Norwood, N.C. -- Brandon Beane probably thinks he can write a better story than this. He might even bet me a dollar.

Beane has been betting on himself all his life. He picked NFL games against his teacher during his seventh grade history class. He bet his high school golf coach a drink and a candy bar during practice rounds. Even today, he can't pass the putting green at Dick's Sporting Goods without turning it into a competition. It never matters whether money actually changes hands. Beane just craves having something on the line.

"Since I knew who I was as a kid," Beane says, "it's just been in me."

Now Beane is putting everything on the line by leaving the Carolina Panthers to be the Buffalo Bills general manager. He's taking on the weight of a playoff drought, which has stumped five men before him over a span of nearly two decades.

To understand where Beane's belief in himself comes from, take the 40-mile drive east from Charlotte down Route 52 through the fields toward Lake Tilly and you'll hit Norwood, N.C., the two-stoplight town where Beane grew up. You'll find it just how Beane left it, minus a shop or two. Most of the people who helped shape Beane are still here, and they aren't surprised to see what he's done.

"We always knew he would make his mark," says Charlie Phillips, Beane's high school football coach and long-time family friend. "We always knew he would end up somewhere."

Phillips pauses and cracks a smile.

"We just weren't sure if it would be prison."

Maybe the stakes don't seem that high on the surface. It's never easy to turn down one of the 32 general manager positions in the NFL. But Beane's bet on himself verges on reckless when you consider that he was assured he would take over as the general manager of his hometown Carolina Panthers when Dave Gettleman retired.

Instead, he decided to play his hand in Buffalo.

"The best way to get Brandon to do something is to tell him he can't do it," longtime friend Chris Phillips says. "He loves playing the underdog. And he really thinks they can win."

***

Beane's parents, Bob and Cindy, are sitting in their living room in Abermarle, N.C., just 15 miles from where Brandon grew up, photos of their grandsons Tyson and Wes on either side of them. They would seem like worthy candidates to help explain this undying hatred of losing and belief in self their son has, but even they have a hard time explaining it.

Brandon Beane golfing in high school.

Maybe Piney Point Golf Club, where Beane was a range boy, can help explain it. A yearly father-son golf tournament became heated when Beane was in grade school. The Beanes were up against Brandon's best friend and future college roommate Todd Swaringen and his father, Tom. Brandon outplayed Todd, but the match still went to a playoff. After Brandon outdrove Todd, Bob put the next shot in the bunker while Tom stuck one on the green.

"See there?!" Brandon yelled at his dad. "That's the way you're supposed to hit it!"

Bob turned to Tom, who just shrugged.

"I don't know why my dad didn't choke me, to be honest with you," Brandon says more than 30 years later.

Brandon still hates that Todd's name was above his on the leaderboard.

No, it wasn't just golf. Todd recalls the games of one-on-one with Brandon at his house. That court was a battleground. As small as Brandon was, the games took a physical toll.

"Right below where they parked was that little basketball court," Todd says. "It may have been 15-by-25 maybe. Tiny. Brandon and I would play one-on-one. We would play to 21, and I would hate it if I got up 18-to-12, because I knew what was coming. The rest of the game was going to be brutal. If I tried to go down low, I was going to get killed. He just wouldn't let you have a layup, wouldn't let you have anything. Once it got close it was over."

No, Brandon didn't reserve those hard fouls for the comfort of his home court in games against his best friend. Anyone who was breathing with a basketball in their hand in Stanly County had to be on notice. Once, during a middle school game, Brandon's frustration spilled over when an opponent much taller and more talented got a steal and had an easy path to the basket.

Brandon's father took one look at his son and said, "Oh no."

"The kid went up for the layup and Brandon just put both hands right in his back and nailed him to the wall," Bob recalls.

Brandon was immediately ejected. The opposing coach didn't think the punishment was enough.

"He was trying to get him kicked off the team," Bob says. "He said, 'He don't need to be playing.'"

There is a fine line between competitor and hothead. Plastering someone to the wall in a middle school basketball game probably qualifies as the latter. In that sense, he was lucky to have the strong influence of his parents and coaches in Norwood. As Cindy says, "It takes a village."

From left: Brandon Beane; Charlie Phillips, Beane's high school football coach; Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera; Dave Bright, Beane's assistant coach in football and his high school golf coach; and Beane's friend Chris Phillips in 2016.

Take Dave Bright, who was Brandon's assistant coach in football and his high school golf coach. Bright said he wishes every one of his players had Beane's work ethic and passion.

"If Brandon would have been 6-foot-2 or 6-foot-3, he could have been an All-American," Bright says.

Alas, Beane can't be much taller than 5-foot-8 on a good day. Bright was a football coach first and golf coach second, so he did more to instill discipline than hone Beane's golf swing. He instituted a rule for Brandon where if he threw a golf club during a match he had to buy the entire team dinner on the way home. If Brandon broke the rule, Bright never caught him. The two would also bet a Gatorade and a candy bar on a round of golf because, as Beane says, "He knew how to push my buttons to motivate me because it wasn't about the three dollars you spend on the drink and the candy bar. I just didn't want to pay him because he would be talking smack."

