When you're a high school football player trying to play at the highest collegiate level possible, your scouting report is your golden fucking ticket. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your height, your weight, your shoe size, and every sordid offer letter and school visit you've ever done, all out in the open for coaches to read. Check one for yes. Check two for no. Check three for verbally committed to a school this dumbass doesn't even want to go to.

Dallas Gunther | 4-star

Dual-Threat Quarterback

6'3" | 194 lbs

Class of 2021

New Livingston Day School | Fairfield County, CT

10 OFFERS

COMMITMENT STATUS: CORNELL UNIVERSITY - VERBAL

STRENGTHS: pocket presence, decision making, mobility and running ability.

WEAKNESSES: arm strength

There was a video of me that went viral after Chris posted it to his 145,000 Instagram followers of me stiff-arming a defender and hurdling him during the playoffs last year. Running ability was added to my strengths column after that.

Football recruitment and commitment was different than most other sports, and not just because it drew more attention than flies to shit. Football was a fall sport, which meant the deadlines for commitment weren't until the Spring of senior year, after the season had ended. But if I had wanted to play baseball, I would have had to commit to a school last year.

Football was the exception to everything.

Chris and I loaded my BMW coup with our football bags and gear at 4:30 in the morning to make it to Syracuse by 7. We grabbed a case of Red Bull at the gas station on the way out of Fairfield and starting shotgunning them as soon as we hit the highway.

"I don't think you give your dad enough credit," Chris shook his head as he looked away from me and out the window, watching the early morning traffic zip by. "I mean, if he was dead to rights set on you going to Cornell, would he even let you come to this?"

I scoffed. "Have you met my dad? It's an ACC invitational camp - keyword being invitational. Just something else for him to brag about."

"Yeah, well the more you guys brag and flex, the more I'm sure that Cornell coach loses sleep waiting for your official letter of intent."

"Please don't point your moral compass at me," I groaned. "You're the one who is literally drowning in offer letters and won't make a decision, despite the fact that everyone and their mother knows you want to go to Alabama."

"That's different," Chris mumbled, turning his gaze back out the window.

Chris Thompson was so anti-confrontational that it actually gave him a damn near conniption every time he had to tell someone "no," afraid of upsetting them or damaging relationships.

I was enough of a people-pleaser to understand how Chris felt, which is I guess why out of everyone on the football team, he and I were always the closest. It went beyond simple quarterback/wide receiver chemistry. We'd dragged each other out of trenches and into the end zones since we were 11, and the only thing that mattered back then was what color Gatorade we drank. Things on the outside were far more complicated now, but we still sat around and listened to All The Small Things by blink-182 just like we did back then.

The ACC Summer Invitational Camp was held at Syracuse University in the infamous Carrier Dome. Even though it had a retractable roof and air conditioning, the roof was open, and the summer morning sun came down on us hard. There were about 150 guys that showed up, all in some variation of the 'camp uniform' - you were either team Nike or team Under Armor, in red or blue sleeveless compression shirts like a group of star-spangled assholes.

They sectioned us off by position, which meant there were about five guys per position at the camp. Chris and I checked in and were given numbers that corresponded to our position groups. We wove our way through the back corridors of the stadium, our turf cleats echoing off the stone walls. Between the two of us, we'd probably been to a dozen camps at this point, but the adrenaline rush that came with this was unrivaled.

I ripped at the corners of the little paper tacked on my chest. 3 was my lucky number, but they'd given me 8, and I felt my face twist into a frown.

"Alright, I'm heading over." Chris and I dapped each other up one last time before being pulled away in our respective position groups. Before Chris walked away, he hit me in the chest.

"Incoming. Alpha. 3:00." He nodded his head towards the monstrous body of Tony D'Marco moseying in our direction.

"God, I can smell his overpriced cologne from here," I grumbled to Chris, who chuckled and shook his head before finally walking over to join the rest of the wide receivers group. I stood alone on the sideline, a forgiving breeze making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Anthony 'Tony D' D'Marco was the most stereotypical Bostonian I had ever interacted with, all the way down to the obnoxious long 'ah' sound he made for every vowel that flicked off his lips. Pahk the cah in Hahvad yahd. But at 6'6" and 230 pounds, with a cannon for an arm and a wild, wolf-like head of hair, he'd earned his nickname, the Alpha. Sure, he barked, but he also bit. Hard. That didn't mean it wasn't fun to push his buttons. I thrived in the danger zone.

"Oh hey there Beta," I drawled out, giving him a casual wave.

Tony D feigned confusion, then finally looked down at me with piercing grey eyes.

"Oh sorry, I couldn't see you all the way down there," he chuckled.

He was only three inches taller than me, but in the quarterback room, three inches could easily translate to a mile of potential if utilized correctly.

I sucked in a breath of hot, sticky August air. "Makes sense, seeing as your downfield vision is just as abysmal."

Tony D groaned. "I don't need you barking ACT words at me this early, Cornell."

The word Cornell flicked off his tongue like he was trying to spit a wad of dip out of his mouth.

In the football world, resigning myself to a D-IAA school was like self imposed exile. Like a scab for people to pick at to see what I was hiding underneath. Ivys were only valuable for actual academics. Football didn't translate. So why did someone like me, with several Power 5 conference offers, verbally commit to Cornell? The elite inner circle of high school football wanted to know.

I shook my head. "Glad to see all that money you spend to go to Cannondale has done wonders for your education. Though I suppose even your daddy's money can't buy you an actual brain."

I'd gotten into the Cannondale School, but my parent's yanked my registration at the last minute and sent me to New Livingston Instead. Apparently shipping me off to a boarding school in Boston was the equivalent of drenching me in gasoline and giving me a lit match.

"Well all your daddy's money goes to is your bail, right?"

There it was. Scab ripped off, skin torn, blood drawn. I didn't know how news of the debacle at my birthday party reached the depths of Massachusetts, but I didn't care.

I shrugged. "Among other things."

"Well I'll tell you what it's not getting you." Tony D leaned down close to me, so close I could practically taste the HGH on his breath. "A spot on the Clemson roster. That one belongs to me, and me alone."

I scowled up at him, and he backed away. I knew that when push came to shove, I could punt Tony D into the far end zone. I didn't need to prove anything to him.

But it threw my situation into harsh, glaring perspective. My verbal commitment to Cornell was like a big X on my forehead. Coaches Beware of Big Red Dog. I stood tall, unhinging all my bones from all my joints until I felt like I could touch the sky. I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head at his retreating figure.

"Just remember," I called after him. "You might be the Alpha...but all this," I gestured out to the field, "it ends with me." 

you know what zone i'm in
don't care who you with
watch me do my shit

opps / kendrick lamar, vince staples, yugen blackrock

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Did I hard flex my football bullshit in this chapter? Absolutely.

But in all seriousness I am trying to keep it realistic in the way that Dallas would talk, which means things aren't always going to be in simple terms, but if you have questions or need me to explain anything, let me know. I'm debating just making a glossary but we'll see. I know this is shorter and kind of a filler chapter but football is so important to the story and I wanted to establish all this early on.

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