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looking like he hadn’t heard anything to please him.
    “Who is that?” Keith asked.
    Heck shook his head. “Never saw him before.”
    Cody scowled. “That’s Larry Vincent’s dad. He dropped Larry off at practice yesterday.”
    “What’s his problem?” Heck wondered.
    “Beats me,” Keith said, suspecting that he himself might have been the subject of the discussion, argument, or whatever it was.
    Shortly afterward, the coach called the team together. “There’s a point I wanted to mention to everybody before we go to work. I spoke about it yesterday but I’m going to repeat myself, because I don’t want anyone to forget it or misunderstand me on this subject.
    “Everyone makes mistakes in sports. Pros, even all-time greats, do it. So I figure that you’re likely to make some, too, at one time or another. And that’s to be expected. When you make a
physical
mistake — like dropping a ball — well, that’s just one of those things, and there’s no blame attached.
None
. I want each and every one of you to get that clear.
    “The kind of mistake that bothers me is the
mental
kind — the kind that shows that you’re not thinking, or that you’re not thinking like a team player. When that happens, the person responsible is going to hear from me. Count on it. Now, let’s get to work.”
    Once again, the backs and receivers stayed in one group with Coach Bodie while the interior linemen went with Mack. As they grouped up, Heck nudged Keith. “What was
that
about, do you think?”
    Keith shrugged. “Who knows?”
    But he thought that it might have been aimed at Larry and his father … and at him. He figured — and hoped — that the coach was reassuring him and warning Larry.
    In today’s drill, Coach Bodie had one receiver run a pattern while another receiver played defense and covered him. Jason was to throw to Keith with Larry defending, while Keith had to try to stop Larry from catching passes from Billy.
    On Larry’s first effort to get clear, he made a downfield run and an obvious fake to the outside, which Keith ignored. When Larry cut across the field, Keith was with him step for step, and even though Billy’s pass was accurate, Keith got a hand in to deflect it.
    “Good reaction, Keith!” the coach called out. “Larry, watch your fakes. You need to put more movement into them. You can’t just bob your head like that.”
    Larry nodded, looking unhappy. Keith tapped his shoulder. “I was watching your belt buckle, not your head. That’s why I didn’t buy your outside move.”
    Larry mumbled something that might have been thanks, but Keith couldn’t understand him.
    When Keith went down and out for a pass from Jason, he used a stutter-step that froze Larry just long enough for Keith to get free. Jason’s pass, however, was thrown slightly behind Keith, who couldn’t control it to make the catch. As he came back to the group, he noticed Larry whispering to Jason, who smothered a laugh.
    Knowing that the pass had been poorly thrown, Keith was irritated. He couldn’t help wondering if Larry had tried to put the blame for the missed catch on Keith. If so, Jason seemed only too happy to believe that the fault had been with the receiver and not the passer. But maybe he was all wrong, and in any case, Keith didn’t think that he should say anything. He was determined to let his play speak for him.
    As the drill went on, Keith saw that Larry was a step faster than he was, but he made up for it with better coordination and moves than Larry. Though Larry had improved from the previous year, he still couldn’t control his lanky legs that well. Still, Keith thought the two of them were pretty evenly matched.
    Unfortunately, Jason was proving to be a less accurate passer than Billy, sometimes overthrowing and sometimes throwing wide. As a result, Keith caught fewer balls. Keith assumed Coach Bodie would see that the missed passes were largely due to Jason’s arm, rather than his hands.
    But