Typical Day
Trent Dozer examines his breakfast. Scrambled eggs, potatoes, pancakes, fruit, juice, and sausage links. He has proteins, carbs, and fats, but he still can't help but feel like he's missing something.
"Coffee," he mutters to himself. He lumbers over to the coffee bar and pours himself a cup. He takes it black today.
Trent slumps back down and sighs. This particular morning, he feels a bit broody. It's hard to eat a 2,000-calorie breakfast when there are starving people in the world. (He had studied for his World Cultures 101 class last night before bed.) Trent sighs again and digs in.
Weighing in at 315 pounds, Dozer was a force to be reckoned with. In the role of defensive tackle, he was the heart and soul of the defense. Everything revolved around him—not just because he was so large that he had his own gravitational pull, but because his size, strength, and knack for plugging up holes demanded the attention of the opposing offense.
It's 9:00AM when Trent finishes his hefty breakfast. He's forgotten about the starving citizens in third-world countries (for now), but he's still a bit crestfallen. The stress of being a Division-I student-athlete has been getting to him. Each week, he has four days of training: Monday and Tuesday, and then Thursday and Friday. On top of that, practices, meeting with coaches, studying game plays, and going to actual games ends up adding up to more than twenty hours per week. A lot more.
Classes take up another twenty hours, and homework takes another ten. Trent works more than the average full-time employee and he's exhausted. He doesn't have much of a choice, though. If he quits football, they take away his scholarship. If he drops a class, they take away his scholarship. Most of the time, he feels trapped.
It's a good thing he loves football so much.
Trent eventually shakes off the residual existential dread and catches a campus shuttle to meet up with his teammates in the gym. Ah, yes, 10:00AM strength training. Trent starts with upper body strength: four sets of barbell bench presses, three sets of seated overhead presses, four sets of incline bench presses, and pullups. Lower body includes: lunges, barbell squats, and front squats.
After an hour, it's time for the first class of the day: Business Ethics II at 11:30AM. His major sure doesn't make it easy to be happily ignorant. As the professor drones on about the environmental effects of the meat industry, Trent fights the urge to fall asleep…and loses. He dreams about bacon.
"Ahem." Trent is jolted awake by the professor clearing his throat. He noticed Trent napping in his class. Maybe he even knew what Trent was dreaming about. (Awkward.) Professor Peeta continues on: "…which accounts for 75% of the global emissions from cattle and other ruminants" (source).
It would take more than that for Trent to stop eating meat.
After class, he has a quick (but large) meal of a turkey, ham, bacon, and cheese sandwich that he had procured at the dining hall, as well as two Clif bars and three bananas, which he gobbles up on his way to practice. For ninety minutes, he and his teammates warm up, run, do sprinting exercises, and then play a game of scrimmage (his favorite part).
Trent lines up in a three-point stance. He can see the fear in his opponent's eyes. He knows that look well. He sees it during every snap of every game. It's the reason why he plays. The ball is snapped, and Trent shoots forward.
Living up to his namesake, he bulldozes his way through the middle of the offensive line, directly into the chest of an unsuspecting running back. Tackled in the backfield for a loss of three yards, the ball carrier squirms like a trapped worm under the heaping mass of defensive lineman.
Trent jumps to his feet with the deceptive agility of a hippo and performs a brief but jaunty shuffle for the amusement of his teammates. Usually, he isn't much of a showman, but this is an occasion worth celebrating. Plus, everyone loves when Dozer lightens up for long enough to shake what his momma gave him.
Stopped on third down on yet another series, the offense is forced to punt again. Score.
He didn't have much reason to celebrate this week, so this little victory definitely feels good. Dozer had overslept twice and bombed a statistics exam. Oversleeping meant missing class, and missing class meant even more of his little free time was spent playing catch-up.
Like most of his buddies, Trent came to McState University expecting to be the star he was in high school. Two years and a lot of humbling lessons later, he was trying to better balance his schoolwork with his football schedule. The NFL was not going to come calling and his career was approaching fourth down. Time to get it right.
Dozer is a force of nature on the field. Like a tornado. Or a rabid elephant seal. Oftentimes, he finds himself double, or even triple-teamed. And this happened back in high school, too. His stats aren't the greatest, but they don't need to be. His role isn't to make plays; it was to take up space. At this, he excels.
Now, if only he could excel at statistics. He still couldn't even calculate the odds of passing this semester.
Spoiler alert: They aren't good.
Trent's stomach growls. He knows it's time for lunch, but practice isn't over yet. His mouth waters as he thinks of all the leftovers in his fridge. Last night, it had been his turn to cook for the team. Trent, a true Texan, hosted a college-budget barbecue. No one could beat his homemade barbecue sauce.
Trent snaps back to reality and focuses on the rest of practice. At last, the final whistle blows. The defense dominates yet again, but no one congratulates him on his individual performance. After all, it's not like he's the quarterback.
During real games, reporters are usually all over the team's star quarterback, "Slinger" Gunn. None of them ever look Trent's way. He's not a flashy player, and his numbers aren't flashy either. Trent doesn't care, though. He does it for the love of the game, not the fame.
Trent ambles to his second class, Modern Economics. He thinks about next year: his senior year. He doesn't feel confident about being drafted by the NFL, but he figures he will make a decent businessman. Either that, or the next Guy Fieri. Seriously, Trent's barbecue sauce is off the chain.
At 5:30PM, Trent is back in his dorm inhaling his barbecue leftovers. Two hours, one pound of chicken thigh, a bowl of pasta, and a giant Cobb salad later, Trent's finally ready to start his homework. It's only 6:30PM, so he has plenty of time to catch up. He winds down for the night, but not before setting four different alarms for practice in the morning.
There's no way he's oversleeping again.