Outside of Willits, noisy conversation in the bus subsided. Noah and Darnell were sharing a yard sale-acquired “Weapon and Mech Recognition Guide” from the vintage Infocom game Battletech. River was studying the Humbold game plan. Looking out the window as the bus moved from town to forest, Griff was thinking about Ted, Theodore Sinclair Treharne, last seen in 1942 in Army uniform on his way to a distant Front. As far as anyone so far consulted knew, Ted had never returned.

At a Hollywood bar, one dark rainy night, former Giants linebacker Brad Van Pelt, who was spending senior years crunching opposing offenses for the Raiders, told a story. The story Van Pelt told was about the World War II era Giants All-Pro Tackle, Al Blozis, who died fighting with Patton's Third Army in the Battle of the Bulge.

A week after he played for the Giants against the Packers in the 1944 NFL Championship Final, Second Lieutenant Al Blozis departed for Europe in an Army uniform. Blozis was 6'6 tall, and he weighed about 245. He was so big that although he wanted to fight with the Allies, the Army repeatedly rejected him -- until late in the war, they changed the rules.

In the Vosges mountains in France, not far from the German border, Blozis was on a scouting patrol when two of his men went missing in the deep snow, and he went in search for them. He never returned. In late January 1945, he was listed missing in action; late in April, his body was found.

arow The Huygens bus drove through Willits. Halfway to Humboldt County, they would soon be stopping for lunch in Ukiah at a roadside restaurant known to Athletic Manager, Akoni Alualu. In the back of the bus, Wide Receiver, DeJuan Marlon Achebe, was passing his thermos bottle to Cornerback Terrell Orsino Washington.