As the Stars’ kickoff team lined up, the crowd anticipated the onside kick, knowing the Stars had to regain possession of the ball. The onside kick was a maneuver Dan had forced the players to practice hundreds of times during the season, until they could perform it flawlessly. But this wasn’t a practice, and the other team knew that short, potentially lethal kick was coming.

Phoebe glanced over at Dan. He looked fierce and wonderful.

The ball rotated with a crazy spin as it came off the side of the kicker’s foot. It barely traveled the required ten yards before it hit the hands of a Sabers’ halfback. He tried to hold onto it, but couldn’t. Elvis Crenshaw blasted him.

It was anybody’s ball, and twenty-two men dived for it. Helmets cracked and the men’s snarls were audible on the sidelines even through the screams of the crowd.

The whistle blew and the refs began pulling off players. Phoebe dug her fingers into Webster’s arm.

One by one the men got up—Stars, Sabers—until there were only two players left on the ground, one in a sky blue jersey and one wearing crimson.

Dan gave a jubilant yell.

The Sabers’ player staggered up, leaving only Darnell Pruitt clasping the football.

The crowd noise was deafening. Darnell jumped up and threw his arms in the air. The Stars had recovered the ball on their own forty-eight yard line.

0:44

Dan slapped Biederot on the back as he ran onto the field. On the first play, Jim completed a pass to the forty-two.

0:38

The Sabers’ defense, anticipating that the passing attack would continue, set up deep to protect against the bomb. Instead, they were suckered in by one of the sweetest running plays Dan had ever called. First and ten on the twenty-two.

0:25

The Stars’ next two passes were incomplete, and Phoebe tried to prepare herself for defeat.

0:14

Biederot called for their remaining time-out and raced over to Dan on the sideline. They engaged in a furious dialogue. Jim ran back out.

The atmosphere in the dome was electric. As the teams lined up, Phoebe looked at the scoreboard. It was third down and they were twenty-two yards away.

Jim threw another incomplete pass.

0:08

Dan signaled wildly as the players rushed back into formation. But instead of the field goal that could bring them a tie and put them into sudden death, the Stars were going for a touchdown. Fourth down and twenty-two yards away.

Jim took the long snap from shotgun formation and searched for his favorite target, Phoebe’s sweet-footed, nimble-fingered $8-million wide-out from Telarosa, Texas.

Bobby Tom made a sharp cut at the seven to lose his man. The ball spiraled toward him. He leapt up and snatched it out of the air in a gesture so graceful it was almost feminine.

Defenders lunged for him.