05-03-2024, 11:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-04-2024, 01:50 PM by lemonoppy. Edited 1 time in total.)
Big Tractor tugged at the collar of his suit. It fit him about as well as Daisy Dukes would, which is to say- not at all. He was used to this kind of formal wear for occasions that demanded it, like weddings, funerals, old job interviews, but not all day, sitting in an office, typing away at a keyboard that was dwarfed by his hands. Summer jobs for athletes were supposed to be a thing of the past, where the Jerry Quig Jr.s and the Garnt Starrs of the league worked as mailmen and plumbers. Even just forty years ago, white boy podcasting and streaming was the hot way to make some money on the side. That was ancient history, but Big Tractor supposed to white-collar work was probably the next logical step.
His performance on the field had been half-decent this past season, especially for playing at a position as foreign to him as the Mongolian language, to the point where the coaches had begun to think it was his mind above anything else that made for a successful position swap. Why not throw him in the front office? If he could learn a playbook that quick, maybe he could learn how to scout the players of the future. It was extra pay, and he’d get to be close to the practice facility, so it seemed like a good match. Little did he know that, like at receiver, his baby steps would be the most disorienting thing in his life.
From snot-nosed interns insisting they knew more than the pros, to old hands scoffing at the notion of using advanced stats, to nerds who couldn’t contextualize their numbers to the actual game of football, the world of scouting was unlike anything Tractor had ever seen. Arguments roared up then flamed down in a crescendo of draft evaluations: Was this guy a first rounder? A sleeper they could trade down for? Off the board entirely? Each and every day, names moved up and down on the white board, sometimes several times an hour, and what could be common consensus one day turned into a point of bitter disagreement the next.
Despite the chaos, the beast of the front office moved like a machine that, if not well-oiled, had at least learned to go without it for a while. The chaos of the first few weeks wound down as people seemed a bit more agreeable with each other. Thankful that he hadn’t been called out for sitting there like a dump little stump half the time, Tractor got to work looking at what he knew best: the little guys. It wasn’t in the literal sense, though some of the receivers whose tape he saw couldn’t have been a hair over 5’6”, but instead was where they had gone to school. A small-time collegiate player himself, he knew the ins and outs of football at the unheralded universities across the world. With his connections and decent ball knowledge, Tractor could find the diamonds in the rough, the guys to get later on. All was going well until one day, he saw a certain name flash up on the screen.
Big Mower - OT - Texas Farmer’s University - Jr. - 6’10, 412lbs
Big Tractor couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The Mower family and the Tractor family had been ancient enemies in the plains of North-Central Texas. A feud in 1878 had left twenty dead, including Anachronistic Tractor Sr., the patriarch of the Tractor clan. It was a history than was as old as the oil and blood that made up the Texas soil, and the rivalry, while less violent than centuries ago, had not dimmed down. Big Tractor’s pet fish had gone missing when he was seven, and his father swore up and down that it was the Mower’s that had done it. Big Mower himself was said to be the meanest kid this side of the Mississippi while he was growing up. He lit ants on fire, threw mud pies at livestock, and even ate the food off of the plates of his fellow schoolchildren, not giving two damns how hungry they were. He was the type of villain you loved to see fail, but on the football field he had done anything but that.
As he watched Big Mower’s tape, Tractor’s heart sank. The kid was good, probably the best in the entire class. With a dearth of good offensive linemen around the league, it was a near certainty that he was destined for a top-three pick. The only thing that kept him from the heights of the mock drafts and big boards was the fact that only one copy of his game tape existed, and it was playing on the 2005 Dell Dimension that had been assigned to the newest member of the scouting department. As highlight after highlight flashed before Tractor’s eyes, he knew the future of the Mower family, his mortal enemies, was in his hands.
