It is almost midnight on Oct. 15, 1999.

A 17-year-old kid is sitting beneath the goalposts at Ed Harvey Field in Essexville, Mich. A town of 4,000 is on his left. Cornfields are on his right. He is thinking.

Hours before, he had played the game of his life. Of the 25 passes he threw, 20 were caught. Two were dropped. Two-hundred fifty-six yards. One touchdown. No interceptions. Everything he hoped for in his last home game.

Except that his team, the Garber High School Dukes, lost. They always lost. They stunk.

Afterward, the kid showers, leaves the locker room last, limps to his parents’ car, and drives home. Three whole blocks.

He eats warmed-over pizza and watches the 11 o’clock news with his dad. “BIRCH RUN 40, GARBER 37” flashes on the screen. The kid frowns. “I’ll be back later,” he mumbles to his dad.

He drives three blocks again. He squeezes back through the gate, onto the field where he grew up. He sits under the goalposts. And thinks.

He wonders about football, about college, about his girlfriend, about his future—stuff 17-year-old boys think about on rare occasions they allow themselves to.

His applications are out. Mom wants him to go to Michigan, maybe Northwestern, because they’re close. Dad thinks he should give Division III football a shot. His guidance counselor says he has a chance to get into an Ivy League school.

He doesn’t really know what he wants. He’s 17.

Then he closes his eyes. At last, clarity. “I’m going to keep playing football,” he tells himself. “I have to. I love it too much. Wherever I go, I’m going to play.”

So that was it. He was going to play four years of football. That was The Plan.

Well, a couple months later, a big package arrives from Cambridge, Mass. Today, four years later, he graduates.

Somewhere in between, the kid realized he was 5’8 and slow. He never did play college football. So much for The Plan.

The press box beckoned.