Give Me My Quarter Back

[Lara Jean Reynolds]

Tag: Isaac Reid

Lara Jean was not on her best mood when she walked on the field. She was informed last minute to go down to the field to meet up with one of the football players. Isaac Reid, was the name. The writer that was supposed to go cancelled last minute and so the assignment was pushed over to Lara Jean. Ugh.

In the short time she had, Lara Jean read over one of the articles that was planned to be published. Apparently the boy Isaac had a big mouth on the field. She already did not like the sound of him.

She tried to find him on the field, but it seemed like the whole football team was training and she had a hard time pinpointing who was who. Even taking pictures did not help. So not to waste time any further, she approached the coach standing at one end of the field and asked for his assistance. "I'm here to talk to Isaac? Isaac Reid?"

[Isaac Reid]

Isaac was on the field practicing his throws, as well as practicing bubble screen plays. He knew someone from the newspaper club was supposed to meet him out on the field to interview him for another article. While he excepted that he would have several interviews with them for the next couple years since he is the quarterback of the football team, for some reason that position always got the most attention. Isaac had asked the ‘leader’ of the newspaper club to work on interviewing other members of the team so they can have a chance in the spotlight he has yet to hear his other teammates say anything about an interview for the newspaper. A part of Isaac was kind of pissed off, it seemed unfair that they wouldn’t be as opened in interviewing the other players; it wasn’t just Isaac on the team.

The Coach looked at the girl with a furrowed brow, “Alright miss”, He looked to the field searching for Isaac’s number, “Hey Isaac! A pretty lady is wanting to see you.” Isaac lobbed the ball in the air to one of the receivers in the end zone, he watched as his teammate was able to catch the ball and score a touchdown. The boy looked over at his coach when he had called him, he wondered who it was, was it Tallulah? Why would it be her, she probably had a class or something. Running over to the coach he saw that it indeed was not his best friend but a girl he did not know.

As he took his helmet off he assumed this girl was for the interview. If she wasn’t his best friend and she wasn’t anyone else he knew, then she had to be here for the newspaper club. “Thanks Coach.” He said as the coach yelled for one of the backup quarterbacks to take his place. “ Hey, so I’m guessing you’re here for the interview? Do you want to head over to the bleachers?” As he said that one of the water boys came over with a water bottle for him. Isaac smiled at him, taking the bottle as he thanked the boy with a fist bump.

[Lara Jean Reynolds]

Her eyes went to the field as the coach called out for Isaac. She saw his throw and was impressed. She supposed he had to be good or he would not be on the team now would he nor would they want to do a story on him.

She gave a small wave as he took off his helmet. "Hi there," she greeted. Thank goodness he knew about the interview, that meant he would have been prepared for it, right? "Yeah, I am and sure, whichever works best for you." Lara Jean turned around and headed for the bleachers.

"Tyson couldn't make it," she started to explain along the way. "He was the one who was supposed to come for the interview?" And probably the one who would be more excited than her. "So erm yeah here I am. Lara Jean." She extended her hand for a shake and offered a small smile.

[Isaac Reid]

Isaac made his way toward the bleachers, taking sips of water as they went. “Well I figured the bleachers would be more comfortable, so we can sit while this went on.” the boy wasn’t sure how long it would take to finish this interview, he kind of hoped it wouldn’t take long so he could go back to practice. He hadn’t gotten this far by doing nothing, he actually liked practice.

A shrugged formed underneath the football player’s padding and jersey. While Isaac did not care who interviewed him, as long as they actually knew football, which was what this story was about? “Yeah he was, is he okay? Nothing bad happened did it?” The boy was of course concerned for Tyson, however, there was also some curiosity on why he couldn’t make the interview. Isaac offered his hand out to the girl to shake hands, however, his hands were probably ice cold considering he had been out here for awhile practicing, and he didn’t like to wear gloves. “Isaac Reid, though I’m assuming you already knew that.”

