People Love Those That are Successful

Messina High School football before Eddie Rake came to coach there was pathetic, as the team had a losing record before his arrival and it was considered by many in the town to be a rather successful season. Once Rake came in, winning was everything. He would not play kids that weren’t going to work hard and execute every small detail of a play and learn the fundamentals of football. This attitude along with his grueling, physical idea of the way football should be played created a winning trend in Messina’s friday night games, and people would love Rake for the 34 years of success he brought the town.

 Heroes Are Easily Forgotten

In Messina High School football, many of the best players of each team are treated like heroes during their playing days, only to be forgotten or ignored after a mistake or two off the field later. Neely Crenshaw was an arrogant all-American quarterback. Once he had gone to Tech, he was the biggest name ever in Messina, viewed by everybody as the next Heisman winner and NFL caliber quarterback. A late hit from an A&M player ended this promising career, and he would never play football again. Suddenly those that surrounded him during his playing days were nowhere to be found and he had to live a different life from the one he lived for those 5-6 years of short lived fame. Another player this happened to was Jesse Trapp; Jesse had broken every Messina weight lifting record worth mentioning, and was a monstrous football player who seemed destined to play in the NFL. After a few drugs and a prison sentence, he was abondoned by just about everybody and would fester in prison for 28 years with rare visits from anyone.

People Make Stupid Decisions

The novel Bleachers is full of mistakes and stupid decisions that people make. One would be Neely’s decision to dump his high school love, a girl named Cameron, for a more “easy” girl that went by Screamer in his sophomore year of high school. This decision ruined his chance with Cameron, and he never forgave himself for the way he did it,  simply embarrassing Cameron in the process. Another dumb decision was Coach Rake’s actions during the halftime of the ’87 state championship game, in which he walked up to Neely and started a fight with him. Though the game ended in a victory nonetheless, Rake could never forgive himself for being so radical in his actions that night.