"I couldn't beat him in golf, but I could get inside his head," Bright says.

Bright and Phillips had a way of getting the most out of Brandon while testing his discipline. When South Stanly was preparing for the 1993 season, Brandon and Todd's senior year, they went through calisthenics workouts. One of the exercises the team would do is "six inches," an ab exercise in which you have to keep your legs and shoulder blades off the ground. While the players were complaining, Phillips offered a challenge. If anyone could beat him, that person wouldn't have to run. A loss would mean running double.

"Only one dumbass raised their hand," Todd recalls. "Brandon."

The whole team circled them, and after just over a minute of struggling and grabbing grass, Brandon accepted defeat.

"Of course he was not going to beat me," Phillips says. "None of (them) were going to beat me."

"We were smart enough not to try," Todd says. "He couldn't help but take a challenge."

If Brandon Beane ever turned down a challenge, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who can remember it. He's addicted to winning. It got him into heated arguments in history class during trivia competitions. It caused him to make a casual summer softball game not so casual when he tried to throw out an old man at first base from center field. Pickup basketball among Panthers' front office folks would get testy, too. No matter the contest, Beane's competitive streak finds a way to surface.

"It's more than a streak," Phillips says. "There's no casual with Brandon. It might be casual to everybody else."

But what would Beane do without an outlet for this bulldog-like ferocity? What if that thirst for victory had to take a different form? The only way to learn was to take away the only competitive outlets he'd ever known.

***

Standing in the South Stanly High School gym on a sticky June afternoon, Charles Phillips glances up at the school's Wall of Fame. The 50-plus names on the wall take up a banner-and-a-half. To get on the wall, an athlete had to be an All-American or a national champion. No easy task. Phillips coached or taught multiple generations of wall of famers and can tell the story of each one.

One name is notably absent from the wall: Brandon Beane.

Maybe he could have gotten on that wall. He was all-conference in football and basketball as a junior, but his high school career in both sports ended three plays into his senior year of football, a play he and his father still remember in vivid detail.

"I'll never forget it," his father says.

South Stanley was running a two-quarterback system that season, so Beane was playing wide receiver on this play. The ball went to another receiver, so Beane threw a block on a linebacker. He felt his knee give out.

"It just shredded," Beane says.

He actually tore his ACL the year before playing basketball but never knew it. The first doctor they visited missed it, so he finished basketball season and played summer football with a brace. If he had known then, his senior year might have been salvaged.

Instead, he found himself in a dark place, unable to walk, unable to compete. He shut his parents out, shut his girlfriend out and couldn't even bring himself to go to games. He couldn't go back. Before he had surgery, Beane went to another doctor's appointment.

"Is there any way I can play?" Beane asked his doctor. "Is there any way I can tape my knee up and just play? I can't end it like this."

The doctor didn't immediately say no but advised Beane of the damage it could do long term. His parents shut down the idea right away, so Beane had surgery and ended his senior football and basketball seasons.

"It was pretty tough," Cindy says.

Brandon Beane coached a junior high basketball team when he was a senior in high school.

Phillips noticed Beane struggling. By basketball season, Phillips knew Beane would need something to keep him busy. So instead of having him sit on the sideline of the varsity games, Phillips had another idea: South Stanly's junior high boys team needed a coach, and Beane was the perfect candidate.

Beane wasted no time preparing his team. He ran practices like he had been coaching for years and had his players ready for the opener. Beane might not have been quite as ready.

When the game started, Phillips was at the concessions stand, making sure everything was running smoothly. Someone came out to let him know he might want to get to the gym. Beane had just received a technical foul for yelling at the officials. Phillips sighed and made the 20-foot walk to the gym doors. By the time he walked onto the floor, Beane was getting his second technical foul and the ref was throwing him out of the game.

Phillips pulled Beane into the hallway. Beane was ready for the worst.

"Am I fired, coach?" Beane asked.

"I can't fire you!" Phillips said. "But I can whoop your ass."

Thus ended Beane's sideline tirades. Or at least they became a bit more tame.

"Obviously I was 17, the maturity level was not there," Beane says now. "It was there with teaching the kids, and I was all-in. I really felt like we made a lot of progress during the year and got better and won some games later in the year, but I did have to learn how to treat officials. They weren't going to take anything from this young coach."

That season helped Beane fall in love with coaching and changed his idea of what life after graduation might look like.

"He thought he might have a chance to play football at a small school," Cindy recalls. "He may or he may not have, but he never got the chance. He never got the opportunity to try because of that injury. He took a different path. Things happen for a reason sometimes."

Instead of attempting to extend his football career, Beane went to UNC-Wilmington, which doesn't even have a football team, with his childhood best friend Todd. At that time, he thought he wanted to be a coach, so his father told him to major in education. Beane received an education scholarship, but during his sophomore year, he made a call home.

"I think I'm going to change majors," Brandon said.

"Oh Lord, I'm going to have to pay all that money back," Bob said.

