Each of us, deep down, believes that the whole world issues from his own precious body, like images projected from a tiny slide onto an earth-sized screen. And then, deeper down, each of us knows he’s wrong.

That was what made the story epic: the player, the hero, had to suffer, as long as the suffering made sense. Everybody suffered. The key was to choose the form of your suffering. Most people couldn't do this alone; they needed a coach. A good coach made you suffer in a way that suited you. A bad coach made everyone suffer in the same way, and so was more like a torturer.

I'm a staunch monogamist. In practice, if not in theory. I can't help it. Do I acknowledge the oppressive, regressive nature of sexual exclusivity? Yes. Do I want that exclusivity very badly for myself? Also yes. There's probably some sort of way in which that's not a paradox. Maybe I believe in love.

Only here, long after midnight, while everyone else was sleeping, when nothing was expected of him, could Schwartz convince himself that he was working hard enough. These hours felt stolen, added to his life. The voice fell quiet.

It dawned on him—as it hadn’t before; he was dense, he was slow—that his parents were five hundred miles away. They could make him come home, they could refuse to pay the portion of his tuition they’d agreed to pay, but they couldn’t see his jeans. “Understood,” he said.

He already knew he could coach. All you had to do was look at each of your players and ask yourself: What story does this guy wish someone would tell him about himself? And then you told the guy that story.

AVERT DISASTER, in fact, would have been a perfect school motto—the purpose of the place, as far as Schwartz could tell, was to keep three thousand would-be maniacs sedated by boredom until a succession of birthdays transformed them into adults.

Heat radiated off Henry's face. Salty snot ran down his upper lip. A majestic fart propelled him to the top of Section 12, just at the springing of the stadium's curve. He slapped the sign as if high-fiving a teamate. It gave back a game shudder. He was crusing now, darkness be damned, stripping off his sweatshirt and his long underwear top without breaking stride.