Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
The road they needed wasn’t far, and Jeremy pointed as they reached it. “Dinosaurs,” he said, as if Jean could somehow look past the statues on the corner. “When you see them, you turn right. Following me so far?”
Jean thought about it for just a moment. “No.”
“First time is the most disorienting,” Jeremy said, and pointed again as soon as Memorial Coliseum came into view. “Our football stadium. Games are hecka fun and worth checking out. Come on, we’re down this way.
“You might’ve noticed we don’t have a lot of room to expand around here between the city and student housing,” Jeremy said. “USC is laid out as smart as can be, but it means when they wanted to add a new stadium they had to steal room from somewhere else. Out here was the best place they could find and still keep it near campus. It used to be a multiuse parking lot for the local museums and science centers, but USC basically paid a fortune to move the parking underground and repurpose the land.
“And there she is,” he said warmly. “Welcome to the Gold Court.”
USC’s Exy stadium didn’t have the same dramatic architecture as the football stadium, but they’d attempted to at least make it complementary with arched gates along the main entryway. Halfway down the northern wall was a narrow parking lot. Half of it was for vendors on game nights, though several of the Trojans made use of it during summer practices. The other half was reserved for the team’s staff and, since there was a door to the locker room there, was fenced in. Jeremy had a key to get in the lot and the keycode for the stadium door, and he ushered Jean in ahead of him.
A short tunnel led them straight to the Home locker rooms. On game nights it was a deafening place to linger since it cut through the outer court where the vendors were. Rather than force the Trojans underground for that part, they simply built steps up and over it inside the stadium, which meant a near-constant stampede overhead until everyone got settled for first serve. Luckily the door at the far end to let them into the locker room helped keep out most of the noise. Jeremy tapped in the code and listened for the resulting beep.
“I could give you the codes, but we’re about to lose access until mid-June,” Jeremy said. “They’re going to deep clean the place and refurbish it. But here we are!”
He took Jean on a meandering tour of the Trojans’ headquarters. The team had separate showers, but the locker room with their gear was co-ed and arranged by line. Jeremy went straight to the backliners’ section and to the locker halfway down. It was empty for now, since Jean’s equipment was still on order, but Jeremy tapped his knuckles to the number freshly pasted to the front.
“Twenty-nine,” he said. “That’s you!”
Jean put his fingers to the number on his face. “It could have been thirty, at least.”
“No,” Jeremy said. “Thirty looks too much like three at an angle. This is a fresh start, right?” He gestured around at the rest of the lockers. “With you we’ll have twelve backliners this fall, but two of ‘em will be redshirts.”
At the sharp look Jean gave him, he shrugged and said, “Exy being an exception to the NCAA rule only worked while we were still trying to get established. Now there’s no legitimate reason the ERC can argue for five seasons, so sooner or later it’s going to get repealed. It works in our favor to implement it preemptively, and it’s good for our freshmen to spend a year just getting used to the reality of college life.
“Same for size, right?” Jeremy asked. “We’ve got all these big teams because we were trying to fill the major leagues and pros, and now we’ve got more athletes than we have places for them. Wonder how long it’ll be until we’re all down in the fifteen to twenty range.” Jeremy cast a look around the locker room, trying to imagine it without the rowdy chaos of his massive team. “Come on.”
There were only a few rooms left: huddle rooms for each line, each outfitted with whiteboards and TVs; a weights room that was more for physical therapy and warmups than daily fitness; the hall the four coaches’ offices were on; and the medical ward, with a communal office for the three nurses and two separate rooms for injured players. One was for intended for quick fixes and checkups, whereas the other had the Trojans’ radiography equipment.
That was where they found Jeffrey Davis. The balding nurse was sitting on his backless stool, a file open in his hands. He looked up at their entrance and squinted at Jean above half-moon glasses.