The following night, Cody returns home, bearing bad news to the dinner table. Feeling a little down, he spills the beans:

"I'm afraid I lost my job. My employer went bankrupt..." Cody's head is visibly down.

"Is there anything you could find in town?" Lana asks him, dreading the cuts in expenses that could become necessary, at least for the time being.

"There really isn't much in this town. Going to trade school might mean a lot of sacrifices for potentially years, but leaving town might be even worse because our home won't be nearly enough to pay for a new one..." Cody turns to his children. "This means that we can't attend any of your games this season, and, if that's an option, we should try to get either free or reduced-price lunch at school!"

"What else should we do to limit our expenses then?" Heather asks her parents.

"What an idiot! Everyone has free lunch at VA!" Al comments on the situation.

More specifically, the entire parish is covered by the Community Election Provision, precisely because of the number of its residents using other means-tested assistance. Like food stamps. Speaking of food stamps:

"I'll go apply for food stamps, but this is supposed to last only until dad can get a new job!" Lana responds to the kids. "However, this means we need to wear clothes several times before we wash them. And even more so socks! But this also means that we need to limit any travel to what's strictly necessary!"

"One more thing, Al: because I dad lost my job, we need to draw from your bank account!" Cody warns him.

"I worked for it over the summer, so I should be able to use it however I see fit!" Al retorts.

"It sucks, but we have no choice! However, count yourself lucky that the booster club paid for this SAT at the end of the month!"

"And this also means that, until further notice, if you invite people to come over, they can't eat anything! You're only allowed to invite people to come over for schoolwork, or your extracurriculars!" Lana adds.

Shoot! Football is going to interfere with work, and school as well! Albert tries to imagine how his life will change with dad having lost his job. Must I give up on football as well?

"Dad, I'd say, send your CV to my workplace. I worked in power tools all summer..." Al gives him an indication of where to start looking for work.

"Speaking of which, I should update it! And you're right..." Cody sighs. "However, this means the priority, until the end of the month, is studying for the SAT over extra football training! You'll get better financial aid with a better score!"

With that said, Cody starts looking for jobs online that are around town, while remaining mindful of what jobs he's qualified for and what he isn't. He knows, however, that the town's job market isn't great, and must match his previous experience. He also knows that a lot of high schoolers will call it quits to return to school, too.

I was a mover, granted, it didn't pay much, but maybe I could try my hand at being a mail carrier, like, you know, Logan's dad. Or a school bus driver. What I did as a mover should transfer somewhat to either of these jobs. The parish struggled to retain bus drivers for years, Cody starts reviewing the job posting for both jobs he feels he should be able to get.

"And ask us before you buy anything!" Lana warns her children. "This means no makeup or clothes, unless required for coursework or extracurriculars!"

Now I have a better idea of what I should focus on: keeping my grades up, and scoring high enough on the SAT for TOPS money, so I'll have a better future, Albert resumes his studies for the SAT, but rather than to focus on reading as he last studied for it with Anna, tonight, he focuses on math.

Which he feels he can't do until he's assured that his game-day uniforms still fit. He starts praying, believing that game-day uniforms aren't the same as training uniforms, which still fit him.

But with the booster club being short on cash, and the football team as well, I really hope that my uniforms still fit. Will the new principal give back some money to sports after the previous one cut the football budget to fund stuff such as quiz bowl or debate teams? He starts trembling as he begins with the white, away uniform. After everything I heard about our football opponents, sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out differently if I played for them.

He starts scrounging up his contact list for football players at his opponents, wondering whether they actually proceed the way he believes they do, or, barring that, other students he believes are close to those players. Such as opponents' band musicians, or really, any other student he might have met at games. But when he couldn't find anyone he feels comfortable asking for it, he seems a little frozen in place as he starts putting on the pads.

One thing is for sure, though. VA is the outlier in the Division II Non-Select world. Virtually no school in Division II Non-Select achieved the level of success we did in nerdy things, even if it came at the cost of sports. Daisy made me feel like almost everyone else in that division would have built a debate team around her, despite finishing 2-2 at State. Quiz bowl? Eunice and Leesville are the only other two in D2NS playing it, and how intellectually rarefied their worlds really are, would be difficult for so many to grasp, memories of the previous season's morning announcements in both quiz bowl and debate surface, with his study companions being painful reminders of how VA performed in what he called "nerdy things" last season.

