Hook Shot Hero (5 page)

T
he campfire was just ending when Tim returned. He managed to slip into the crowd unnoticed. Billy was already in their room when he reached the cabin.

“Where’ve you been?” Billy demanded.

Tim explained about Wanda and the clown puppet.

“If Wanda hadn’t turned on the lights just then, I would have been right behind you,” he added so that his friend wouldn’t feel embarrassed at having fled. “That clown is beyond creepy!”

Then he told Billy about the idea the puppet had given him. When he was done, Billy nodded thoughtfully.

“You might as well give it a try,” Billy said. “If the kids go for it, great. If not”—he shrugged—“what’s the worst that can happen?”

The next morning after breakfast, Tim arrived at the basketball courts carrying white sheets he’d gotten from the arts and crafts center, plus a handful of clothespins. Mike and his mentees were already hard at work at one end of the courts. When Tim saw them, he almost changed his mind about putting his new plan into action.

What’s the worst that can happen?
he echoed Billy’s question from the previous night.
I can make a fool of myself in front of Gruber again, that’s what!

Then Keanu raced past him, arms outstretched and making zooming noises, and Tim decided he might as well try it after all.

Tim called his boys together. “We’re going to work on defensive positioning today,” he told them. He expected them to groan—and he wasn’t disappointed.

“We already did that,” Red complained.

“Yeah, well, today we’re going to do it differently. Keanu, come here.” When the boy came forward, Tim pinned a sheet around his neck.

Keanu opened his eyes wide. “Cool!” he cried, twisting around to admire his new apparel.

Red and Peter jumped up and demanded capes of their own. Tim put one around each of their necks and let Red tie one around his own neck, too. Then he turned to Keanu. “Show me what a superhero looks like when he takes off to fly.”

Keanu’s arms snapped straight up over his head.

“Freeze!”

Keanu froze.

“This is how you should look when you’re guarding a shooter,” Tim said. “When your arms are up, it’s a whole lot harder for him to get the shot off. And as you know,” he improvised, “superheroes have to jump to take off. So do basketball players who are defending the hoop.”

He held his arms overhead and jumped as if blocking a shot. The boys imitated him. As they did, Tim noticed one of Mike’s kids watching them.

Tim beckoned Red, Peter, and Keanu closer. “I think we need a secret code name for this move,” he said in a low voice. “How about ‘take off’? Whenever you hear it, put your arms up and jump. Okay?”

“Okay!” all three whispered conspiratorially.

“Then let’s try it. Take off!”

The boys thrust their arms up high and jumped straight up as if reaching for the sky.

Tim stepped back as if amazed. “Wow! For a minute there, I thought you really were about to fly!”

The boys giggled. Then Red raised his hand. “I know another move we can do!” He got into a low crouch, gathered the ends of his cape into his hands, and held his arms out at a downward angle—the classic defender’s position.

“Good!” Tim praised. “What’s its code name?”

“‘Shield,’” Red answered immediately, “because a superhero would hold his cape like this to shield someone behind him.”

“But what if the person he was protecting was moving around?” Tim prodded.

Red thought for a minute. Then, still in his crouch and with his cape held out, he sidestepped one way and then the other.

Tim grinned broadly. “Yes! And that’s just what you guys have to do whenever you’re on defense. Low stance, arms wide, and sidestep—shield!”

“I’ve got one!” Peter said excitedly. “Remember when you said we should keep our eyes glued to our man’s middle, because wherever his gut goes, he’ll go?”

Tim was pleased to know that something he’d said had sunk in. “That’s right. Your guy can fake you out of position with other parts of his body—his head and arms, or by stutterstepping, for example. But it’s nearly impossible to move your midsection one way while you’re going another. Believe me, I’ve tried to do it! So what’s your thought, Peter?”

Peter pointed two fingers at his eyes and then touched them to Tim’s middle. “ ‘Laser vision’! We pretend to bore a hole right through our guy.” He narrowed his eyes, stared at Tim’s belly button, and made a sizzling sound with his lips.

They all laughed. Then Tim paired Peter with Keanu and Red with himself. “Let’s test out our codes.” He told Peter to pretend to dribble. To Keanu and Red, he said, “Shield!”

The two defenders immediately dropped into a defender’s stance.

“Laser vision!”

Red stared so hard at Tim’s stomach that Tim swore he could actually see smoke rising from that spot. He leaned over then and whispered something in Peter’s ear. Straightening, he gave Peter a nod and said, “Ready? Go!”

Peter took off, dribbling an imaginary ball. Keanu looked startled but recovered quickly. A few rapid sidesteps put him between Peter and the basket.

