One Shot at Forever by Chris Ballard Page A

Dale Otta, Dean Otta…”
    When McClard finished, he’d read fourteen names. He looked up at the boys. “Is there anyone whose name I didn’t call?”
    In the back, against the wall, Brad Roush raised his hand.
    McClard frowned, then looked down at the paper in his hands. He walked over to Sweet and they had a brief discussion in the hallway After a moment, the two men returned, McClard looking serious and Sweet angry. Then McClard announced that he had bad news: Mr. Roush was not on the official postseason roster that Macon had sent in to the Illinois High School Association prior to the playoffs. He had to report this.
    Heneberry waited for McClard to smile. It had to be a joke, right? Instead, the principal dismissed the boys. Then McClard called Hal Prichard, the Athletic Director at Stephen Decatur, who in turn called the Illinois High School Association (IHSA). Two hours later, the IHSA called back with its decision: Since Roush’s name hadn’t been submitted prior to the playoffs, Macon had won with an ineligible player. The school had to forfeit its victories and exit the tournament. Stewardson-Strasburg, the team the Ironmen had just beat, would face Stephen Decatur in the regional finals that afternoon.
    Sweet gathered the boys and broke the news. He knew it was his role to be diplomatic, to take the school line, but he couldn’t help himself. “This,” he said, “is absolute horseshit.”
    Doug Tomlinson felt like he got hit by a truck. Heneberry was stunned into silence. Shartzer flew into a rage, demanding answers. It was one thing to lose a game, but disqualified? It wasn’t like Brad Roush was some ringer who had just moved to the district. He was a senior honors student who had played baseball his first three years at Macon High. How the hell could a kid like that be ineligible?
    Sweet felt disgusted and betrayed. He knew he’d updated the roster and filed it. What he didn’t know was where along the bureaucratic ladder the roster had stalled, whether it was with Phil Sargent—the school’s well-meaning athletic director—or perhaps at another administrator’s office. He also couldn’t help but wonder about the timing. Why would McClard decide to recheck a logistical item on this, the morning of the team’s biggest game, then report it himself? Sweet was pretty sure he knew why.
    Sweet felt the worst for the seniors. That evening, he drove to Doug Tomlinson’s house, near Elwin. For two hours, he, Doug, and Doug’s parents sat in the kitchen, commiserating. Sweet told them how sorry he was. How he felt like it was his fault. How he felt powerless. All of them were angry, but none knew how to channel that anger. When they’d said all they could, Sweet took his leave.
    Meanwhile, across town at the Jesse house, Jeanne was standing in the kitchen with her mother when one of her sisters came running into the house, crying. It was Lou Ann, who was dating Shartzer at the time. “The team’s been disqualified,” she sobbed, then sprinted upstairs to her bedroom. Jeanne’s heart sank. A couple hours later, she heard the throbbing of a motorcycle engine outside the house.
    Jeanne walked out into the night to see Sweet on his Triumph Bonneville, looking strangely vacant-eyed.
    â€œWanna go to Decatur?” he asked. “I need to get out of here.”
    It was the first time Sweet had invited Jeanne to his place in Decatur. She knew he must be taking it hard.
    They roared through the darkness, past the silhouettes of cornfields, until they reached Decatur and the small, run-down house where Sweet was renting a room. He dropped his stuff and then slumped into a chair. There, he told her what had happened: how McClard had delivered the news, how crushed the boys had looked. Jeanne remembers Sweet as “reeling” and “inconsolable.”
    She suggested they go see the Shartzers or the