The Quarterback and The Ghost

OCTOBER 1988       

              This was no time to panic. The football was on the St. Thomas twenty-four yard line. The quarterback Gallegan called out the signals. “Blue thirty-two…blue thirty-two…” Gallegan took the snap and drifted back to pass. Mike Brown was open in the flat; he caught a wobbly pass and scampered to the fifteen before crashing to the turf after a hard tackle. A quick opener with the fullback got the first down. One of the referees was looking intently at his watch.

            Coach Mike sent in the next play with a flanker sub. There was time for maybe two more plays. The football was hiked. Gallegan couldn’t get a handle on it! The ball tumbled to the turf and rolled over end over end, but the center pounced on it, a five-yard loss. 

            Ten seconds were left. One more play. Gallegan accepted the snap from the center and sprinted out to the right—side-stepped an onrushing tackler—looked for anyone open—faked out a linebacker—took off for the end zone. The ten…the five…two defenders at the goal line—Gallegan  leaped between them, all three came down in a heap—the referee threw his hands in the air. Touchdown!               

Our Lady of Perpetual Health won by two; there was no need to kick the extra point. The team charged out to mob Gallegan. This win put Our Lady in first place in the Blue division of the South Bend Inner City Catholic League. Coach Mike patted Gallegan on the back and pulled off the helmet. Gallegan’s long strawberry blond hair, once held up by bobby pins, fell to her shoulders. That’s right, Gallegan, Mary Alice Gallegan, was a girl, and she was the star quarterback for the Our Lady Panthers.           

Mary Alice freed herself from the hugs of her teammates. Except for one. “I could have gotten us that touchdown,” Todd Hertel hissed. He gave Mary Alice a shove before moving away. Todd was the starting quarterback last season. That little fact did not matter a bit to Coach Mike Zersky. With his big shoulders and crooked nose that had obviously been broken, maybe in a fight, Coach Mike was not one to argue with. He was new this season, and since he had no knowledge of the previous year, he started whoever showed the most promise in practice, and that was Mary Alice. Even though it was her first time out for the football team, and even though she had the audacity to be a girl, she still beat out Todd for the starting position. Todd’s dad was an All-American quarterback at Purdue. For Todd and his dad, being replaced by a girl, or anyone, was unacceptable.  After all, Purdue will need a top-notch signal caller in a few years and father and son Hertel planned on Todd being that quarterback. No prissy Barbie Doll quarterback was going to get in their way.

Mary Alice scanned the sidelines, looking for her dad, Chuck Gallegan. He promised to be at the game. There he was, talking to two men. One of the men handed her dad something green; it had to be money. Mary Alice’s shook her head in disgust.

               “Kitten, nice game,” Chuck yelled at his daughter, quickly shoving the money in his back pocket. Kitten! Mary Alice hated being called that name, especially in front of people she didn’t know. She’s thirteen years old. You don’t call a teenage girl Kitten in 1988, maybe in the fifties, not in the eighties.

“Dad, I saw you put that money in your pocket…you gambled on this game, didn’t you.”

“Kitten, the man owed me some money….”

“Don’t lie to me Dad.” 

Mary Alice turned to walk away, her face a crimson red. Chuck placed himself in front of her. “C’mon Kitten, with you playing quarterback, it’s a sure thing,” he said. “This isn’t gambling...its taking money given freely to me by some real dumb guys.”

Chuck snatched the dough out of his pocket and held it up. “Look, a hundred bucks, it would take me three days work to make that kind of money.”

“But you promised not to gamble anymore” Mary Alice whined.” She broke into a trot. “I’ll see you at home,” she said back to her dad.

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