These are the starting values. They carry forward. One decent conversation can lift a good number and a bad number in the same motion, which is precisely why they are charted apart.
Football
Ben Haijcar
QB2 / FS · the displaced one
- Trust
- Comfort
- Resentment
- Public
- Supportive, unprompted, every time
- Private
- "This is the one senior year I am ever getting"
Unresolved: The apologies from Nick are relentless; Ben asked him this week to knock it off, which improved things and also made the next twenty-four hours stranger.
Kevin Lack
WR · the single best player Fenton has
- Football trust
- Personal warmth
- Dependence
- Public
- "He's fine. He's accurate. He gets me the ball."
- Private
- Watched a film playlist at 11 p.m. and could not bring himself to thank anyone like a normal person
Moving: Up, glacially, entirely through football. Informed the student paper that Nick's college prospects never cross his mind because his own do, and that Nick has not gotten better because "he was already like this." He meant both literally. In a separate moment he conceded he is "working on it," the closest thing to affection he has produced on record.
Kobe Lookebill
LT · Ben's friend first
- Protectiveness
- Personal belief
- Skepticism
- Public
- Volunteers the 6 a.m. detail to reporters, unasked
- Private
- Still finds the whole thing slightly improbable
Note: A full pip of doubt fell off him over the summer and he could not name the day it happened.
Troy DeGayner
RG · cousin
- Loyalty
- Volatility
- Nick's ability to control him
- Public
- Four straight minutes of swearing, on the record, roughly 11% of it printable
- Private
- Volunteered to write college programs himself, from his own inbox, after midnight
Live risk: He said "i won't. probably." That single word carries more weight than anything else on this page. He further requested the bracketed swearing stay in the copy "so nobody softens it."
Coach Shaffer
OC · primary mentor
- Trust
- Comfort
- Nick's dependence
- Public
- Said "nobody's called" on a school broadcast, on purpose
- Private
- Said sorry to a seventeen-year-old for springing it on him
New this week: Nick found out Shaffer has quietly worked six of his personal contacts on his behalf. He did not know.
Coach Setzke
HC · transactional
- Professional trust
- Personal warmth
- Control instinct
- Public
- "He's our quarterback. Next question."
- Private
- 6:45 a.m. meetings one-on-one, because a student's notes outclass his assistants'
Friction point: When Nick asked whether the slide check was his to make, the answer was "From the sideline." Six hours and forty minutes later.
Chase Lynch
Edge · the recruited one
- Mutual respect
- Friction
- Public
- Goes out of his way to note the two situations do not match
Told this paper the whole gap comes down to one camp the summer after tenth grade where "somebody wrote my name on a clipboard," and that it is "dumb that he's the best
player I've ever played with and I'm the one getting emails." There is no bitterness in how he says it, which lands harder than bitterness would.
Zach West
Jr. WR · being built
- Belief in himself
- Belief Nick has in him
On television, Nick pointed at him as the thing every opponent is getting wrong. West heard about it secondhand and has said nothing since.
Brendan Matthews
WR · the live wire
- On-field obedience
- Off-field loyalty
- Resentment
- Public
- "40 points friday. book it." Normal in every thread. Asks about the orbit motion.
- Private
- Seven days of anonymous posts. "we run one guy's offense now." "the clipboard kid."
Status: made, and doesn't know it. Nick got through the whole thing and sent Kevin a one-word reply. As it stands the relationship works perfectly and is completely hollow.
Josh Czarnota
So. QB3 · beaten, not bitter
- Deference
- Nick's investment
- Residual tension
- Public
- Posted "QB2" and was demoted to QB3 by Ben in a single message
- Private
- "is it annoying if i ask you questions at practice"
Deliberately, thoroughly, at three o'clock before practice, Nick is coaching up the freshman who came for his job. He put it in words: "a year from now this is your job."
NB
Nick Barchichat
SS · open hostility
- Hostility
- Social standing
- Self-awareness
Blew his own cover twice inside seven days on an anonymous app, got branded soft-adjacent by his lone ally, and now holds the worst karma in the Fenton herd.
MF
Michael Fabatz
Popular · not on the team
- Mockery
- Malice
- Willingness to correct course
Authored the week's funniest joke at Nick's expense and then, come Tuesday, confirmed the 6 a.m. routine is genuine and that nobody else on the roster does it. Was immediately called soft by Barchichat.
