.

"You are a man of sweetness, I have a way of knowing," said Haba.

I came right to the point.

"Haba," I said, "we've got a gentleman in Fort Worth who's reached his E.O.R."

"I do not understand," said the swami.

"End of rope," I said. "The gentleman wants Tonsillitis to play football for TCU so bad, he's willing to increase his contribution to your cause."

"I have no cause, only my teachings."

"My man thinks your lectures would be greatly improved if you had five hundred thousand dollars in the bank."

"Oh, my," said Haba.

I said, "The man's name is Ed Bookman. He's extremely wealthy and a man of God. Although he's a Christian, he respects your beliefs. He says he's convinced you will have many more visions come to you out of the pitch-blackness if á half a million is deposited in your account at the United Bank of Austin. I've lived a cloistered life myself, Haba, and I've learned something about bucolic. He don't pay the lights, gas and water."

"You have spoken a truth," Haba said.

I said, "Mr. Bookman says he will make half of the contribution now and the other half when your disciple signs his letter of intent on February eighth. This is assuming we have a deal."

Swami Muktamananda saw the need to meditate for a moment, to ask his divinity for guidance in the matter. He tilted his head back, put his palms together.

Coming out of it, he said, "These funds would be tax-free?"

I wondered if Big Ed knew Darnell was the swami.

•

Tonsillitis Johnson signed his letter of intent at noon on February eighth.

The ceremony was held in the Lettermen's Lounge at TCU. It was attended by two dozen writers and radio and TV reporters, who formed a half circle around a table at which all of us were seated: me, T. J., Big Ed.

At a given signal from Big Ed, Tonsillitis was led into the room by Darnell, and the two of them were accompanied by Artis Toothis.

As they entered, flash attachments popped on Nikons and TV cameramen with hand-held cameras scurried about.

Darnell Johnson looked extremely prosperous and dignified in his gray three-piece suit and horn-rimmed glasses, almost as prosperous and dignified as Artis Toothis in his three-piece suit and horn-rimmed glasses.

Tonsillitis wore his maroon-satin warm-ups and yellow mirrored sunglasses, but he had added a white headband.

T. J. stood up at the table and introduced Darnell.

Addressing the media, Darnell said:

"This is a great day for TCU. As you know, Artis Toothis has announced his plans to be playin' football here. Today, we are deliverin' to this university the other bes' football player in humanity."

Big Ed handed Darnell a gold pen. Darnell handed the gold pen to Tonsillitis.

"Sign you name, baby," Darnell said to his brother.

"Ratch ear?"

"Right there where it say."

I watched as Tonsillitis signed his name on the letter of intent, just on the odd chance that he might spell it "booley." No, he spelled it clearly and correctly. Tonsorrell Baines Johnson.

Everybody shook Tonsillitis' hand, Darnell's hand, T. J.'s hand, Big Ed's hand, Artis Toothis' hand. Pictures were taken of Tonsillitis with everyone, in twos, in threes, in groups.

T. J. then spoke to the press.

"Men, I don't need to tell you what this means to me. A coach wins football games with them horny ol' boys who want to eat the crotch out of a end zone. I got me two of 'em now. TCU's on the way back! Around this conference, they been sayin' you couldn't melt us down and pour us into a fight, but we're gonna show 'em next fall! With Tonsillitis and Artis wearin' that purple, we're gonna be jacked off like a house cat."

When the proceedings were over, I took Big Ed aside.

"What do you hear from the swami, Ed?" I asked.

"Gone," he said. "If I had to guess, I'd say the Hindu son of a bitch has moved on to the Big Eight or the Pac Ten."

So Big Ed didn't know. Maybe I'd tell him after Tonsillitis made ail-American or won the conference for him or scored so many touchdowns he turned white.

•

It was a clear night, not indecently hot for Texas in early September, and the stars that swept across the sky above the stadium made it look like the Skipper had called in a decorator. It was the first game of the season, and TCU Stadium throbbed with an overflow crowd of 50,000 people, largely due to the 20,000 fanatics who had followed the Auburn Tigers to Fort Worth. A third of the stadium was a mosaic of Auburn blue and orange.

While T. J. and his assistants constantly slapped their hands together, whistled, yelled and raced about, the TCU players limped around, stretched, tampered with their equipment.

In particular, Tonsillitis Johnson and Artis Toothis blundered through their warm-ups like men with sore muscles.

Big Ed and Big Barb were visions of purple. Big Ed wore a purple blazer, a purple tie with a white shirt and a white Stetson. Big Barb was resplendent in a purple suit and white Garbo hat.

In the box with Big Ed and Big Barb was Darnell Johnson, the assistant to the president of Bookman Oil & Gas. Darnell had neglected to wear anything purple, but he looked as prosperous as ever in his suit, vest and tie.

Now the TCU band and cheerleaders, led by Sandi, formed a corridor through which the Horned Frogs retreated to the dressing room for T. J. Lambert's final words of encouragement and advice. He faced the squad and hung his head, waiting for everyone to quiet down before he spoke. The moment came, and in a somber tone, he said:

"Men, I don't have to tell you what you're up against tonight. They're the national champions. They're as good a team as I ever saw. They're waitin' for you out there like pallbearers. TCU don't mean dookie to Aubrin. But you know what I think's gonna happen? I think we're goin' out there and strap so much quick on 'em, they'll have to get their ass sewed up with barbed wire! Now, let's go do it! Fuck Aubrin!"

There were no whoops from the players. They left the dressing room laughing and joking.

Standing at the dressing-room door, I felt a little rush of purple as I said to Artis Toothis, "Go get 'em, Artis."

"I got the claim check, baby," he said. "We pickin' up baggage tonight!"

To Tonsillitis Johnson, I said, "Have a good one, hoss."

"Ain't nothin' to it," he said. "We gonna hit 'em with a pocketful of flash."

I was back on the field behind the TCU bench as the two squads knelt for a prayer before the opening kickoff. Auburn may have been praying, but there was little doubt in my mind that T. J. was reminding his lads that it was more blessed to die at birth than fumble a football.

Auburn kicked off to TCU and the ball sailed out of the end zone. The offensive unit of the Horned Frogs trotted out to their own 20-yard line in their dark-purple jerseys and purple helmets, Tonsillitis wearing number one and Artis wearing number 99.

On TCU's first play from scrimmage, Tonsillitis took a pitchout from Jimmy Sibley, the transfer quarterback. All Tonsillitis did on his first carry as a collegian was break five tackles and rumble 80 yards for a touchdown.

I looked up at the box in time to see Big Ed and Darnell swap high fives.

The Frogs kicked off to Auburn. The Tigers couldn't make a first down and punted out of bounds on TCU's 37-yard line. On the first play from there, Artis Toothis took a pitchout from Jimmy Sibley, sped around a corner and nobody touched him as he went 63 yards for another touchdown.

Now, up in the box, Big Ed Bookman and Darnell Johnson, a white man and a black man--in public, in an old Texas cow town--embraced and kissed each other on the cheek.

That was a sight I wish I could have shared with all the semi-holy reformers who want to fuck with college football.

Before the half had ended, and just after Tonsillitis had plowed 16 yards for his third touchdown, I worked my way to T. J. on the side line and said, "Like we've always known, coaching makes the difference."

T. J. looked like a man who was half spellbound, half brainsick. He said, "I ain't sure my heart can take this season, son. Them two fuckers is gonna scatter everybody we play like monkey shit!"

I didn't have a semi-doubt about it.

"He was 6'3", 235 pounds and so fast, he made Walker and Campbell look like paraplegics."

" 'They'll give him a car, an apartment, a summer job that'll make him richer than two orthodontists.' "