When I arrived at CSCS, I found out right away that myself and most of the football players I was around most of the time, were all outcasts in most cases. At Coronado, the “in” crowd was the football team and their friends most of the time. I wasn’t used to being looked at like an outsider, by most students, teachers and administration. I had my comfort zone however, those like the coaches, players and some of the other non-athletic outcasts, but it was very different from what I had become used to over the previous two years. Academically I was in a bad spot also, not being a very good student in public school, set me up for failure as a student in private school. Laziness and an entitled attitude made the academic challenge at CSCS very difficult for me to get used to as well, and as Mr. Boucher will tell you, I gave up on completely a lot of the time. A student who shared my history class with Mr. Boucher at one point came up with Indian names for everyone in that class, and I was, “chief sleeps a lot,” nice one, Trevor. I never really connected with any of my teachers, all except for three, that were not football coaches because I had a natural connection with Mr. Young and Mr. Poirier. I really liked three other teachers though, Mr. Boucher made a great effort to help me at least pass his class, Mr. Shubert was great, and also one of my coaches, and probably my favorite teacher…… Mr. DeKorn. I guess you could say that the teachers that had me in their class were ok, all except for Mr. McGinnis! He was the worst teacher, in my opinion, that I had ever come across to this day, and it was mostly the other teachers in the school, along with most administrators, other than Mr. Babbit, whom I really liked, that didn’t like me very much. But that is neither here nor there, I did ok, and nothing really mattered to me at that point outside of football.
On the first day of school, as I was going through my classes, meeting all the teachers and my new classmates, I was in an awkward mood, due to my academic history I was in classes at sophomore and freshman level. I was especially grumpy at having to be in freshman math, but that all changed when I saw Jennifer Fowler right across the room in Mr. DeKorn’s math class. I was awestruck! I had nothing to say, and it was harder to pay attention than it was in my other classes, and that is saying something because I was a wanderer. She was wearing a green shirt. Her hair was curly, long and flowing, falling over her shoulders. Beautiful.
She was a freshman, and I was a junior, which in some chapters of the, “High School Cool Book,” was a no-no, but I didn’t really act within the confines of the rules on almost anything, so why should this be any different? The one thing, in all my years of school, that was different in this situation was that I was actually scared to talk to her. I don’t know if it was her friends that she was always around, or everyone else watching, or the possibility of rejection which hadn’t been a worry of mine in years past, because I usually didn’t care that much, but for some reason this time was hard, and I never actually talked to her the entire year I was at CSCS. Every time I got the chance I watched her volleyball games, and countless times did I stare at her as she walked through the hallways, never being too conspicuous. I didn’t want anyone to know how badly I wanted to take out this “girl of my dreams”, which is what she was. Instead of asking her out, or to a banquet, or anything like that, I spent time on a couple of girls that I really wish I hadn’t, and I won’t mention any names, but they know who they are. Jennifer actually had to be the one to make contact the first time, because I left my phone number in her year book, and she called shortly after the school year was over. I had made it through the year, almost passing all my classes. I failed Mr. McGinnis’s Biology class, and that changed a great many things for me. I was stripped of my captain hood on the football team because I had failed a class, and going into my senior year, that was enough to make me leave the school. That and a couple of parents that would have taken their daughter out of CSCS if I returned for another year, but I’ll get to that. I got a phone call from Jennifer a few weeks later, and that is where the story really picks up, because it would be one of the greatest and most memorable times of my life.
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