He could just snap the CD whirling away, making a terrible, grinding noise in the drive of this old beast of a computer. Hardly anyone would see it, and those who did would chalk it up to a mistake. Tractor had the reputation of an upstanding leader- he was a team captain, after all- and this was the tape of some nobody playing at a tiny DIII college. It would be lost footage, sure, but it would only be missed by the player’s parents. Maybe in the archives they could just go over tape of the whole game if they really cared all that much. It wasn’t a win-win situation, far from it, but it wasn’t like Big Mower was going to get any eyes on him anyway. This tape, seen only by one, was all that he had.
But… this sort of intrigue and deception was not the way of the Tractor family. Although the Mowers were their indecent enemies, it was a great dishonor to stoop to this kind of manipulation. The Tractors kept themselves on the straight and narrow, never veering off-course, and to do something like this, no matter the stakes, would be a stain on the family. Plus, taking away a talent like him from the league would be all the worse for everyone. The front trenches needed real good talent- Big Mower was that kind of talent, no question about it. It may not feel good, but it would be the right thing to do.
Suddenly, as Tractor internally debated the pros and cons of destroying the tape, he smelled something cooking. He looked down and saw smoke coming out of the Dell Dimension. A second later, the struggling computer, on its last legs, burst in the flames. Tractor’s monitor screen cut out.
“Oh- dammit! I told you that thing couldn’t handle footage!” Screaming Mr. Wozcinski, the assistant head of the KCC Scouting Department. “Hold on, let me grab the fire extinguisher.” The short, tubby man nonchalantly waddled over to the wall, ripped out the closest extinguisher, and sprayed it all over the computer for a good five minutes.
Tractor sighed. “Well, that tape’s all destroyed.”
“A shame” Wozcinski’s voice was obscured some by the sound of the gushing extinguisher. “Well, was it anyone good?”
“A DIII kid. Big lineman. Not bad at all.”
“Oh, was it that Mower kid?” Asked Wozcinski, the streams from the extinguisher slowing down.
Tractor was confused and also a tad scared. Had someone else seen the tape too? “Uh, yeah. Big Mower. Texas Farmer’s University.”
The scouting guru smacked his forehead. “Ope! My bad! Meant to throw that one out. He withdrew his name from the draft. Got some big-money contract to be a wrestler in Japan or Korea or one of those places. Yeah, he’s making bigger bucks there than just about anyone! Still wish he’d have given the league a shot, he could’ve been really good.”
His performance on the field had been half-decent this past season, especially for playing at a position as foreign to him as the Mongolian language, to the point where the coaches had begun to think it was his mind above anything else that made for a successful position swap. Why not throw him in the front office? If he could learn a playbook that quick, maybe he could learn how to scout the players of the future. It was extra pay, and he’d get to be close to the practice facility, so it seemed like a good match. Little did he know that, like at receiver, his baby steps would be the most disorienting thing in his life.
From snot-nosed interns insisting they knew more than the pros, to old hands scoffing at the notion of using advanced stats, to nerds who couldn’t contextualize their numbers to the actual game of football, the world of scouting was unlike anything Tractor had ever seen. Arguments roared up then flamed down in a crescendo of draft evaluations: Was this guy a first rounder? A sleeper they could trade down for? Off the board entirely? Each and every day, names moved up and down on the white board, sometimes several times an hour, and what could be common consensus one day turned into a point of bitter disagreement the next.
Despite the chaos, the beast of the front office moved like a machine that, if not well-oiled, had at least learned to go without it for a while. The chaos of the first few weeks wound down as people seemed a bit more agreeable with each other. Thankful that he hadn’t been called out for sitting there like a dump little stump half the time, Tractor got to work looking at what he knew best: the little guys. It wasn’t in the literal sense, though some of the receivers whose tape he saw couldn’t have been a hair over 5’6”, but instead was where they had gone to school. A small-time collegiate player himself, he knew the ins and outs of football at the unheralded universities across the world. With his connections and decent ball knowledge, Tractor could find the diamonds in the rough, the guys to get later on. All was going well until one day, he saw a certain name flash up on the screen.
