Buck Duckett CYOA 6B

Duckett was gone. You have no idea what to do.

“Maybe we should still go to that meeting,” you say. “He might pop up there, we can make the bust, clear our names.”

“You’ve got to be out of your mind. Without Duckett we’re dead meatsos, brother,” Moods says.”

“But Duckett’s still out there, still has us dead to rights on the woods pants.”

“Dude, think. What proof do we have that we ever met Duckett?” Moods says.

You think. Nuts. He’s right. Every meeting you had with Duckett was just the three of you. There’s no evidence that you were working for him.”

“Let’s say we go there,” Moods says. Let’s say the NCAA shows up. Now it just looks like a couple of athletes accepting hot pants.”

Moods is absolutely right. You’re momentarily stunned.

“Dude,” you say.

“We probably should have worn a wire,” Moods says.

You decide to hope Duckett is gone for good and the whole thing blows over.

You head to practice but the entire time it feels like your stomach is being wring out like a wet sponge.You can’t focus and miss three easy grimaces. Coach Mansz is enraged and manages to haul a weighted arguing scepter out all the way up to his coaching platform and throw it over the roof of the adjoining Klaus “Moose” House-Moosh Family Indoor Practice Facility but he doesn’t realize that he had managed to entangle his leg in the cord around the scepter while furiously stomping his feet and when the scepter hits a piece of rooftop HVAC equipment and causes it to tumble down the other side of the building he has only a few seconds to bellow “And that’s” before the weight of the scepter and the piece of cooling tower attached to the rope cause him to fly off his platform and halfway up the building where he is stuck upside down and dangling from an ankle. It takes him several seconds to realize that he is not going to die and that he is stuck dangling on the building for him to get even angrier. His face and neck are beaming red like an exit light and his shirt has bunched down exposing a pale belly. He looks like a barber’s pole. It takes nearly 20 minutes to get him down and he is screaming the entire time but when he is freed he just walks off the field in disgust, his obscenities fading out in a doppler effect before he gets in his truck and peels out of the parking lot intending to blare his Locker Room Metal Mixtape ‘84 but today was the day (and in fact a very bad day for this) that “Werewolf” Eddie Tutefetti had decided it would be a funny prank to switch the CD out for his custom “Werewolf Jams” mix so the last thing we all here is Howling Matt Lycanz’s “Ska Werewolf.” You just hear a single scream of “nincompoopery!” as he drives off.

The next day, the entire team is called into a meeting. Coach Mansz has calmed down to his normal level of mild fury and he addresses the team. Next to him is Wump who is smiling the scariest smile you have ever seen. You look at Moods, who looks like he has stepped into a bear trap.

“There’s been a lot of rumors going around lately about pants,” Mansz says, grinding his teeth.

Your stomach begins taking a toes to throat tour of your entire body.

“Well it’s true. The NCAA has a new policy. It’s called NIL: Name, Likeness Image. It says you idiots can get paid. That’s right, some of you sorry jackheads are going to be in commercials. And since this is all legal now, we have already gotten our first official sponsor. This is Reginald “Wump” Marnassasson IV. Big fan of the program. And he’s offered to make you all the face of his new line of pants. Wump looks right at you and winks. You look at Moods and then run over to a wastebasket, where you are sick.

“That’s what I like to see, good hard practice,” Mansz say.

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