Norfolk, a Navy Town, and Leo's First Real Scouting Report
Cleveland State49
Old Dominion13
- Game
- 2031 Week 3
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 3-0
Vikings 49, Old Dominion 13, in Norfolk. Three and oh.
A new opponent, a new city, a Navy town on the water, and a thirty-six-point road win. That’s the thing about this team, folks: it travels. East coast, west coast, Texas, the mountains. Our guys show up, they play, they get back on the plane. My father worked thirty-one years at the mill and he used to say the best workers are the ones who show up the same way on a Tuesday as on a Friday. This team shows up the same way in Norfolk as in Athens.
Leo Reyes is thirteen now, in eighth grade, in his second year as my assistant coach. And this week he did something I didn’t teach him. He scouted. He found film of the other parish team, the Bobcats (yes, they’re still called the Bobcats), watched it on his mother’s laptop, and wrote a report. In pencil. Three pages. Page three said: “Their quarterback looks left before he throws right. Every time. Tell Sofia.”
Sofia, our eleven-year-old quarterback-turned-safety, read it, nodded, and intercepted that quarterback twice on Saturday. Twice! Sofia handed me the ball after the second one and said, “Tell Leo it worked.” Leo was standing right there. He said, “I know it worked. I wrote it.”
Four pierogi. One for the Reyes Scouting Department.
A thirty-six-point win at Old Dominion. Three and oh, by a combined one hundred sixty-four points. I’ve stopped adding the scores up because the calculator needs rest.
Leo Reyes emailed me his scouting report. Three pages, scanned crooked. I’d like to say, as a man who’s built spreadsheets for twenty years, that it’s better than the Doom Model. It’s shorter, it’s clearer, and it was right. The Doom Model has never written “Tell Sofia.” It should.
Trivia: we’ve had a new member since spring. Teresa now comes on Tuesdays, since ballroom moved to Thursdays. In her first week she answered every medical question and two about the Golden Age of Hollywood. We finished first. First. Nadia rang the bell three times and then just stared at the plaque that says “Most Consistent Team (Defending).” She asked if we should take it down. Teresa said, “Leave it. It’s character.”
Back and forth
Leo’s report was three pages!
He emailed it to me. I’ve printed it. It’s going in my files under “people better at this than me.”
First place at trivia!
That’s Teresa. I contributed the answer “regression to the mean.” The question was about our team’s name.
A Navy town handled by thirty-six, a thirteen-year-old’s three-page scouting report proven right twice, and a trivia team that finally won because Ken brought a nurse.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.