Bleachers

Eddie Rake, most often referred to as “Rake” throughout the novel, is the revered football coach for the Messina High School Spartans. He is the redeemable antagonist of Bleachers. Rake “loved the violence of football and demanded it from every player” and was known by all to have a short temper (22). However, the town is mostly willing to look past this in favor of keeping a coach who knows how to win. The stats of his victories, which are mentioned frequently throughout the novel, are undeniably impressive: “418 wins, 62 losses, 13 state titles, and from 1964 to 1970 an undefeated streak that ended at 84” (8). Messina’s elevation of such a brutal man is a critique on Southern small towns in America and their tendency to prioritize football above all else, even at the expense of their youth.

At the beginning of Bleachers, Rake is an old man dying of cancer, expected to pass away at any moment. Those who knew, loved, and hated Rake gather from all over as they wait “for the Coach to take his last breath” (8). The man is a legend, though that is the only way many people know him. Except for the players, the people of Messina rely on rumors as the primary source of information about Rake. While Rake is perhaps well known by the town and his players, it is soon evident that he is not necessarily known well. This leaves Rake’s motives or feelings on certain matters, particularly regarding the death of Scotty Reardon, clouded in speculation and leaves Rake’s character at the mercy of the town gossip.

As the novel progresses, more about Rake’s character is revealed. His voice rang in the ears of Mal Brown in Vietnam, and his voice “barkin’ at [him]” (108) to “[n]ever quit, never quit” (108) is what gave Mal the strength to survive. When Nat came out of the closet as gay, “Rake was the first person here [he] confided in” (87). Rake was supportive of Nat and pushed him to open the coffee and book shop. The eulogies given at his funeral reveal he was the first to advocate for integrating the school’s football and cheer teams, as well as the band, and dedicated a great deal of time to charitable causes.

The funeral also gives Rake the chance to publicly apologize, though it’s his daughter who reads his words for him. Nat’s words to the team ring true: “Eddie Rake’s not a sweet man, but he is human. He suffered greatly after Scotty’s death, and he had no one to turn to” (65). At the end of the day, Rake was human, and he was complicated, much more so than his players and the people in Messina ever knew.

Paul Curry was Neely’s co-captain and one of his best friends on the team. Paul likewise went into the family business of banking and “married a local girl from another prominent family” (9). Paul has found it easier to move on than Neely has, but he admits that once when he came home from college, he “bought a six-pack and climbed up here and replayed all the games” (11). It had hurt to think about how quickly the glory days ended, but now he and his family have season tickets to the game, and it no longer hurts to remember.

Paul knows almost all the town gossip and gives Neely information about Rake, Screamer, and Jesse. He even fills Neely in on players younger than them, like Jaeger, whose family he knew because “like everybody else in Messina, they banked with Paul” (27). Paul is utilized to contextualize a lot of details in Bleachers. He is also used to demonstrate one path Neely’s life could have taken, one where he settled down with a family in Messina, had he not held on to the past for so long.

During his time as a Spartan, Silo played “center on offense and the noseguard on defense” and “owned the middle of every field he played on” (16). He is described as being built like a silo: “everything was thick—chest, waist, legs, arms” (16). He was always a violent player, and he carries that reckless approach to life after high school. Silo sold drugs for a while, but after a run-in with the police, he switched paths and lied his way into the Army. Paul tells Neely that after he got out, Silo runs a body shop, which Paul describes as lucrative, but the real money maker is the illegal chop shop in the back.

Silo is tough and violent, but he is also loyal to the other Spartans. As much as he loves Rake, when Rake punches Neely and Neely punches back, it’s Neely that Silo defends. He is a Spartan, tried and true, and his brothers will always have his back.

Nat Sawyer is another Spartan who played with Neely, Paul, and Silo during his time at Messina High School. He “was the worst punter in the history of Spartan football” (60). Unlike his teammates, he lacked both athleticism and a yearning for violence. Now, Nat is “the first openly gay downtown merchant” (62), and his ponytail and earrings suit him much better than his football uniform ever did. He owns a book and coffee shop, which was a favorite spot of Rake’s. Rake was a huge encouragement to Nat when he came out to him, and again when Nat wanted to open the shop.

Despite him not fitting in with the other players as an athlete, Nat is treated as a brother. Paul loans him $30,000 for his business, and he is included when the team reminisces. Nat also looks back fondly on those days as a Spartan, and he is the one who brings the recording of the 1987 game to the bleachers.

