Stories about & for us Queers

Chapter 1

He stood by the tunnel entrance, a tall young man with dark wavy hair, coming down just below his ears. His frame of 6 foot 3 inches and well built body belied the grace of such a giant. His eyes, a dark hazel, peered out at the quiet stadium that had brought him to this point in his young adult life.

Todd was only 23 years old, in a few hours he would be boarding a United flight heading to Seattle where he would join several other young men in the July ritual of football training camp. His eyes surveyed the field that was his home for the last few years, where he learnt that being fast, being tall, having good hands, wasn’t a free ride to stardom.

It was here at Nottingham Field, home of the Northern Colorado Bears, that he learnt you measured a man not by just how many catches you made in a game, or by how hard you hit your opponent. It was more of how you handled the cards God had dealt you, how you existed in a world with many preconceived notions and stigma’s.

The haunting look on his face made him look sallow and dangerous. It hid the sparkle that now more than not frequented his eyes. He stood there, just as he had years earlier, the same look on his face, only then it seemed to be a permanent fixture of his. His eyes had that look, his face was thin and pulled in and yet the women always flocked to him at home. There he was the high school hero.. here he was just another freshman trying to make his mark.

Todd shook his head as he saw the same field, the white faded numbers awaiting their spring sprucing up, just as now. A small smile crossed his face now, but then he was terrified. No smile crossed his face back then, he was only just 18 as he stood in this very same spot.

It was like yesterday, he could see himself standing in the tunnel, amazed at the size of the newly built stadium. The freshly constructed $4 million structure was a testament to the alumni’s commitment to a winning football team. That was one reason that he had agreed to coming to Northern Colorado instead of some of the other colleges that had actively recruited him, among them Stanford, Florida State, and even Washington.

Todd leaned against the concrete wall, his hand by his side, the overstuffed suitcase resting by his foot. It was as if he could still hear the roars and shouts of past battles echoing in the dense gray of the concrete. He shook his head, as if to clear it as he was sure he could hear the roar of a grass cutter, and there he was, back in time watching his first awkward movements as he struggled to find himself in his new environment. It wasn’t a sunny day back then, in fact it was rather dreary out, rain was threatening and he had spent all night riding in a bus. He stood in the entrance tunnel to the newly built Nottingham Field, a rumbled lumberjack shirt under a rather tattered windbreaker. His jeans were faded from wear and he knew that for the next 5 years, he would not have much of a chance to do better than what he had on or what was in his rumbled duffel bag.

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