Big Mower - OT - Texas Farmer’s University - Jr. - 6’10, 412lbs
Big Tractor couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The Mower family and the Tractor family had been ancient enemies in the plains of North-Central Texas. A feud in 1878 had left twenty dead, including Anachronistic Tractor Sr., the patriarch of the Tractor clan. It was a history than was as old as the oil and blood that made up the Texas soil, and the rivalry, while less violent than centuries ago, had not dimmed down. Big Tractor’s pet fish had gone missing when he was seven, and his father swore up and down that it was the Mower’s that had done it. Big Mower himself was said to be the meanest kid this side of the Mississippi while he was growing up. He lit ants on fire, threw mud pies at livestock, and even ate the food off of the plates of his fellow schoolchildren, not giving two damns how hungry they were. He was the type of villain you loved to see fail, but on the football field he had done anything but that.
As he watched Big Mower’s tape, Tractor’s heart sank. The kid was good, probably the best in the entire class. With a dearth of good offensive linemen around the league, it was a near certainty that he was destined for a top-three pick. The only thing that kept him from the heights of the mock drafts and big boards was the fact that only one copy of his game tape existed, and it was playing on the 2005 Dell Dimension that had been assigned to the newest member of the scouting department. As highlight after highlight flashed before Tractor’s eyes, he knew the future of the Mower family, his mortal enemies, was in his hands.
He could just snap the CD whirling away, making a terrible, grinding noise in the drive of this old beast of a computer. Hardly anyone would see it, and those who did would chalk it up to a mistake. Tractor had the reputation of an upstanding leader- he was a team captain, after all- and this was the tape of some nobody playing at a tiny DIII college. It would be lost footage, sure, but it would only be missed by the player’s parents. Maybe in the archives they could just go over tape of the whole game if they really cared all that much. It wasn’t a win-win situation, far from it, but it wasn’t like Big Mower was going to get any eyes on him anyway. This tape, seen only by one, was all that he had.
But… this sort of intrigue and deception was not the way of the Tractor family. Although the Mowers were their indecent enemies, it was a great dishonor to stoop to this kind of manipulation. The Tractors kept themselves on the straight and narrow, never veering off-course, and to do something like this, no matter the stakes, would be a stain on the family. Plus, taking away a talent like him from the league would be all the worse for everyone. The front trenches needed real good talent- Big Mower was that kind of talent, no question about it. It may not feel good, but it would be the right thing to do.
Suddenly, as Tractor internally debated the pros and cons of destroying the tape, he smelled something cooking. He looked down and saw smoke coming out of the Dell Dimension. A second later, the struggling computer, on its last legs, burst in the flames. Tractor’s monitor screen cut out.
“Oh- dammit! I told you that thing couldn’t handle footage!” Screaming Mr. Wozcinski, the assistant head of the KCC Scouting Department. “Hold on, let me grab the fire extinguisher.” The short, tubby man nonchalantly waddled over to the wall, ripped out the closest extinguisher, and sprayed it all over the computer for a good five minutes.
Tractor sighed. “Well, that tape’s all destroyed.”
“A shame” Wozcinski’s voice was obscured some by the sound of the gushing extinguisher. “Well, was it anyone good?”
“A DIII kid. Big lineman. Not bad at all.”
“Oh, was it that Mower kid?” Asked Wozcinski, the streams from the extinguisher slowing down.
Tractor was confused and also a tad scared. Had someone else seen the tape too? “Uh, yeah. Big Mower. Texas Farmer’s University.”
The scouting guru smacked his forehead. “Ope! My bad! Meant to throw that one out. He withdrew his name from the draft. Got some big-money contract to be a wrestler in Japan or Korea or one of those places. Yeah, he’s making bigger bucks there than just about anyone! Still wish he’d have given the league a shot, he could’ve been really good.”