One of Nat’s best friends is Cameron, which makes his relationship with Neely shakier than the other players. He still feels strongly about how Neely treated Cameron, telling him, “You were the all-American, Neely, you had your pick of any girl in school. You dumped Cameron because Screamer was hot to trot. I hated you for it” (68). Nat later admits that he never hated Neely, but his loyalty to Cameron is strong enough to be one of the few things that tests the strength of their fraternity.

Mal Brown is the Sherriff in Messina who played for the Spartans the first year of Rake’s career. He is described as having a larger stomach, and on the drive he takes with Neely and Paul, food seems to always be on the mind.

Mal is also a Vietnam veteran, and on the drive to talk to Jesse, he tells Paul and Neely a story of a close brush with death he had while overseas. His boat was attacked, and many of his friends on the boat died. During this moment, he thinks of his former coach: “Rake. Eddie Rake. When I was hangin’ on for my life under that boat, I didn’t think about my momma or my dad or my girlfriend, I thought about Rake” (108). Mal lived and breathed Spartan football, didn’t miss a game, and is usually in the know about the team. This likely heightened his curiosity about the 1987 championship, which was kept a secret for so many years.

Mal, too, is loyal to his Spartan brothers and is quick to show special treatment when they’re arrested, garnering “a special cell, better food, weekend passes” (114). He is the one who pulls strings to bring Jesse Trapp to Rake’s funeral. Though there is a large generational gap between Mal and the others, Mal’s treatment of them and all Spartans reveals football’s political sway in the town and emphasizes the town’s priorities.

Cameron is Neely’s first love and the girl he dumped for Screamer back in high school. Neely regrets this, and as Nat reminds him, he “went with the bimbo, instant gratification, but in the long run it was a bad choice” (68). When Neely finally does see Cameron again, the weight of that bad choice hits him all at once. Grisham describes her as a fit woman who is “much prettier than in high school” with “thick auburn hair” and “dark blue eyes adorned with chic designer frames” (124). After a cool entrance and a few moments of silence, she tells Neely how she’s been. She married a man she met in DC when she moved there after college, and they have two children. Her husband is very successful, and she doesn’t give Neely much thought anymore.

Beneath Cameron’s hard shell, the breakup took years to heal. Cameron despises football because of Neely and what it did to his ego and their relationship. Her character is used to spell out the grievances some hold against the town for worshiping football, calling it a “sad scene” and thanking Neely for “shoving [her] out of it” (133). After the breakup, Cameron was an outsider to the world of Spartan football and saw through the façade much earlier than any other character did. It took several years, but she eventually got over Neely and found happiness elsewhere. Cameron is the opposite of Neely in that she has no desire to revisit and relive the past. She is content in living in the present and doing what she can to forget the past.

Rabbit taught a variety of subjects at Messina High until it was discovered that he never graduated from high school. When he was fired, Rake decided to make Rabbit an assistant coach, meaning he took orders from Rake and was at his side for all of the controversy the last 15 years.

His determination to see the Spartans win seriously injured Rabbit at one point in time. To stop a touchdown of the opposing team, “Rabbit flung his bony and brittle body into the arena” (31), colliding with a running back. The collision left him with multiple injuries, and he had to be taken off The Field in an ambulance. Rake used the incident to push his team to fight harder, in honor of Rabbit, and the Spartans won. Afterward, Rake created the “Rabbit Trophy for hit-of-the-year” (33). Rabbit recovered and gained his own hero status.

Rabbit serves an important part of the story because he is the one who turns on the field lights: “His version of a vigil. When Rake dies, the lights go out” (31). The lights are symbolic of Rake’s life and looming presence over all the players, even when he isn’t physically there.

Out of all the Spartans, Jesse Trapp had arguably the most potential to make it in the NFL. He is described as incredibly built (and he is even more so now) but a series of bad decisions landed him in jail for 28 years without parole.

In a story full of characters seeking to face their mistakes one way or another, Jesse Trapp is one who feels that he deserves his punishment. Though he eventually changes his mind, he initially declines the offer to accompany Neely, Paul, and Mal to the funeral. Jesse doesn’t want to face the people he let down, or the memory of Rake’s disappointment in him. He continues, telling them about the day of his trial: “I had ruined my life, and I was humiliated over that. I had wrecked my parents, and I was sick about that. But what hurt the most was that I had failed in Rake’s eyes” (121). Jesse instructs the Spartans to leave him out of the burial, but not before requesting that they write letters and visit more often because he is terribly lonely.

At the end of the novel, Jesse comes to the funeral after all, reuniting with his mother and walking past the crowd he feared would hate him. Instead, they applaud his entrance to The Field to welcome him home, again emphasizing football’s importance above all else.