Week 6 Storytelling: The Teammates Who Took It All Away

The Teammates Who Took It All Away

            Ryan Parker was your normal local kid from Inglewood, California. He was the quarterback for Inglewood High school and his play had made him into one of the best players in the state of California, but not just California - he was widely considered one of the best quarterback prospects in the entire United States. He stood at 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighed in at 205 pounds. Ryan was always making and grabbing the headlines for his miraculous skills and plays he made out on the football gridiron because he was a once in a generation type of talent. He had offers from all around the country, but he cut his list of schools down to his Top 5 choices, which were the University of Oklahoma (OU), University of Southern California (USC), University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), Ohio State University (OSU), and the University of California – Berkley (CAL).

           Inglewood High School Football Team

 As the season began, Ryan started to get an unearthly amount of publicity and stature from all major sport news television shows, including ESPN, Fox Sports, and the NFL Network. All of this attention that he was getting seemed to be a good thing except in the eyes of a few of Ryan’s teammates. They were jealous of all the lights and cameras being solely focused on him and not the overall success of the team throughout the season, even though they were having a historic season by chasing an undefeated record throughout the regular season and playoffs. They would become the first Inglewood High School team to accomplish this feat. 
            The season went on and they would finish the regular season undefeated; now the goal was the win the State Championship in the Open Division of California. Ryan led his team to the State Championship, where they were 15-0 and had one last game to cap off this miraculous season. In the State Championship game, Ryan and Inglewood High School would take on perennial powerhouse, De La Salle, who had been the dominate team in California for quite some time. Inglewood High School would go on to beat De La Salle in the State Championship game by a score of 35 – 24, in route to becoming the first and only Inglewood High School football team to go undefeated throughout the entire season.

There was celebration to be had, but also it was the point where jealousy got the best of a few of Ryan’s teammates. In respect to the State Championship victory, some of the students decided to throw a house party to celebrate it all. Ryan was the celebrity of the party; every girl at the party wanted to talk to him and be with him, while every guy was vouching to give him a celebration shot in honor of winning the championship. He became very intoxicated after all of the alcohol he had consumed and from across the room his teammates noticed. They approached him to “help” him get outside to throw up and relieve himself, but they had a different plan for him. This was their chance to finally get back at him as their jealousy had turned into anger at this point. They all finally got outside to the side of the house and this is when his teammates unloaded on him, punching and kicking him till he was lying on the ground. His teammates continued to beat him up until they decided he had enough, but did not leave without kicking him in the head, one last time.

They left Ryan out there and he was unconscious, not moving, but no one knew of what happened until one girl came outside to try and find Ryan. She walked to the side of the house and found him there lying face first on the ground, motionless. She immediately called 911 and the ambulance quickly arrived at the scene, but it was, indeed, too late. Ryan passed away due to the kick to the head. This left the whole town, his family, and friends in shambles. He never got the chance to go to college and live out his dream of becoming an NFL quarterback.

Author’s Note:

            The story of The Pretty Stranger who Killed the King gave me a lot of great background information for me to develop this story. It allowed me to creatively think of how I can take the basis of that story and put my own twist to it. The story I chose is about MBOTU, the king of Old Town, Calabar in Nigeria. He was extremely successful, but had many enemies because of greed. The people of Itu wanted to kill him, but were not strong enough as a whole to take him out, so they resorted to witchcraft. There was a woman who was a witch and transformed herself into a young and pretty girl, and armed herself with a knife to go to Old Town to seek the king. The king was fond of pretty girls, and he sent for her. The witch ended up putting a sleep medicine in his meal to put him to sleep and then proceeded to kill the king by cutting his head off. This left Old Town in shambles and vulnerable to attach from the people of Itu. I hope you will read my story, then the Author’s Note, and my story again to see the correlation between the two stories.

Bibliography: ThePretty Stranger who Killed the King, Elphinstone Dayrell (1910)