"You took some pretty nasty hits out there," the trainer said as he cut the tape from Joe’s body. "I’m going to make it tighter for the second half," he muttered to himself, grabbing the roll of tape.

Joe nodded absently, all his attention focused on Coach Tanning. The coach hadn’t said a word since entering the room; he didn’t need to. His body language was getting his feelings across loud and clear. He reminded Joe of a tiger stalking its prey; prey that was cornered with no way out. The coach glowered at his players as he paced in front of them, gripping the clipboard in his hand so tightly Joe expected to hear it snap any second. Abruptly Tanning stopped pacing. He threw the clipboard across the room where it hit the wall and fell to the floor.

"I have never been so ashamed of, or humiliated by, any group of players as I am right now," he said, his voice shaking with anger. Turning to the upperclassmen, he pointed directly at the worst offenders. "You are an embarrassment to the uniform, the team and the school. Every single one of you is playing a team sport. You are wearing team colors." He stopped and made eye contact with each one of them.

"A team player doesn’t leave their quarterback open and unprotected. A team player doesn’t give only fifty or sixty percent. A team player doesn’t drop a pass that a player in the pee-wee league could catch with his eyes closed." Tanning stopped and moved closer to the players, his voice accusing. "A team player doesn’t sabotage their own quarterback. You don’t have to like your teammates, but if you want to play on my team you damn well better protect them and play as a team."

Joe felt a shiver run down his spine and he wasn’t even the object of the coach’s anger!

"If you people think I’m going to sit back for two more quarters and watch a repeat of what happened in the first half, you are sorely mistaken. I don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, but the only thing you’ve managed to do is make fools of yourselves and embarrass your school." He took a deep breath, appearing to have exhausted his burning anger. "We’re only down by a field goal. Imagine how far ahead we would be, if all of you had played to your fullest ability." When he resumed speaking, his voice was that of a coach trying to instill confidence in a shaky team.

"I’ve coached all of you at one time or another so I know what you’re capable of. We just might be able to win this game, but only if you play as a team. And even if we don’t win, if you choose to pull together and give your teammates one hundred and ten percent you’ll still come away from tonight’s game with something a lot of you haven’t had in a long time… self-respect." Leaning against the wall, he stared at the players waiting for some kind of response.

It was almost a full minute before Paul Corby broke the uncomfortable silence. "Coach, can you leave us alone for a few minutes? You know, players only…"

Tanning looked at the trainer who was just pulling Joe’s jersey back into place and nodded. "You have two minutes." He motioned for the trainers and other personnel to follow him out of the room.

Whether intentional or not, the players had divided themselves into two ‘camps’ upon entering the locker room – juniors and seniors on one side, freshmen and sophomores on the other. Paul turned and addressed the upperclassmen.

"You all know I never participated in any of the hazing that went on. That’s on your heads; you have to live with it. But even though I never laid a hand on any of the underclassmen, I knew it was happening – and did nothing to stop it. I can’t go back and change that but I can stop what’s going on tonight." Paul walked to the training table where Joe still sat and stood behind it. "Joe has been sacked more times than any other quarterback that I can remember. He’s been left open and unprotected, but despite being sabotaged by his own teammates, he has been able to keep us in this game."

"Well if he’d kept his mouth shut and taken it like the rest of us did, he wouldn’t be getting sacked at all," a voice from somewhere in the pack of upperclassmen responded.

Joe could feel Paul shift behind him and tense up. "What, just because none of us had the guts to stand up and say ‘This is wrong, I’m going to put a stop to it.’ means no one else can? Did you enjoy getting beaten up in front of your teammates every day? Did you like being humiliated on a daily basis for almost a year?" Paul spat out. "How many of you vowed that when you became a senior, you weren’t going to put the freshmen through that? I know most of you did, because we talked about it. We talked about how we were going to be better than the seniors who tormented us, but we weren’t. If anything we were worse. I have two younger brothers who are gonna be attending Bayport High in a few years. I don’t want either of them to go through what I did." He straightened up to his full height, looking down on his teammates.

"From here on out, I’m standing behind my quarterback – one hundred percent. That means I’m going to protect him from players who oppose him, no matter what team they are on. And that goes for the rest of the freshmen on our team. I want to be a leader they can look up to, not one they are afraid of." Paul stopped for a beat, eyeing his classmates evenly. "If you agree, you can join me. If you don’t, well, you may be wearing the colors of Bayport High, but you’re definitely not on my team. That would make you an opposing player. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to go home tonight with my self-respect in tact."

Joe felt his eyes grow wide, stunned at Paul’s speech and the implied threat behind it. A movement to Joe’s left caught his eye. He saw Biff and Chet stand and walk behind the table, smiling all the way. Following their lead, the freshman and sophomores quickly joined them. Seconds later several juniors and a few seniors were standing behind the training table. Moments later, Joe was staring at an empty bench – the entire team now squeezed solidly together behind the training table, and behind Joe.

