Boot Camp (10 page)

She and Jamal brushed by each other without exchanging a word or a glance. He slumped down on the bench beside me.

“This is pathetic!” he snapped.

I wasn't going to use that strong a word for
how he was playing but at least he understood that he couldn't—

“Can't win the whole thing by myself,” he continued, and my mouth dropped open. “I need some help out there!”

“I…I got some points,” I stammered. I had gotten a rebound off one of his missed shots and converted it to a basket.

“I don't mean you,” he said. “You're the only guy I got out there who knows what he's doing.”

“Kia can play,” I said.

He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“She can. Just watch her.”

Kia had taken over at the point guard spot, and she easily beat the man trying to press her. She was moving around trying to find an open man. As the defense came forward, she saw our center open, right under the hoop. She threw a perfect pass, and the ball went through Brandon's hands, hitting him on the side of the head and bouncing out of bounds!

“Nice pass,” Jamal said.

“It was a nice pass,” I said, defending her. “It hit him right in the hands!”

“No point. Didn't you watch him during the
drills? Guy's got no hands. He couldn't hold a ball if it was in a gym bag.”

The other team came down and scored an easy basket.

The ball was thrown into Kia, and she started dribbling. A second man came on her, trapping her. She looked up court. There were two people wide open. She threw up a baseball pass. The ball soared through the air and dropped right between them. Neither moved as it bounced out of bounds.

“Either one of them could have had that,” I said.

“She should have thrown it to one or the other, but not both.”

I realized there was no point in trying to convince him Kia could play. He'd have to see it with his own eyes. Unfortunately with Kia out there without much support there wasn't a lot she could do. The other team was scoring pretty much at will and every time Kia tried to bring the ball up, they put the press in place and she was facing two or even three people. She couldn't dribble out of it, and when she threw up a pass, it just squirted through hands or bounced off somebody and was scooped up by the other
team. This game was getting well out of hand quickly. Even when I did get out there, and even if Jamal would come out and work with us, we were probably already too far behind to pull this game out of the fire.

A loud whistle blew, signaling the end of the game. I was glad it was over…well, really the game had been over since about the ten-minute mark when it became obvious that we didn't have a chance to win. We had just lost our sixth game in a row.

It had been an awful day. The worse things got, the less we played like a team. Most of the guys had given up, Jamal hadn't made any passes at all, and Kia had gotten stubborn and stupid, not passing to Jamal and really not passing much to any of us.

This last game had been just plain embarrassing. They hadn't just beaten us, they had run the score up and made all sorts of comments throughout the game—trash talking and taunting us. There had been some words between Jamal and a couple of their players during the game.

The two teams met at center court so we could
shake hands. I was getting really tired of being a good sport—or at least pretending to be a good sport. Pretending was the best I could do at this point.

“Good game,” I said as I tapped hands with the first guy and then the second and—there was a commotion from behind me. I turned around. Jamal was in an argument with one of the players from the other side. They were in each other's faces and then Jamal reached out and gave the kid a big push and he tumbled backward! Two other kids from their team lunged into the action, grabbing Jamal, and suddenly Kia jumped in, grabbing one of the players and shoving him backward and—

“That's enough!” Jerome yelled as he came forward, getting in between the two teams.

Jamal didn't look like he wanted to be separated. Jerome practically had to pick him up off the ground to get him away from the other guy. Jamal still struggled to get free but he was wrapped up in Jerome's huge arms and he wasn't going anywhere. The other coaches all rushed over. Jamal stopped fighting and Jerome loosened his grip.

“Both teams, come with me, now!” Jerome yelled.

He walked away, and we dutifully followed. There wasn't a sound except for our shoes against the floor. I looked up. Every other person in the whole gym was silently staring at us. This was not good.

Jerome held open the door to one of the change rooms, and we all shuffled through. I was glad to be getting away from everybody else's prying eyes and ears.

“Sit,” Jerome said.

The other team sat down on the bench on one side of the room, and we all took the other side. Everyone sat in complete silence. I kept my eyes on the floor. I didn't know exactly what was going to happen, but it wasn't going to be good.

“Now, somebody tell me what that was all about,” Jerome said quietly.

Nobody answered. I took a deep breath. Should I answer?

“Jamal?” Jerome asked.

“Why you asking me?” he said defiantly.

“Because you're one of the captains, aren't you?”

“Um…yeah.”

“So?”

He shrugged.

“He started it!” one of the players on the other team yelled before Jamal could say anything, pointing right at Jamal. “He took a swing at me!”

Jamal jumped to his feet, and I thought he was going to rush across the room and start fighting again, but Jerome got in between them.

“Sit down,” he ordered, and Jamal slumped back down onto the bench.

“We're here for a discussion. Jamal, did you hit him?”

“I didn't hit him,” Jamal said.

I knew that was a lie. Everybody in the whole room knew that was a—

“I pushed him,” Jamal said. “But I
should
have hit him.”

“They were trash talking,” Kia said.

“Yeah, saying how they wiped the floor with us!” Jamal said.

Actually they
had
wiped the floor with us, but I guess that wasn't the point.

“They were disrespecting us,” Jamal continued.

“Nothing worse than a bunch of bad winners,” Kia said.

“Yeah, exactly!” Jamal agreed.

