E-mail back to Arnie:
I love you, man. You're the greatest, Arn. Keep on keeping the vultures at bay. Mighty Panthers rolled today, shut out the Rome Gladiators in a flood. Yours truly was magnificent. If Cray has a broken jaw, then he needs two. Tell him to sue me and I'll file for bankruptcy--in Italy! Let his lawyers chew on that. The food and women continue to astound. Thanks so much for skillfully guiding me to Parma. RD
E-mail to Gabriella:
Thanks for your kind note a few days ago. Don't worry about the episode in Florence. I've been stiffed by better women. No need to worry about future contact.
Chapter 23
The pretty town of Bolzano is in the mountainous northeastern part of the country, in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, a recent addition to Italy that was chipped away from Austria in 1919 by the Allies as a reward to the Italians for fighting the Germans. Its history is complicated. Its boundaries have been rigged and gerrymandered by whoever happened to have the larger army. Many of its residents consider themselves to be of Germanic stock and certainly look like it. Most speak German first and Italian second, often reluctantly. Other Italians are known to whisper, "Those people aren't real Italians." Efforts to Italianize, Germanize, and homogenize the population all failed miserably, but over time a pleasant truce evolved, and life is good. The culture is pure Alpine. The people are conservative, hospitable, and prosperous, and they love their land. The scenery is stunning--ragged mountain peaks, lakeside vineyards and olive groves, valleys carpeted with apple orchards, and thousands of square miles of protected forests. Rick got all this from his guidebook. Livvy, however, piled on the details. Since she had not been to the region, she had initially planned to make the trip. Exams, though, intervened, plus Bolzano was at least a six-hour train ride from Florence. So she passed along her research in a series of windy .e- mails. Rick scanned them as they arrived during the week, then left them on his kitchen table. He was much more concerned with football than with how Mussolini screwed up the region between the wars. And football was plenty to worry about. The Bolzano Giants had lost only once, to Bergamo, and by only two points. He and Sam had watched the film of the game twice and agreed that Bolzano should have won. A bad snap on an easy field goal made the difference.
Bergamo. Bergamo. Still undefeated, the winning streak now at sixty- six. Everything the Panthers did had something to do with Bergamo. Their game plan against Bolzano was impacted by their next game against Bergamo. The bus ride lasted three hours, and halfway through it the landscape began to change. The Alps appeared to the north. Rick sat near the front with Sam, and when they weren't napping, they talked about the outdoors--hiking the Dolomites, skiing, and camping in the lake region. With no children, Sam and Anna spent weeks each autumn exploring northern Italy and southern Austria.
Playing against the Giants. If Rick Dockery had one game to remember in his sad little tour of the NFL, it was against the Giants, on a foggy Sunday night at the Meadowlands, on national television, in front of eighty thousand raucous fans. He was with Seattle, in his customary role as the number-three quarterback. Number one got knocked out in the first half, and number two was throwing interceptions when he wasn't fumbling. Down twenty points late in the third, the Sea hawks threw in the towel and called on Dockery. He completed seven passes, all to his teammates, for ninety-five yards. Two weeks later he was on waivers. He could still hear the deafening roar of Giants Stadium. The stadium in Bolzano was much smaller and a lot quieter, but much prettier. With the Alps looming in the background, the teams lined up for the kickoff in front of two thousand fans. There were banners, a mascot, chants, and flares.
On the second play from scrimmage, the nightmare began. His name was Quincy Shoal, a thick tailback who once played at Indiana State. After the usual stints in Canada and arena ball, Quincy arrived in Italy ten years earlier and found a home. He had an Italian wife and Italian kids and held almost all Italian records for running the football. Quincy rambled seventy-eight yards for a touchdown. If anyone touched him, it would not be evident on the game film. The crowd went berserk; more flares and even a smoke bomb. Rick tried to imagine smoke bombs at the Meadowlands. Because Bergamo was next on the schedule, and because Sam knew they were there scouting the game, he and Rick had decided to run the ball and downplay Fabrizio. It was a risky strategy, the kind of gamble Sam enjoyed. Both felt confident that the offense could pass at will, but they preferred to save something for Bergamo. Since Franco usually fumbled his first handoff each game, Rick called a pitchout to Giancarlo, a young tailback who had started the season as a third- stringer but was improving each week. Rick liked him primarily because he had a soft spot for third-stringers. Giancarlo had a unique running style. He was small, 175 pounds or so, and not muscular at all, and he really didn't like to get hit. He had been a swimmer and diver as a young teenager, and possessed quick and light feet. When faced with imminent contact, Giancarlo often hurled himself upward and forward, picking up additional yardage with each vault. His runs were becoming spectacular, especially the sweeps and pitchouts that allowed him to build momentum before hurdling over tacklers.
Sam had given him the advice every young runner gets in the seventh grade: Do not leave your feet! Lower your head, protect the ball, and by all means protect your knees, but do not leave your feet! Thousands of college careers had been ended suddenly by showy leaps over the pile. Hundreds of professional running backs had been maimed for life. Giancarlo had no use for such wisdom. He loved sailing through the air and was unafraid of a hard landing. He ran eight yards to the right, then flew for three more. Twelve to the left, including four from a half gainer. Rick bootlegged for fifteen, then called a dive to Franco. "Don't fumble!" he growled as he grabbed Franco's face mask when they broke huddle. Franco, wild-eyed and psychotic, grabbed Rick's and said something nasty in Italian. Who grabs the quarterback's face mask ? He didn't fumble, but instead lumbered for ten yards until half the defense buried him at the Giants' 40. Six plays later, Giancarlo soared into the end zone and the game was tied. It took Quincy all of four plays to score again. "Let him run," Rick said to Sam on the sideline. "He's thirty-four years old."
"I know how old he is," Sam snapped. "But I'd like to keep him under five hundred yards in the first half." Bolzano's defense had prepared for the pass and was confused by the run. Fabrizio did not touch the ball until almost half time. On a second and goal from the 6, Rick faked to Franco, bootlegged, and flipped it to his receiver for an easy score. A neat, tidy game--each team had two touchdowns in each quarter. The noisy crowd had been thoroughly entertained. During halftime, the first five minutes inside a locker room are dangerous. The players are hot, sweating, some bleeding. They throw helmets, curse, criticize, scream, exhort one another to step it up and do whatever is not getting done. As the adrenaline slowly settles, they relax a bit. Drink some water. Maybe take off the shoulder pads. Rub a wound or two.
It was the same in Italy as it was in Iowa. Rick had never been an emotional player, and he preferred to hunker in the background and let the hotheads rally the team. Tied with Bolzano, he was not at all worried. Quincy Shoal's tongue was hanging, and Rick and Fabrizio had yet to play pitch and catch. Sam knew when to enter, and after five minutes he stepped into the room and took over the yelling. Quincy was eating their lunch--160 yards, four touchdowns. "What a great strategy!" Sam ranted. "Let him run until he collapses!"