Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“They’re the good ones, Dad. The really good ones.”

All right. He’d told her if they were that good, then yes, a scholarship was probably a great idea, because his bank account was not nearly so good.

“Dad? You’re not watching.”

This from Andrew. Kent flicked his eyes up from the screen, said, “Playoffs, champ. Playoffs. We multitask now, okay?”

The word multitask left his son blank-faced, but then Kent tossed the ball and Andrew charged after it, banging down the hallway. Kent looked back at the script again. Hickory Hills was an option-heavy team, and fast enough to pull it off against most of their opponents. He wasn’t worried about his team’s speed, though. They’d just have to widen their gaps on the line, and shade to the strong side because that’s where the quarterback wanted to go most of the time.

“Hackett’s article is up on the website.” Beth had emerged from the kitchen, her gentle blue eyes grim.

“It’s bad?”

“No. But they mention Adam.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police explained that she was trying to find her father. And that Adam… that he got it wrong.”

Kent let out a breath and tossed the Nerf basketball one last time, Andrew chasing after it wildly, nearly wiping out an end table in his pursuit, and then he rose and went into the kitchen where she had the laptop open on the granite-topped island.

The home page of the newspaper’s website was devoted entirely to Rachel Bond. Pictures of her were now joined by pictures of a desolate cottage surrounded by investigators. Five stories were linked around the photographs, one headline reading: TRAGEDY FAMILIAR TO KENT AUSTIN.

He closed his eyes for a moment, bracing. Reading your own press was always an uncomfortable thing. Kent never felt anything but uneasy dread over it. You weren’t in control of the way you were about to be presented, weren’t in control of the context of your remarks or, with many reports, even the accuracy of your remarks. You were someone else’s version of yourself, fed to the public to create their version of you, a disturbing disconnect. We will build a new you, thanks. The one we want.

He’d spent his life in the public eye of the town, and so far the town hadn’t snapped on him. He always felt as if it might. You drifted around in front of enough people for enough time, eventually someone would take a swipe, and then the rest would join in. Eagerly.

He worried more for his family than himself when it came to the media. He’d seen good coaches, good men, turned into objects of scorn with swiftness and alarming hunger, and he always thought it went harder on them if they had children old enough to be aware of it. Lisa was nine and Andrew was six. They were excited to see their father in the paper, particularly this season, when his team was unbeaten. He wasn’t sure what he’d do with this story. They understood a little about it, but now they would want to know more. They would want to know the very sorts of things he didn’t wish them to hear, ever.

Your sister was murdered, Daddy?

Yes.

Did he do anything else to her?

Yes.

He could hear Beth talking to the kids now, everyone’s tone light, theirs in a natural way, hers in a forced way, and he blocked it out and clicked on the link and read the story.

CHAMBERS—He’s won six regional titles and has his team in position to claim another, but on Saturday morning Kent Austin sent the Cardinals home with a prayer and no practice.

It was not a day for football.

The horrific Friday night slaying of a classmate has the students of Chambers High School reeling, and a school that was once basking in gridiron glory is now awash with tragedy.

It’s an experience all too familiar for Austin.

When the Cardinals coach was 15, his older sister, Marie, was abducted and killed.

Marie Austin, 16 at the time of her death, was last seen walking home from school on the evening of October 2, 1989. Confusion within the family left her without a ride, and she attempted to walk home. She never made it.

Three days later, her body was found in the Lake Erie shallows. Her killer, Gideon Pearce, was not apprehended until January of 1990. A Chambers native who’d moved to Cleveland, Pearce was already facing charges for the assault and battery of a minor at the time. His trial in that case had been scheduled for September 22, but Pearce, out on bail, disappeared in early summer and did not surface again until the Rocky River Police Department stopped him for driving a truck with an expired license plate. They soon discovered that the truck was stolen, that Pearce had an active warrant, and took him to the Cuyahoga County Jail. There, when his belongings were confiscated, they found a football card, part of a set made for the previous year’s high school all-state team. The player was Adam Austin, Kent and Marie’s older brother, an 18-year-old star defensive back. The card had been in Marie Austin’s possession on the day of her disappearance.

It was the first lead in what ultimately became a quick trial and conviction. More of Marie Austin’s belongings were found, and Pearce confessed within 48 hours of his arrest. He avoided the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison, and he was still in custody at the time of his death from cancer in 2005.

Now, 22 years later, tragedy has revisited the Austin family. Kent Austin was familiar with Rachel Bond, and, according to police, Bond contacted Adam Austin for help in locating her father after a series of letters led her to believe that he’d returned to the Chambers area.

Kent swore under his breath. It wasn’t Hackett’s fault—reporting the facts, salting his retrospective with all relevant connections—but all the same, Kent wished his brother’s name had not come up. Hackett treated it gently, but this would be only the start. There would be more calls, and more articles, and they would not be so gentle.

Adam Austin could not be reached for comment [Hackett wrote] and, understandably, Coach Kent Austin does not discuss his sister’s death often. When he does, though, he acknowledges that it shaped his life.

“Everything that I’ve done,” he says, “I’ve done because of what happened to Marie.”

Austin’s primary passion is in ministry. Specifically, prison ministry. He makes one visit each month to lead a Bible study in the same prison that housed his sister’s murderer.

“Comfort was a hard thing to find, after losing Marie,” he says. “I found what I could in two things: football and faith.”

Nine years after his sister’s murder, Austin sat down with her killer.

“It was not easy,” he admits. Asked what the conversation consisted of, Austin pauses and wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “I prayed for him.”

And Pearce?

“He laughed at me.”

Asked if he regrets the visit, Austin shakes his head emphatically. He’s made many other trips. Working now with Dan Grissom, a minister from Cleveland, Austin has made dozens of visits to the state’s prisons, meeting with inmates who have been convicted of the same crime—murder—that took so much from Austin and his family.

“It’s the right test,” he says. “The critical one. I could harbor hate or spread love. I don’t think there’s anything in between, coming out of something like that. I really don’t.”

Just Friday night, Austin was asked if he considered the unbeaten regular season his team had just completed to be a defining moment in his career. With his unique blend of patience and bristle, a hallmark familiar to those who have covered the coach, he answered that he didn’t care much for the term “defining moment,” and that if he did have one, he hoped that it wouldn’t come on the football field.