Yet, for some reason, he forgot about the elephant in VA's extracurricular room: mathletics. A mathletics team that seemingly funds all three academic teams. A mathletics team that will need to re-invent itself after the graduation of its best player, Jennifer. And that the family seemed indifferent to.

But he sighs in relief when he realizes that the away jersey fits the same as did the practice ones, and he feels a little better trying to wear the home one.

Phew: that's one less expense to worry about, Albert sighs in relief before meeting with his sister, wanting to discuss jersey costs.

"Heather, now that Jennings Middle merged with VA, these old game-day jerseys are no longer usable. However, I'm not sure about practice jerseys!" Albert asks Heather about her basketball jerseys.

"It's too early for me to even think about buying new game-day uniforms!" Heather looks at her old game-day jerseys. "VA's basketball season begins in November, and uniforms go for sale on November first!"

"How much did that uniform cost?" Albert asks her. "We must budget that much at a minimum since the school may not provide these uniforms this year..."

"Please wait..." Heather then runs off to ask her parents for the uniform's receipt.

Jennings Middle went by Bulldogs, much like pre-pandemic then-Jennings High, with the same wine red and white.

Heather asks her parents in another room about the cost of her basketball uniform:

"How much did my old basketball uniforms cost?" Heather asks Lana.

"Why are you asking this?" Lana asks her before she starts scrounging the family's credit card statements.

"Because VA isn't using the same colors as Jennings Middle used to, my game-day uniforms won't be usable then! Better plan for their cost now, or, by November first, I might find myself being unable to play!"

"And it might cost a little more than that..." Lana gets to the November 2025 credit card statement.

That credit card statement reveals they paid $120 for a set of home and away game-day uniforms for Heather.

"And, of course, the athletic department doesn't have the budget to pay for uniforms; the booster club was forced to resort to a shoe drive just to replace the aging basketball stuff, such as the court's paint!"

"We must plan to save up one hundred and thirty dollars by November first, so this means there's no allowance for you until then!"

Heather's mood starts worsening when she realizes she won't get any allowance for the next 2 months and a half.

Albert arrives right after Lana tells Heather about the cost of her purple-and-green uniforms for this year.

"I heard you talk about how the athletic department was short on money. It makes me wonder who has their priorities straight, us or our sports opponents?" Albert asks the two.

"What do our sports opponents do that make you question who has their priorities straight?" Lana asks her son.

"In the sense that basketball and even more so football might be prioritized over anything academic, especially academic teams! And some of our direct opponents even give the AD, or at the very least, the football team, such as free uniforms for all players, maintenance for its facilities, even if it meant letting the rest of the school to rot. And that's if they allow football players to take whatever they want without any athletic consequences!"

"What do you mean, there are athletic consequences to course choice?" Heather asks him. "I heard about basketball opponents being given emergency extra credit, so I guess, football players might receive it, too!"

"Emergency extra credit?" Lana gasps. "What are you talking about, Heather?"

"Susan over at Lacassine had to tutor a teammate that received it. Emergency extra credit is a last resort measure, to be used only when even extensions on assignments or deferred tests didn't suffice to maintain a player's academic eligibility. From what Susan told me, what she called EEC was easier than the courses they're for, and often much easier!"

"Back to the athletic consequences for course choice. Some of our opponents even cut playing time for taking APs, for those who even offer these in the first place!"

"Give me a break: who offers APs that we tend to play?" Lana asks, clueless about who offers what among VA's football opponents.

"Last I heard, Division II Non-Select is where you start seeing more AP courses being offered! So who has their priorities straight now?"

Some of our opponents might offer honors courses instead, or on top of APs, but VA does not, Al ruminates on course offerings.

"Let's say that, for struggling towns like ours, often their school is the town's culture and entertainment hub. But remember that, while, for some, college sports might be their only way out, it's a very big gamble at best, and the odds are far longer to make it to pro sports than it is to make a career out of a college degree. Granted, not always in what you majored in, but still..." Lana comments on academics.

What Lana doesn't realize is that college athletes often face significant restrictions on what they can major in. So while big-ticket athletes can get paid, especially in the transfer portal, what happens after graduation could send shivers down players' spines, especially if the team picked a major with limited prospects for the player.

"Focus too much on your sport at this point in life and you'll end up like Laetitia and have little to show for it!" Cody lectures his two children after having updated his résumé.

Now that the offseason has died down, I think I can get along with Al better... Heather keeps to herself.