Mike Lupica - Lone Stars

C LAY WAS A WIDE RECEIVER, the best on the Stars, probably the best in the Pee Wee Divisionthere wasnt a player on the team who didnt hate that nameof San Antonio Pop Warner, the division for kids between ten and twelve.

In the words of David Guerrero, whose job it was to get the ball to him, when it came to football, Clay Hollis was serious.

He wasnt the biggest receiver they had. But he was big enough, with hands and speed to match, and with the gift that Coach Coop said the best receivers had to have: the ability for finding a seam in the defense a couple of steps before it opened up for him. Coach Coop had been a wide receiver at TCU himself, then drafted as one by the Cowboys, even though hed become more famous laterClay knew by reading up on himfor being a total maniac on special teams. But he knew that sometimes it took more than speed and good moves to get you open downfield. You just had to be born with the ability to see the field; see things that were about to develop before they actually did; see even the smallest patch of green waiting for you, whether it was in the middle of the field or a place on the sideline, where youd have enough room to make a catch and keep your feet inbounds.

Sometimes that meant busting a pattern when Clay would look back and see that David Guerrero was scrambling away from a pass rush, something David could do with the best of them.

It was another thing Clay had going for him. He knew where he needed to go when he had to make up a brand-new pass pattern on the fly, like when he and David were playing touch football on the big stretch of lawn behind Clays house. Clay knew where he needed to be, and David knew where to look for him. From the time theyd first started playing catch together, it was as if they were able to hack into each others brains, no problem.

But the problem today wasnt fixing a busted pattern. It was a simple crossing pattern over the middle, third and eight, first quarter of a still-scoreless game against the River Walk Lions. That was when Clay got hit, and his day changed, just like that. He loved reading about sports and sports history, not just football, and remembered reading one time about how Mike Tyson, the boxer, said everybody had a plan until they got hit.

Bobby Flores, a friend whod moved out of the east San Antonio school district last summer, was guarding him. But Clay had made a neat inside move as soon as hed cleared the line of scrimmage and gotten a step on Bobby. All he needed.

That wasnt Clays problem, either.

His problem was that David Guerrero, with all the time in the world in the pocket, led Clay by too much with his pass. Not a lot. But it didnt take much to blow up what should have been a simple completion, make what should have been an easy-as-pie completionand a sure first downinto something harder.

A whole lot harder.

Hard, as Clay had heard plenty of times already this season, as his old coachs head.

When the ball was halfway to him, Clay started to think it wasnt just a bit of an overthrow, but might be completely out of his reach. Unacceptable. Totally. You wanted the ball or somebody else wanted it more. That was something else he had heard from Coach Coop plenty of times. So at what he thought was the exact right moment, Clay extended his arms and himself as much as he could, almost as if he were diving for the ball without his feet leaving the ground, just because he thought he might have a better chance of collecting the ball and holding on to it if he didnt have to worry about coughing it up when he hit the ground. Or the ground hit him.