Once they got to the bleachers Isaac sat down on the second row. He placed his elbows on his legs and let his helmet dangle between in legs as he was holding it by the face mask in his hand. “So, how’s this interview going to go? Are you going to ask me questions and then I answer. Or are we just going to have a lovely little chat?” He assumed each person had a different way of interviewing someone.

[Lara Jean Reynolds]

"Erm yeah he's alright uh," she replied but just as quickly she did, her words did not flow out. To be honest, Lara Jean had no clue as to what happened to Tyson. "I don't know actually," she corrected herself. "I just got a call this morning telling me to go for an assignment cause the other guy couldn't make it. No questions asked." She shrugged. Whatever reason Tyson may have for his absence, it was not important to Lara Jean. She had an assignment and she knew it was then her responsibility to carry it out, despite being informed last minute. Though with the concerned tone Isaac had about the guy, she wondered if he was the kind to get into trouble or something. She did not know Tyson that well, so she was glad he did not ask further about him.

A small squeak escaped the girl. She was wearing fingerless gloves and could feel how cold his hands were. But quickly she played it off as a laugh as he introduced himself. "Yes, uh that's right. That's one thing I know about you. You're Isaac Reid." Oh god, she sounded like she's writing an essay and had ran out of ideas on what to write.

"Well erm I was thinking," she started, taking a seat on the same row he was, "Why don't you tell me something about yourself first and we can go from there? We can start with uh...You're a quarterback right, what makes you so special?" Lara Jean asked the first thing that came to her mind, though not even knowing what a quarterback meant. That question might have given him a clue as to how little her football knowledge was.

[Isaac Reid]

Isaac raised an eyebrow, and here he thought the people in the clubs were quite close to each other. Maybe he was wrong; everyone had their own agenda after all. Isaac did not really care if the boy was in trouble, what he did care about was if the boy was okay as in if he wasn’t sick or hurt. “It’s not usual for people to up and quit an assignment, especially not last minute. Which is why I asked if he was okay.” Maybe Isaac would try to contact him, make sure he was okay. Or maybe Tyson didn’t want to interview Isaac, however, he would think the boy would have declined the assignment from the beginning, but he wasn’t exactly sure how that worked at the newspaper club.

Hearing the squeak from the girl made him realize his hands were probably freezing. “Oh, I’m sorry, I totally forgot about my hands being cold.” He pushed his hands into the warmer which was wrapped around his waist. From the way the girl was already acting made him realize this was going to be a long interview. Not that he was judging her, seeing how this interview seemed last minute for her it would be hard for her to do much research about well him or the football if she wasn’t a fan.

“What makes me so special…” He repeated, looking at the ground. He really wasn’t sure what she meant by the question but he would try to answer the best he could. “Well if you mean what makes me special on the team as a quarterback that’s a long answer…” He looked at her and smiled he had no problem teaching someone about football. “My job is to lead the team, the coach tells me what play we are doing, and I relay that to the team. If I think the play isn’t going to go the way we wanted I will make small changing to it. Like say, we are doing a running play. A running play is where I hand the ball off to the half back, the half back will be standing behind me. Usually the play will say the half back will run to my left or my right. Let’s say in this instance the half back is running to my right, but I noticed the defense has most of their guys lined up to my right to block the half back. I will then motion for the half back to run to my left instead. “ Isaac stopped to take a breath and then started again, “I also make the call on when we start the play, there is usually like 30 seconds to start the play, if we don’t start the play within that time limit my team gets a delay of game flag and we lose yards. I also have to make the call on who I throw to if we are doing a pass play instead of a running play. I’m also usually in charge of keeping the moral up among the team, this is kind of an unspoken job as a quarterback.”

Isaac returned to look at the ground, “However, if you meant what makes me so special as a person, nothing really does. I don’t think I’m an amazing quarterback, but I get the job done, and obviously I’m doing something right if I’m still on the team.”

