Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader Read Free

quarterback, was everything a coach desired in a key player: a great attitude, a strong arm for a ten year old, running the ball he was lightning-quick and could change his direction instantly. Not only that, but as the safety on the defense, he was the team’s leading tackler. Tony had an average arm, was an average runner and was second in total tackles. Where Tony did excel was in his football intelligence.
    While his other teammates struggled with Coach Tiny’s expansive and intricate playbook, Tony had it memorized in a few days and was tutoring Nick Miller on the finer points of the trick plays. He even found a few mistakes that Coach Tiny sheepishly had to correct.
    Coach Paul “Tiny” Meyer was anything but tiny, he stood 6 feet 6 inches, weighed close to 320 pounds and had gigantic forearms with huge tree-like legs. He had been an all-pro offensive left tackle for six years, but played for an overall miserable team that never came close to making the playoffs. He asked, pleaded, begged and demanded a trade to a contending team, but the team owner always refused his requests and, becoming disenchanted with the business of pro football, he retired at the relatively young age of 28.
    Coach Tiny saved and invested his earnings from pro football well, owning several businesses in Dersee such as his downtown restaurant, “Tiny’s” which serves as the popular hangout for most of the people in town, the largest boat marina on Lake Haerr—appropriately named “Meyer’s Marina”— and he just closed a deal to purchase lake-front property in which he planned to build and develop affordable homes for, as he likes to say, “the common folk, you know, like me.”
    But, Coach Tiny’s first love was, and is, football. He also knew that when he was 10 years old and in pee wee football, not in high school, not in college, not in the pros, but pee wee football was the absolute best time he ever had playing the game, just playing football for the pure enjoyment of the game itself.
    Which is why when he retired from professional football and returned to live in Dersee year round, he was stunned to learn that the Dersee Bobcats team was on the verge of being disbanded because the team could not find a volunteer coach for that season and the pee wee league’s rules stated very clearly, “...each team must have a permanent head coach before the start of league play or said team will not be allowed to compete...” In a storybook fashion, Coach Tiny volunteered minutes before the first game, the Bobcats had a perfect regular season, captured the league championship and Coach Tiny became more of a living legend than he already was in Dersee. Now, years later, he was still the head coach, still winning most of his games and crowing to everyone who would listen that he was the Dersee Bobcats’, “Coach for life, baby, coach for life!”
    Heading towards his locker, walking with his head down and shifting his backpack full of books to the opposite shoulder, Tony rounded the corner of the school hallway pondering when it might be safe to go back home and face his mother—
    BAM!
    At the intersection of the main hallway and the student locker hallway, Tony Crowne’s head met Judd Judson’s iron chest with a direct hit. Judd hadn’t been looking either as he swung around his corner, but Tony was much the worse for it, realizing what the phrase “seeing stars” actually meant. For a split-second, Tony did black out as he windmilled his arms and backpedaled furiously to keep his balance, his backpack flying off and bouncing on the floor behind him. Tony almost kept his balance, but his right foot stepped awkwardly on his backpack which was enough to throw him for another loop, land on his back and do a mini-slide down the hallway.
    Judd peered downward, rubbed his chest a few times, scrunched his face, recognized who he ran into and said, “Hey! That kinda hurt! Why don’t you watch where you’re goin’ little feller, I