Coach Wilson was not a boy, any more than I was.

Pete's Vagina
71. Taking the Hit
Erin Halfelven

Wearing my gray practice jersey, I scrambled with the other football players running a sprint to the far end of the field, where Coach Wilson waited, waving his clipboard. I tried not to think of him as Spike, which nickname Coach Debbie had let slip only minutes ago.

No one called him Coach Raymond, though I knew that was his first name, just as no one called the cheerleading coach Tolliver, her last name. It was a weird sort of sexism I had never noticed before. Had I?

Then again, getting closer, I really looked at the guy. Wilson must have been in his late thirties but still trim and, I guess, buff. Muscular but not like a weightlifter. A high forehead, light brown hair, hazel eyes, tanned and healthy, and sort of tough, like a middleweight boxer. I almost stumbled. Good lord! The man was pretty hunky!

For an older guy, I thought, trying to put the brakes on. Had I never looked at Coach Wilson as an attractive male before?

Nope, I decided, feeling my face get warm. This was new. I looked around at my team members. They were all larger than me, but they were boys. Coach Wilson was not a boy, any more than I was.

Trying not to think of that, I noticed something else. I used to be the fastest member of the team in any sort of sprint. But right then, once we passed 40 yards or so, Go-Go and Upsteen and one other guy were overtaking me. I concentrated on running but still came in third in the unofficial race.

I pulled up to a stop and put my hands on my knees, breathing deep and glaring at Coach like it was his fault. “They got the jump on you from the start, Pete!” he said, grinning.

“Damnit,” I panted. I knew what the problem was: wider hips took more effort to get back around in front, and both Go and Up had longer legs than I did. But Wilson seemed to be implying that I still could beat them if I got a good jump.

After all, I did have the Arizona High School record for girls’ 60-meter sprint, which I had won last year in track. Didn’t I?

While I was catching my breath and working out the timeline, Coach nodded toward the bleachers, “Let’s talk over there for a minute, Pete.” He started that direction, and after a moment, I followed him, realizing slowly that as Gayle, I was easily faster than other girls. Old boy Pete had never set a state record in the 60-meter, though I had come close.

I think I sort of stumped over to where Wilson had perched on the bleachers, a row or two up. I might have been scowling because he said something that got under my skin. “Oh, don’t pout about some race that doesn’t mean anything, Pete,” he said. “But that kind of has something to do with what I want to talk about.”

“Huh?” I said, plopping down on the lowest bench and not turning to look up at him. I definitely had not been pouting.

“You’ve gotten the hang of catching the ball pretty good,” he said. When someone leads off what they are saying with a compliment, it’s usually a bad sign. I lifted my head and turned enough that I could just see his face at the edge of my vision, otherwise continuing the look at the field, which the week of Halloween, was about as green as grass ever gets in the High Desert of the Mogollon Rim Country.

“The idea of you catching a few passes just to change things up from the other teams expecting you to run it was mine.” He paused. “Now I’m not so sure….”

“Huh?” I repeated. I pulled my legs up to push me onto a higher bench so I didn’t have to turn my head so far to keep him in view.

“Receivers take harder hits than running backs usually do,” he blurted out.

My neck popped when I turned half around to look at him. “Really? Why would that be so?”

He nodded, a bit glumly. Wow. He had a four o’clock shadow that might be two or three days old. It looked interesting.

Distracted, I almost missed part of his explanation. “A running back usually knows when they’re going to get hit. You especially, you’ve got situational awareness, and that gives you the opportunity to dodge or brace yourself or fall away from the hit.”

“Uh, huh,” I agreed, trying to work out where he was going with this.

“Pass receivers have to keep their attention on the ball coming at them; in those split seconds, they can’t really be ready to evade, deflect or control how they fall.”

I blinked, taking that in.

“It’s brutal,” he said flatly. “You could get hurt.”

“Ah, shit, Coach! I haven’t noticed any of this kind of thing happening in practice. Sure, I get tackled and I fall down, but that’s why we wear this padding and all.”

He made a smacking noise and glanced away from me. At the far end of the field, Coach Debbie led the cheerleaders in a high-stepping dance. Maybe he was looking at her.

I started to try to reassure him that I could handle the assignment when he turned back to face me and snapped, “I just found out the guys are all going easy on you in practice.”

“I—what? No, I don’t think so!”

“They keep thinking they might hurt you! As a runner, you seldom give them the chance to make the really vicious sort of tackles I’m worried about. Fuck!”

Wilson never said words like that on the field, and now I realized just how worked up about this he was.

“Pete,” he continued. “They’re holding back, giving you maybe a quarter second more than they would anyone else, to get ready, to take the hit, to avoid it or at least fall well!”

I felt my eyes stinging. “Because I’m a girl?” I felt my voice go into a squeaky range I usually tried to avoid.

“Yes,” said Coach. “Yes, Pete, because you’re a girl.”

I stood up and turned away from him so he wouldn’t see if there were tears in my eyes.

Next chapter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/petes-vagina-72-134859343