Noah

By the time practice ended, my arms felt like rubber and my brain felt like it had been put through a blender.

Coach had been in one of those moods—everything needed to be sharper, faster, cleaner. No excuses. No sloppiness. We ran drills until the sky started shifting into that dusky, purple-orange in-between, and even then he kept us out for “one more rep” about five times.

Normally, I’d be fine with it. I liked the structure. Liked the burn in my muscles, the way ...