Outside the building
Craig Harmon
Ball State · Off. Pass Game Coord. / QBs
- Personal belief
- Institutional backing
- Communication depth
- Public
- Nothing. Nobody inside the Ball State building is aware any of this occurred.
- Private
- "Whatever that is, you have it" — and, in the very same message, "I have no read on the level of competition here"
Standing ask: one complete unedited game for every three that get played. First one is being watched this weekend.
Christian Taylor
Wyoming · OC / QBs
- Personal belief
- Institutional backing
- Bluntness
- Public
- Nothing
- Private
- "You're now a name I know. It counts for more than you'd guess and less than you'd like."
Standing ask: a camp where somebody runs a stopwatch, and games — losses included — because "the series I care about is the one right after it falls apart."
School
Mr. Perkins
Band director
- Belief in him
- Frustration
- Nick's guilt
Resolved this week, partly: Thursday could not work, so Perkins handed over his Sundays. Nick said yes. Three pieces due Sept 6, unchosen.
Hudson Villeneuve
Friend / reporter
- Friendship
- Role conflict
He sat on the money detail and ran the nine-emails detail. He told Nick which was which. That is the current understanding, and it has a shelf life.
Hannah Swain
Student section / paper
- Friendliness
- Anything else
Dormant. One logistical exchange about a graphic. She is warm with every person in this building; there is no scheme here.
Sylvia Stack
Senior
- Her interest
- His awareness
- Anything active
Dormant. Predates football by three years. She mostly declined to be interviewed about him this week and then cleared it for print anyway. They have not spoken directly.
Tommy Quinn
Best friend
- Trust
- Reads him accurately
The only one who heard the truthful version this week: the issue was never that no program called, it is that every program assumed another one had.
Max Herzog / Dane / Austin
The group
- Stability
- Football literacy
In a single sentence, Max explained exactly why Shaffer went public with it. Dane has started watching opponent tape recreationally. Austin pivoted the whole conversation to a dog at precisely the right instant.
Shaun Lawrence
AP Government · fourth hour
- Trust
- Comfort
- Resentment
- Public
- Nothing. Two years of nothing, out loud, in front of a class
- Private
- Nick has spent two years looking for the reason and has not found one
No arc. This does not develop, resolve or get explained. It predates the football, which is the part that makes it unanswerable. Nick has never said a word back and carries an A−. Tommy's read: the A− is him calculating exactly how much he can take without a parent calling.
John Galvin
Trombone · co-section leader · band circle
- Trust
- Comfort
- Resentment
- Public
- Emphatic in public that section leader is not the same as best player
- Private
- Has not once asked him about football and considers that the favour
The friendship that requires nothing of him. Not in the group chat, not at the games, entirely outside the football economy. Watch what happens to it if the trombone solo gets cast.
Nick Melero
Student section co-lead · senior
- Trust
- Comfort
- Resentment
- Public
- Loud, generous, genuinely kind, runs the chant with Nick's name in it
- Private
- Has worked out on his own that Nick hates the chant, and is doing it anyway
Not a friend — an engine. Can make something the whole school does by Friday. The most useful person in this school to have on your side and the hardest to switch off.
Family
Furhut Janssen
Mother
- Protectiveness (medical)
- Understands recruiting
- Emotional expression
Open loop: He told her this sport could cover tuition. Her answer was "this is a weekend conversation." She did not.
Jerry Mansour Jr.
Father
- Support
- Knowledge
- Effort to learn
Ran off a color-printed list of 61 programs inside four hours on the clock at work. Asked what a preferred walk-on is. Will discover, sooner or later, that no honest version of that list has Michigan on it.
Ari Mansour
Sister · sophomore
- Usefulness
- Warmth expressed
Built the entire outreach system. Told him "normal" instead of "fine," caught how badly it landed, and offered a one-word apology.
Karenna Mansour
Sister · middle school
- Ability to deflate a room
- Noticing things
Texted "you up" on a Wednesday at 11:04 with no explanation attached. She was the only one who noticed.
What moved this week, and it is one thing. At 11:41 on Thursday night Nick left a two-character
comment on his mother's document and both of his parents found out, inside twenty minutes, that he
has been writing to college programs alone since June. Nothing on this page has been redrawn for it
yet, because nothing has actually happened yet — they have agreed to talk to him on Saturday and he
does not know they agreed anything. Every meter on the family cards is due to move after that
conversation, in a direction nobody in this archive can currently predict.
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0