Sixty seconds in the north hallway

"Metro title. I'm not saying it to be nice, I actually believe it. We return the whole line except center. Nobody ever talks about the line."

"I don't watch football. I show up on Fridays for the same reason everybody shows up on Fridays. [on Mansour] He was in my World History last year and he never said a word and now there's a poster of him in a restaurant. So that's insane."

"He's going D-1. Hundred percent. My cousin knows a guy."

"What I want on the record is that he has not missed a jazz rehearsal. People at this school talk about him like he moved away. He's in the band room third hour. He was there yesterday. He fixed the sustain pedal."

"Everybody's asking me if it's weird. It's not weird. He sat next to me for three years, he still sits next to me on Thursdays, and he is still better than me at the thing I'm best at. That was true before any of this and none of you cared then either."

"I'll be honest, I think it's a little much. I'm happy for him. But we lost in the second round. We didn't win anything. And it's been nine months of this building acting like we won a state championship."

"I don't know anybody yet."

"They're going to be really good. [on question two] Um. Yeah, obviously. People are weird about him now in a way I think he hates. He's the same. Everyone else changed."

"ORANGE. OUT. [at volume, in a hallway, during passing time] I want the whole east side orange, I want it loud from the coin toss, and I want Clio to hear us in the parking lot before they get in the building."

"We're hanging forty on Clio. Put that in the paper. Forty. [Advised that we are unlikely to publish an exact scoring prediction.] Then why is this a newspaper."

"Everyone's going to write about Nick and Kev and Chase. Fine. But there's about forty guys on that team who go to practice every day for no reason at all. Not for no reason. You know what I mean. For the team."

"Can I say something bad? Not bad about him. [Told she could.] I had a whole class with him sophomore year and I could not pick him out of a lineup. That's not a him thing. I think about that a lot actually, like how many people are in my classes right now that I'm not seeing."

"You should ask Ben about it. That's the story. Nobody is asking Ben."

"I'm good at safety. It's the least interesting true thing available, which is why nobody repeats it. I am actually good at safety. Four picks last year. Not one ball came his direction last fall and I still hauled in four. Put that in, that's funny."

"Six a.m. all summer. I'm done talking about him for the purposes of this article. Everybody wants the arm-talent whatever. I want people to know he was there at six every single day and he lifts like a band kid and he still never missed one."

"Back in June he sat there and told me this was going to be my year. Just said it, in the parking lot, and then got in his car. Whether he meant it or was just being decent to me, I still can't tell."

"I've played football since I was six. Second grade. Flag, then rocket, then middle school, then here. Eleven years." [Asked how any of that answered what we had actually asked:] "It doesn't. That's my point. None of it connects to anything, which is sort of my point."

"He picked up a football in April of last year. April. He is also, plainly, the best player to come through here in our lifetimes. So what was I doing? Genuinely. What was all of that? Either the kid is a genetic accident, which I can live with, or eleven years of doing everything the correct way buys you nothing, and neither of those is a sentence I enjoy saying out loud."

[Told what Boulay had said and asked whether he agreed:] "Yeah. But you can't print it the way he said it, because it sounds bitter and it isn't." [Asked how he would say it:] "Every kid on that field decided at some point that if you keep showing up it turns into something. Then somebody walks in the door for less than a year and ends up with more than the rest of us ever collected. That's not his fault. It's still information."

"He throws it, I catch it. What do you want from me." [Asked question two:] "People are weird about him. People were weird about him before too, just in the other direction. I don't really keep track."

"I got eight periods with the ones and I lost. I'm not going to sit here and say I should have won." [Asked what beat him:] "He knew what everything was. Every time. I knew what my job was. That's a different thing and I found that out in like period six."

"Eastern's been to two practices. Ferris sent something. It's cool. It's less cool than people think, it's mostly emails."

"I am about to be deliberately dull with you. I hope they have fun. They're seventeen. I have watched this school turn a seventeen-year-old into a symbol once already, and the seventeen-year-old paid for it."

"I'll be watching. I go to the games. [on Mansour] There was no warning because there was genuinely nothing to warn anyone about. He was a band kid. He is still built like a band kid. You want me on record calling him a Division I quarterback on the strength of one night against Clio?"

"I coached in this league. I know exactly what those numbers are. Ask me in November."

"You are asking me about football. In the band room. During my prep."

"No."

"Which one is he? [shown a photo] Oh — the quiet one. He says thank you. Every day. Most of them don't."

"There has never been a better year to be a Tiger. We have outstanding kids in this building — athletically, academically, artistically. And I'll tell you what, there is nothing in this town like a Friday night."

[Asked for any memory of Nick Mansour predating the football:] "Help me out here — tall kid?"

"Please tell me this is the last one of these, man. I did the TV one. [Told it is one question.] Fine. One."

[On whether people treat him differently:] "Yeah. But not the way people think. It isn't that everybody's nice to me now. It's that everybody has an opinion about me now. There's a difference. Some of them are good opinions."