Beane had talked with someone who worked for the Orlando Magic in public relations. It opened his eyes to a different path to professional sports. He switched his major to communications and started focusing his attention on getting into the pro sports world.

"Here's the deal," his dad told him. "I know absolutely no one in that world. Zero connections, so good luck. If you want to do it, go for it."

The push in the right direction was all Beane needed. He worked tirelessly to make his dream a reality. Along the way, he met his wife, Hayley, who Beane says may or may not have known exactly what she was signing on for. Beane also led his college flag football team to an undefeated season by installing a no-huddle, single-wing offense with two quarterbacks.

"Nobody could beat us," Todd says.

The summer before Beane's senior year, the Panthers turned him down for an internship. Instead, Beane went to work with the Charlotte Touchdown Club, which did some events with the Panthers. It was as close as he could get. When graduation was approaching the next summer, Beane pushed the Panthers even harder, doing whatever he could to get in touch with their communications director, Bruce Speight.

"This was before email, so I was faxing resumes from a Kinko's to Bruce and calling him and saying, 'Hey, did you get my resume?'" Beane says.

Beane had a foot in the door and, from there, he never went away. He was up earlier than everyone else, doing extra work with the football operations department or the equipment staff. Folding towels, passing out laundry, whatever. Former Panthers general manager Marty Hurney brought him on full-time with the football operations department and slowly put more on his plate. First, Beane was in charge or training camp, then the season budget and travel arrangements.

By 2008, Beane was the director of football operations. When the Panthers fired Hurney six games into the 2012 season, Beane got called into owner Jerry Richardson's office and was named the interim general manager. The Panthers went 6-4 the rest of the season, and Beane managed to pluck pass rusher Mario Addison and kicker Graham Gano off the in-season waiver wire. Both are still with the team.

Brandon Beane and general manager Dave Gettleman before a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2015.

Still, when it came time to name a full-time general manager, Richardson hired Dave Gettleman. Beane was crushed that Richardson bet on someone else. He wouldn't go away, though. He stayed on staff and learned everything he could from Gettleman, who is known for his rigorous film study and extensive scouting experience, the one hole on Beane's resume. Beane quickly gained Gettleman's trust and was promoted to assistant general manager in 2015. He was Gettleman's right-hand man in more decisions than people know. Beane is meticulous in his knowledge of the collective bargaining agreement, salary cap and other nuances of football decision making. Beane complemented Gettleman's scouting prowess and soaked up everything he could.

There was nothing in writing, but Beane knew he was going to be the Panthers' next general manager when Gettleman, 66, decided to walk away. Richardson had assured him as much. A Carolina lifer, Beane was a step away from running his hometown professional football franchise. From the security guards to Cam Newton, everyone in the building loved working with him.

But Beane's never been one to sit around and wait, and when the Bills fired Doug Whaley and his entire scouting staff, Beane got a familiar itch.

"That's his dream job, to be the GM of an NFL team," Bob says.

"And he was ready," Cindy adds. "He felt like he was ready. He didn't want to wait around for Gettleman to retire. Even if it's two more years. You don't know what will happen here."

***

Buffalo Bills owners Kim and Terry Pegula welcome new general manager Brandon Beane, center, during a press conference on May 12, 2017, in Orchard Park, N.Y.

The Buffalo Bills have spent the last few years developing a national reputation as a volatile franchise. Terry and Kim Pegula have gone through 11 coaches, general managers and presidents between their two professional sports teams since buying the Sabres in 2011. They fired 10 of those, and the other one opted out of his contract three months after the Pegulas bought the team.

Beane had reservations about the Bills' job. He may believe in himself, but he's not crazy. He knows any general manager needs time and stability to build things the right way.

After his introductory dinner with the Pegulas, Beane was confident he would get that. Only time will tell whether that's true. Beane at least knows he's aligned with Sean McDermott, who was hired as head coach in January after six years as a defensive coordinator in Carolina, where Beane was the assistant general manager. While Beane was mulling whether he would take the job, McDermott texted him a picture of a book he was reading titled, "Chase the Lion: If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You, It's Too Small."

"Sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone," Beane says.

At the end of June, Bob and Cindy will host friends and family at their home for a going away party for their son. Stories will be swapped and tears might be shed. Then Beane, his wife, his two kids and two dogs will move north to Buffalo, where the weather will get colder and the pressure will become greater.

Those who know Beane best are hopeful. It's not that they're unsure of Beane's ability. They would bet on him as fast as he would himself. But there's a certain level of uncertainty in the NFL. Will he get enough time? Can he find a quarterback? Knowing what he's leaving behind makes it that much more nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time.

"We're hoping for the best," Cindy says.

There's a difference between hoping and knowing. Beane knows. There's a conviction in his voice as he stares out the window at One Bills Drive on a June afternoon, months before he'll start to really feel the pressure and the cold air.

"I just felt something," Beane explains when asked why he took the job. "Seventeen years. These people are dying for a winner. I believe in myself ... I want nothing more than to watch this community go ape nuts that the Bills are back in the playoffs. And I have no doubt."

If you don't believe him, bet him a dollar.