Strange, the two of them agreeing on something.

“How about a bunch of bad losers?” Jerome asked.

I knew he didn't really want an answer to that question.

“I don't care how it got started,” Jerome said, “but it's going to end right here. Nobody is going to be trash talking anymore,” he said, looking at the other team. “If I'd heard it during the game, I would have stopped it right there and then. And nobody is going to be putting their hands on anybody else,” he said, looking down the line at the members of our team.

No one said anything.

“Now, we're only a few minutes from the end of the day. Everybody head out and get ready to go home…everybody except Jamal, Kia and Nick.”

I understood him asking for Jamal to stay behind, and even Kia, but why me? I hadn't done anything wrong. I hadn't pushed anybody, or even argued. All I'd done was try to have everybody get along and play ball together. I was the guy who got Jamal to come back and rejoin the team.

“You three really got your butts kicked out there,” Jerome said. “You really took a beating. They made you look bad. Man, I don't think I ever got beaten that badly in my whole—”

“Yeah, we lost,” Kia said, cutting him off.

“Do you know why you lost so bad?” he asked.

I figured that was another one of those questions that didn't need to be answered.

“Would you say that I know basketball?” he asked.

“Of course, you know basketball,” I said. “You're in the NBA.”

“And I know basketball players. I know there is no way that the three of you working together on the same team should be blown off the court like that. Do you know why you lost so bad?”

I knew, but again, I wasn't going to answer.

“You didn't play like a team,” Jerome said. “You know there is no
I
in team.”

“But there is in
win
,” Jamal said.

“And I didn't see any
W
on the standings board,” Jerome said. “I saw six games and six losses.”

“I played as well as I could,” Jamal said. “I scored more than half of the points in every game.”

“And how many assists did you get?” Jerome asked.

“Not many,” he said under his breath.

“You're right…if you consider none to be not many.”

“I got some assists…didn't I?” he asked and looked at me.

I shook my head. “I don't think so.”

“We can't win if you don't pass the ball,” Kia snapped.

“Maybe you shouldn't be talking,” Jerome said. “How many times did you pass the ball to Jamal?” Jerome asked Kia.

“Well…”

“You can't point a finger at him unless you point one at yourself,” Jerome said.

Kia didn't answer. She looked at the same patch of floor that Jamal was already staring at.

“And what about you, Nick?”

“Me?” I asked in shock. “I passed to both of them.”

“You passed the ball, but you also passed the buck.”

“I don't understand.”

“Did you talk to either of them about the way they were playing?”

“Talk to them?”

“Tell them honestly, from the heart, that they were wrong in what they were doing? Did you?”

I shook my head. “I tried a bit…but I didn't think they'd listen.”

“You don't know if they'll listen or not, but
if you don't try, you can't succeed. You didn't try.”

We all sat there in silence, staring down at the same piece of floor.

“Can I ask you a question?” Kia asked, finally breaking the trance.

“Of course.”

“Why did you put the three of us on the same team?”

“Only girl here and I'm stuck with her,” Jamal said.

“I hadn't really thought about that. I don't look at those things, like I don't notice what color somebody is,” Jerome said. “I don't see color. I just see character.”

“Dr. Martin Luther King said that,” Kia said.

Jerome smiled. “I'm impressed.”

“He's one of my heroes,” she said.

“He's one of my heroes too,” Jamal said.

“Mine too,” Jerome said. “The reason I put the three of you together is that I thought you'd play well together.”

“I guess you were wrong about that,” Kia said.

Jerome shook his head. “I don't think I was wrong. Right now you're not a team. If you decided to work together you could
still
be a good team. I'm
going to leave the three of you to figure out how to do that.”

Jerome walked out of the dressing room, leaving us sitting there. Nobody said anything. I knew if I waited for one of the other two to start talking we'd be there all night.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“Isn't that kind of obvious?” Kia said.

“Not to me.”

“We have to start working as a team,” she said.

“Do you two think you can work together?” I asked.

“I can work with anybody…if I have to,” Jamal said.

“I don't think there's any choice. Jerome isn't going to change the teams at this point. Besides, you two already started to work together,” I said.

“We did?” Jamal asked.

“Did you notice who was the first person to help you during that fight?” I asked.

“I was too busy being shoved by three guys to notice anything,” Jamal said.

“It was Kia,” I said.

“It was?” he asked and looked up at her.

She shrugged. “There were three of them. Somebody had to even up the odds.”

“But you don't even like Jamal, so why did you do it?” I asked. “Why did you jump in to help him?”

She didn't answer right away. Finally she spoke. “He's my teammate.”

“No way I could stand there and take that garbage from those guys,” Jamal said.

“Somebody had to tell them to shut up,” Kia agreed. “If you hadn't shoved that guy, I would have!”

“Yeah, good for you, girl!” Jamal said.

“Those guys did deserve to be shoved around. After all we can't have anybody going around telling the truth,” I said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kia asked.

“They were telling us what a joke we were, how easily they beat us. Wasn't the score thirty-five to seventeen? Aren't we a joke?” I asked.

Both Jamal and Kia looked at me angrily, but neither of them said anything.

“Maybe it's time to stop complaining about people
calling
us a joke and stop
being
a joke.” I turned to Kia. “Can Jamal play ball or not?”