[Lara Jean Reynolds]

What made him so special? It was the first thing she could think off. For specifics, she was more thinking along the lines of what made him so special that the newspaper team wanted to do a story on him. The school had other sports team with what she assumed would have great players or athletes too, right? So Isaac Reid must have one hell of a personality. Of course that was a question to be directed at the head of the newspaper team and not her interviewee.

Before he carried on elaborating, Lara Jean rummaged through her bag and quickly pulled out a voice recorder - something every journalist would need. It was best not to rely on her memory alone, instead have a soft copy like a backup. She also took out a small note pad and a pen to write down quick notes reminding her to ask him further about it later. All the while he spoke, the girl did not interrupt. She kept her mouth shut and listening, jotting down apparently a lot of things she needed more clarity on.

“Okay uhh,” she said, once he was done, finishing off her last sentence before looking up at Isaac. “So I’ll get back about that special as a person part in a bit but first...” she started, scanning her notes. “A play is another word for game strategy I’m guessing? How many kind of “plays” are there? What’s a half back?” These football players are starting to sound like portions - quarter, half. What even???

“How do you start a “play”? Game flag I presume would be a red flag like that? And what’s losing yards?” There was no denying that Lara Jean was confused.

[Isaac Reid]

Well, Isaac’s response to that was the fact that football was the most popular sport in the U.S. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about this issue, more people are willing to know and understand football, as well as watch it in the U.S than any other sport. The Bellefonte academy was no different. So was Isaac special? No, no he was not. People want to think of him as special but he wasn’t. As for why the quarterback? Because the quarterback has been idolized in movies and T.V shows, it was always the start quarterback you see in those movies or shows, you don’t normally see a movie that is about the star Wide Receiver. In most of Football movies, the main characters were the coach and the quarterback. Isaac was pretty sure there were a lot of interviews that went toward the coach as well.

“Yes, in the lamest terms, a play is another word for game strategy. Basically the play will dictate where all the football players with stand at the beginning, and then where the wide receivers will run, whether they run straight down the field, or cut back, again the wide receivers are typically the main guys who catch the ball. The play also determines if it’s a throwing play, or a rushing play.” Isaac didn’t mind explaining any bit of her questions. The fact that she seemed to be interested in learning, or at least knowing for her article was impressive enough for Isaac. “There’s a lot of different plays, one specific type of play will have many different variations to it. I believe there’s roughly 500 plays? I could be wrong, and I don’t know if that counts the defensive plays or not. But, usually each team have a handful of plays they specialize on, and then they usually stick to those along with the variations of that play.”

“A halfback is just another position in the football team. Usually their job is to run the ball on rushing plays basically. On Rushing plays the quarterback will give the ball off to the halfback and the halfback will then run the ball down the field.”

Isaac took a breath before explaining how a play starts. “Okay. So when a play ends the referee will blow the whistle, this signals the end of the play. Now when the play ends both teams have sixty seconds to start the next play, which means they have to get into position before the end of the sixty seconds. Of course there are exceptions like time outs and going out of bounds, but that’s not important. So, when both teams are in position to start the new play, it’s the quarterback’s job to actually start the next play before the sixty seconds are up. So, it’s really up to the quarterback on how they start the play, it’s not a whistle that is blown, or a flag which is thrown. Hmm, its usually some sort of motion they make, or a set of words they say. Like the most common words are hut hut, or Omaha which became more popular because of Tom Brady. Another way is for the quarterback to raise their leg and then place it back on the ground, which is what I do.”

“Okay, so when the offensive team goes down the field, they are gaining yards, you can tell the yards from the dashes in the middle of the field, now when their a flag on the offensive team, or when the quarterback gets sacked slash tackled or when the half back gets pushed back or stopped before he can gain yards the offensive team loses yards. Yards are just a measurement of distance the offensive team has moved down the field or got pushed back.” Isaac hoped he was explaining all of these things well enough for Lara to understand, and for people who were going to read this article to understand.