Nine Straight Over the Sun Devils, and Leo Commits
Cleveland State56
Arizona State21
- Game
- 2035 Week 3
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 3-0
Vikings 56, Arizona State 21, at home. Three and oh.
Thirty-five points of daylight, our ninth straight win over Arizona State, every year since 2027. I’m not writing anything else about Arizona State. They’re lovely. We beat them. It’s a ritual now, like the Feast of the Assumption.
Big news on the porch. Leo Reyes, seventeen, a senior, has committed to play college football. At the small college in Pennsylvania that wrote him the letter last year, the Division III school. He’ll play cornerback. He’ll study engineering. He told us on the porch on Sunday, in front of his parents, his sister, Donna, me and Five, the puppy, who was eating Leo’s shoelace.
Marco cried. Jess cried. Sofia, fifteen, pretended not to cry and then cried. I cried, obviously. Then Leo said, “Coach Mickey, I have something for you.” He handed me a folded piece of paper. It was his first scouting report, the three-page one from 2031, in pencil, the one that said “Tell Sofia.” He said, “You should keep it. You taught me to watch.”
Folks, I’ve framed a lot of things in my life. Scoreboards, jerseys, a card from Chester. This is going on the wall next to all of them.
Four pierogi. One on the plate, and Five ate it.
A thirty-five-point home win over Arizona State. Three and oh. Nine straight in the series.
Leo Reyes is going to college to play football. A small college, he insists. Engineering, cornerback, Pennsylvania. I met Leo when he was six and thought Mickey was a pirate. I’ve watched him become a person over eleven years in this column, and I’d like the record to show that he became a good one.
I sent a note to Sarasota about Leo. My mother read it to my father. She told me he listened, and said, “The cornerback?” And she said yes. And he said, “Tell him it gets less lonely in college too.” My mother wrote it down for me and mailed it. It came Thursday. It’s in the notebook now, glued in, in my mother’s handwriting with my father’s words.
Teresa wants to go to Leo’s first college game next fall. I said Pennsylvania is a long drive. She said, “Kenny, we’ll make it a trip.” Teresa is planning a vacation. I can feel it coming. I can see it in her eyes. I don’t have a strategy for it.
Back and forth
He gave me his first scouting report.
“Tell Sofia.” In pencil. 2031. That’s the best thing anyone’s ever handed you.
Teresa’s planning a trip?
She’s planning something. I’m not asking. I’ve learned that asking just speeds it up.
Nine straight over the Sun Devils, a seventeen-year-old cornerback headed to college with a framed pencil scouting report left behind, and a message from Sarasota that it gets less lonely there too.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.