On
shelves in the dorm room two Huygens Tech Defensive Tackles shared, semi-oganized two-feet high stacks of computer disks sat below two posters: one of Reggie Kinlaw in a Raiders Uniform; one of Jack Youngblood in a Rams Uniform. Simultaneously, on the Friday evening before the Sac Valley game, an email from the Chair of the Math Department had arrived on their separate black-screen-with-glowing-green-text IBM PC clones: "Saturday morning your presence is required...." The place was a storefront in East Palo Alto. where the Math Department was providing tutoring for East Palo Alto High School students in math trouble. The time was several hours after the football team would have left for the Sacramento Valley in chartered buses.
Trading Infocom computer disks after school, the two Huygens Defensive tackles had met as High School Freshmen in a Los Angeles suburb. "We met in the Great Underground Empire," Right Defensive Tackle Darnell Terrell Medina said about his roommate, Left Defensive Tackle Noah Bailey Jones. When they met, Darnell was already playing football, but although as a Freshman Noah's weight was approaching 250 pounds, and he was already over 6 ft tall, it had never occurred to Noah to play football. A few weeks after they met, they were positioned side by side on the line of scrimmage, putting fear into the minds of opposing high school quarterbacks. Go N, go W, go E, or go S: working together -- as if shared play interpretation was second nature to young men weaned on Zork -- they each knew what the other would do.
Neither Darnell nor Noah wanted to let down East Palo Alto kids in math trouble, but there were only two defensive tackles on the Huygens Tech Depth Chart.
"Coach will find us a ride to the Sacramento Valley", Darnell said to Noah.
