If some corporation somewhere ever designs a process for cloning sideline reporters – those blonde, curvy mike-gripping angels who know enough about sports to make conversation, but not enough to intimidate the menfolk – they would do well to start with Monica McAvoy. A goddess in a headset, Monica was the uber-sideline reporter, a blank-slate former woo-girl – the ones who scream “woo!” at every social event, of course – who teased you with the promise of both quality fantasy football advice and the very real possibility of athletic but not freaky sex.

And on this particular morning, she stood smiling in front of the Bootleggers’ stadium. “Thanks, Frank!” she bubbled, replying to a throw-over that wouldn’t be tossed for an hour from now, when Atlanta’s CBS affiliate sportscaster would alert the state that Rip Thackston was indeed gone.

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Two weeks at college, and Byron Delahanty was already on the verge of getting some strange. School ruled.

He and the girl he’d met at the cheesy little dorm mixer – Kourtney? Kasey? Kaitlin? Something like that – were sneaking now across the dark back forty of DSU, the territory of football and baseball practice fields. Neither one of them had any idea where they were going, having gotten completely turned around in the darkness and addled by some low-end grain punch somebody had whipped up in a trash can. Byron vaguely remembered taking two hits off somebody’s Louisville Slugger-sized spliff and becoming obsessed with Kourtney/Kasey/Kaitlin’s ass. Absurdly obsessed. Monks-writing-Bibles-by-hand obsessed.  

He had no idea how he’d managed to talk her out of the party; his specialty was statistics, and his usual mode of conversation was virtual, via IM and email and messageboard. But he dug deep, found a reservoir of game he didn’t know he possessed, and slathered her with waves of solid-gold bull, and next thing he knew, she was out here with him, leaning against the chain-link fence that surrounded an ink-black field.

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When the body plummeting out of the oaks landed on the lush Grove turf, you could hear the beer sloshing inside.

For a long moment, nobody said anything. Then, miraculously, the body twitched … shook … and rose to its feet. More zombie than human, the Ole Miss kid had mud in his teeth and grass stains along the length of his shirt, khakis and tie, but as he lifted his arms in triumph, a crowd of at least two hundred cheered as one.

“Flim flam bim bam!” the kid shouted, spitting out a tooth in mid-chant.

“OLE MISS, BY DAMN!” the crowd bellowed in response. One final cheer, and the crowd dispersed back into the ten-acre college football nirvana that is The Grove. There’s no finer place to tailgate before a game in the country, and there’s no finer way to drown out the sorrows of a loss, either … which is exactly what the Ole Miss faithful were doing tonight, their beloved Rebels having fallen 38-14 to the Deep South Bootleggers.

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A big thanks to all of you who visited Run & Shoot this past week to check out the first chapter of the book. Special hat tips to The Big Lead and RebelSports.net for showing a little love. Check back later today for Chapter 2!

The first Saturday in September, and the field was gleaming.

The stadium grass and the north Georgia sky were impossible colors, the kind of green and blue that first-graders slather with broad strokes. The bass drum of the band was thick and loud enough to reroute heartbeats. The crowd pulsed in a sea of blue and red, the colors of its beloved Deep South University. The sorority girls with canyons of cleavage, the frat dudes already sweating cheap tequila through their pores, the kids with their foam Bootlegger pistols getting a fast education in the ways of the world, the alumni trying to convince themselves that they hadn’t picked up inches around the waist and lost them off the hairline, the jocks and stoners and geeks and hotties and skanks and douchebags and MILFs and everyone – all these and more all beat in time, all with one overriding mantra: Game on, man. Game on.

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Download PDF of Chapter 1

Welcome to the first chapter of Run & Shoot, where we meet Coach Rip Thackston and many of his Deep South University Bootleggers. They’re all lunatics in their own way, but only one will be dead before next weekend.

Click below to download the mp3 of the first chapter; iTunes hosting coming ASAP. Visit www.runandshootbook.com for the latest info, and thanks so much for listening!

Click here to download Chapter 1.

Welcome to Run & Shoot! A murder mystery set in the sex-cash-and-violence world of college football 2009, it’s a novel that will spool out in real time over the next four months, chapter by chapter. (Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol, used to do this with his books, but he didn’t feature nearly as many bone-snapping hits and strip clubs as we will here.)

Every Monday, we’ll bring you the latest chapter in the bizarre story of the 2009 Deep South University Bootleggers. You can read it on the website or your phone, download a PDF for dead-tree printout, tap the RSS feed by clicking the orange icon above, or get podcasts of each chapter delivered fresh every week. Subscribe to the R&S mailing list by clicking right here, and never miss a chapter.

As we go, I’d love to get your feedback on R&S — comments, reviews, suggestions, guesses at the murderer(s?) identity. Comment beneath each chapter, and drop me a line at jay@runandshootbook.com.

Finally, thanks so much for reading. Hope you’ll enjoy R&S at least as much as your own college’s season. Game on!

–Jay Busbee