Harold and Tom were best friends since they could remember. Their parents were good friends so they were introduced to each other at a young age. They went to school together and always hung out on weekends. Although they were best of friends they were two extremely different people. Harold, also called Harry for short, was out going, the class clown, very popular, garrulous and had an amazing girlfriend. He seem almost infallible, except he was also he was extremely lazy. Tom was almost the exact opposite; he was laconic and kept to himself. He was extremely hard working but didn’t have a girlfriend. Although they were different in many aspects of their personality and life they both had a strong common bond between them. They both lived loved and bled football. It was their favorite sport. They were zealots of the game. They were both centers as well. The only thing was Tom almost always seemed to come short of Harry’s achievements on the field.
Their freshman year in high school they both were on the team. Harry instead of playing freshman was moved up to play Junior Varsity center. While Tom was starting Freshman center he was the JV backup. Harry would suit up for varsity games while Tom would stand on the sidelines with his jersey over his hoodie and pass out water. Harry would brag about how he would get into games when their varsity squad was beating on an inferior team. In these moments Tom would envy Harry. Harry had the talent and natural football instinct. Tom had the work ethic as well as compliant to the coaches and all of the they all liked him a lot.
At the end of the season, the head coach, told all of them to get in the weight room and prepare for next year. They needed to be bigger, faster and stronger so they could be playoff and possibly Super Bowl material. They needed to be the team that lived in the weight room. Tom heard this and took it to heart. He knew what he had to do to be able to beat out Harry for the starting job next year. The varsity center this year was graduating and left big shoes to fill. The senior was leaving at the end of the year to play college football at a Division 1 school. The day after Tom heard these words he went to the weight room immediately after school. He met a familiar coach in the weight room who gave him a workout, that would help him get bigger, faster and stronger for next year. Over the course of the nine months of the off- season, Tom took very few days off from his training. Tom was tenacious about his lifting. He would always talk to Harry and ask him why he was never in the weight room. Harry would reply “I don’t need to be in the weight room that much, because I have my own weights at home and can get the same work out their that I can get here if not better.” Tom pondered this statement many times and in mid-April came to a conclusion that a workout in the weight room cannot compare to a workout in your own home for a few reasons. The first one being, no one in your home is going to be pushing you to lift weights and to fight for that extra rep. Second, because there is no coach giving you a specifically designed workout to help build your muscles for the particular sport you are training for. It soon became a natural occurrence for Tom to call Harry on the phone and find that he was hanging out with other friends and able to workout with Tom. That summer the two friends grew more aloof. Over the summer the coach that had been helping Tom train told him that he had an extremely good chance of starting on the varsity team. He told him that he had never seen anyone work so hard for nine months to be prepared for the next season, and that he was sure he was stronger than Harry. Also, that Tom’s hard work would beat out Harry’s talent for a starting spot on the varsity squad.
The season started with Captain’s practices. At these practices Junior’s and Senior’s saw Harry and many told him that he would probably have a starting spot locked up. This made Harry’s ego bigger and he soon was bragging to all his friends that he would be starting next year.
When double sessions started Harry was puking. He had no stamina. he was so lethargic, he couldn’t run wind sprints without getting sick and falling to the side to puke. After the Three days of conditioning the team started practicing with full pads. Tom was hitting and knocking down other linemen with ease. It was as if last year his talent was latent and it was now coming out with the aid of his hard work. He was impressing the coaches and embarrassing veterans. The coaches were extolling him consistently for his outstanding ability. Harry was still in his own little daydream that he would be starting center. He went through most of his drills half speed and without much effort. harrys talents in the off season became unkempt and looked sloppy on the field. People soon began to tell him that he was going to lose his starting spot if he didn’t step up his effort. He would laugh and say in a jocular tone, “To who, no one on this team is a better center than me.”
His teammates would look at him and walk away. They didn’t bother haranguing him on the subject he would find out the hard way. The first game was coming up and the starting lineup was still undecided. The coaches had both Tom and Harry working with the varsity squad. On the second to last hot august afternoon of double sessions Harry had just finished cracking a joke when all of a sudden the offensive coordinator yells, “THAT’S IT I’M DONE LISTENING TO YOU GOOF OFF, GO PRACTICE WITH THE JV’S HARRY.”
Harry awestruck walks over to the JV’s practicing. Everyone falls silent and stares. The offensive coordinator then spoke again and said, “Congratulations Tom you’ve earned yourself a starting spot”
After practice in the Locker room all of the Tom’s teammates were congratulating him on getting the spot. The game was coming up and Tom could tell the whole team was expecting a lot out of him. The game came and the team won in an outstanding victory over the rival team. The coaches never took Tom out and the bus ride home was full of laughs and songs. When they got back to the school the head coach made a quick speech and then let them go get changed. Tom noticed Harry change fast and walk out quietly and morose. Tom changed frantically and caught Harry outside the school. He asked him if anything was wrong. Harry replied, “I thought I was gonna start.”
Tom said, “I tried to get you to lift with me in the off season.”
“I know and I was to lazy to go with you.” Harry said.
“In this upcoming off season we can workout together, and maybe next year you can try out guard” Said Tom in an uplifting tone.
“Yeah that sounds good” replied Harry.