*****

Frank sat in the student section of the bleachers next to Callie, fidgeting nervously. Callie had positioned herself so close to him that he could feel her warmth. Yet Frank couldn’t enjoy the moment; he’d seen the way Joe had been sacked repeatedly. After almost every play he’d taken some kind of hit, been pushed, tripped or shoved, sometimes by his own teammates. He couldn’t help but worry that the relentless punishment had seriously aggravated Joe’s existing injuries.

"You’re worried about Joe, aren’t you?" Callie’s soft voice broke into his worrisome thoughts.

Frank smiled wanly. "I’m the older brother. Comes with the territory."

"From what I saw last night, Joe’s a pretty tough kid."

"That’s the problem. Sometimes he’s too tough for his own good." Frank frowned.

"It looks like the coach and the trainers were keeping a pretty good eye on him. I think they’d at least suspect if he’d gotten hurt. Coach Tanning isn’t at all like Coach Miller was. Winning games always comes second to the welfare of his players."

Frank quirked an eyebrow and smiled questioningly. "How would you know that?"

"After you dropped me off last night, I got online and did some research on hazing. I had no idea how widespread it was! Not just in colleges and high schools but junior high too!" Callie shifted closer to Frank, her eyes lighting up. She began speaking faster, becoming more animated as she shared the idea that had come to her late the previous evening.

"As soon as I got to school this morning I met with Mrs. Gellnar. She’s the advisor for the school newspaper. I told her I wanted to do an article on hazing in general and an expose, of sorts, on what’s been going on here at Bayport High," Callie replied, her voice rising with excitement. "After I told her what happened with Joe, she was all for it. So I started getting background information on both coaches."

Frank stared at her, stunned. "You… you did that just because of what happened to Joe?"

Callie blushed. She and Joe hadn’t hit it off at all. But watching the way Frank treated him, how worried he’d been the previous evening, made her realize Joe was just as vulnerable as he was tough. Something he seemed to desperately want to hide – from everyone. She still thought Joe was arrogant, stubborn, hard-headed and annoying but after seeing what he was willing to go through to make sure no other kid would be harassed she couldn’t deny that she too found herself wanting to look out for him. And doing this series of articles, making sure Joe was cast in a positive light would do just that.

"Well, yeah," she admitted, quickly amending it. "But it’s also a great investigative story in itself. I mean most people think hazing is harmless fun. Maybe a long time ago it was, but now it’s turned violent. What happened to Joe is proof of that. Hazing is about abusing power and violating human dignity. It’s about victimization and it’s happening more and more at the high school and junior high levels. Kids that age are so vulnerable to peer pressure; they just want to belong."

Frank stared, astonished at the amount of research Callie had already completed on the subject and the passion with which she approached it. He also felt a chill – she had just described Joe to a ‘T’. He didn’t want Frank to get involved in the problem for fear he’d look ‘weak’ in front of his teammates. ‘Peer pressure,’ he thought, grateful Joe had figured out his self-esteem was worth so much more. Frank nodded at Callie, encouraging her to continue, not wanting to interrupt and put a damper on her enthusiasm.

"I found a study done on college athletes. About half of them had been hazed in high school and many of them talked about being depressed and suicidal. Thirteen percent said they actually thought about revenge," she shuddered, subconsciously inching closer to Frank. "Another study found that while eighty percent of those questioned said they had been forced to participate in dangerous or humiliating activities that fit the definition of hazing, only twelve percent said they had been hazed." Callie stopped, a sadness clouding her pretty features. "The worst part is even when hazing is uncovered, sometimes even when the perpetrators are facing criminal charges, the school system – from the superintendent on down – try to whitewash it. They insist it was just ‘boys being boys’ and things were ‘blown out of proportion’. We’re very lucky here that the administration isn’t sticking their head in the sand." She smiled up at Frank. "I guess they knew that wouldn’t fly given who your father is."

"Yeah, there are times when being Fenton Hardy’s son is a big plus," Frank agreed. "Although we have a great principal here. I think he would have taken it seriously no matter who had brought the problem to his attention."

"True," Callie responded, chewing on her lip in a way Frank thought was absolutely adorable. "I think I’ll do a whole article from that angle. How lucky we are here at Bayport High to have a principal like that; and a JV coach whose first concern is his players and who was willing to jump in and take over a potentially volatile situation."

Frank was about to respond when a roar went up from the crowd. He quickly turned his attention to the field, where the Bayport High team was running out onto the field. They were yelling, jumping, high-fiving each other and doing their best to get the crowd pumped up for the second half. Callie nudged Frank and smiled pointing to the player who was leading the team down the field towards their bench – it was none other than Joe Hardy.