him that he made it because the coach didn't have the heart to cut him. Coach told him that he was a great kid and a great teammate and that he made the team because of that. Coach said my brother was the last person to be cut when the coach made his original list . . . but the coach then changed his mind and decided to take one more player because he didn't want to cut my brother. He also told him that this meant that he would probably never play.

He told him all this, I'm sure, because he liked my brother. But what it meant in reality is that my brother never really felt like he belonged, and he attended every practice and game with very little expectation of ever seeing the field. In retrospect, it might have been better had he been cut and then he could have moved on to so something else.