“Shield,” Tim heard him mutter. “Laser vision!”

And when Peter jumped as if to shoot, Keanu jumped, too, whipping his hands above his head and mouthing, “Take off!”

Red jumped up and down. “Is it our turn now?” he asked eagerly.

Tim nodded. Satisfaction spread through his body as Red followed him step for step to the hoop.

The satisfaction faded a moment later, however. That’s when he saw Mike’s kids working through a complex drill sequence at the other end of the courts. Mike stood to one side, but he wasn’t looking at his threesome. He was watching Tim. Even from a distance, Tim could see the scorn in his face.

Tim suddenly saw his mentees through Mike’s eyes. Compared to Mike’s kids, Red, Peter, and Keanu looked like guests at a superhero-themed birthday party. All that was missing was the cake and ice cream.

With that thought, he reached up to remove his cape. But a small hand stopped him. He looked down to see Keanu grinning up at him.

“This is the best practice ever!” the boy cried.

Tim stared at him. Then, with a broad smile, he tightened the knot at his throat and silently vowed not to let Mike ruin the beginning he’d made that day.

And he better watch out at practice, too!

T
im hit the court for the Eagles afternoon session with renewed determination. Giving up was no longer an option. Playing the best he could—and earning a slot in the starting lineup—were the only goals he had.

He sprinted his laps. He fired hard, accurate passes. He dribbled with control, switching hands with more dexterity than he even knew he had.

“You are
intense
today,” Donnie DeGeronimo commented after Tim stole the ball and drove the length of the court for a layup.

“Must have been something I ate,” Tim growled as he hustled back on defense.

“Well, save me a piece next time,” Cue Ball put in. “I’m always hungry for stuff like that!”

Donnie and Cue Ball weren’t the only ones who noticed Tim’s improved playing. “You’re showing me something here, Daniels,” Tito called after Tim faked a shot and then bounced a pass around his defender. “I like it. I like it a lot!”

Tim acknowledged the praise but didn’t let it boost his confidence too much. Only after he’d sunk a few jumpers during their scrimmage did he give himself a mental pat on the back.

None of those shots was a hook because he needed more practice first. Dick Dunbar must have realized why he wasn’t shooting that particular shot because after dinner, he pressed the key to the gym into Tim’s hand and told him to return it when he was through.

Tim found Billy, who was more than willing to help out once he knew they had Dick’s permission to use the gym. Tim wondered if he’d run into Wanda there again, but he and Billy had the indoor court to themselves. The session went well, with Tim hitting the hook consistently despite heavy pressure from Billy.

“You sure you don’t want to rejoin the team?” Tim asked his friend at one point. “You’re playing really well!”

Billy shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe.”

After so much basketball, Tim slept like a log that night. He woke up refreshed and ready to try out a new drill with Red, Keanu, and Peter. He’d gotten the idea after lunch the day before, when he’d seen a camper frantically licking an ice cream cone that was melting all down his hand.

“I call it dribbling without dribbling,” Tim told his three boys the next morning. He led them to the camp concession stand, where he bought them each an ice cream cone. Before they started eating, he took them to the paved path and handed them each a basketball.

“Hold your cones out, like this”—he positioned his left arm away from his body and almost parallel to the ground—“and dribble the ball with your free hand. Now this is the important part: keep your eyes on your ice cream at all times! When it starts to melt, lick it. But don’t stop dribbling the ball!”

As a guard, Tim knew how important it was to learn to dribble without watching the ball. He figured the best way to teach the little boys this skill was to give them something better than the ball to look at. Maybe it wasn’t the usual way, but it seemed to work. The boys finished their cones quickly but continued to practice their heads-up dribble long after the last bite.

Back at the court, Tim and his mentees played hot potato so they could work on making their chest passes fast, sharp, and accurate. Then he switched the game to bounce passes, renaming the drill mashed potato just to hear them laugh. Finally, in a drill he called potato, potato, who has the potato, he put one boy in the middle with instructions to intercept the ball that he and the other two boys were passing to and fro.

“All this potato talk makes me hope they’re serving french fries with lunch!” he joked.

That afternoon at the outdoor courts, Tim inched closer to a starting spot on the Eagles with his own heads-up play. Later, his night session at the indoor gym was the best yet. Not only did he sink more hook shots than ever before, but also Wanda reappeared to put Gruber the clown puppet back in the closet. Before she stowed it, however, she took Billy’s place on the court and used it to help Tim practice.

“You’ve got to try the hook shot in the game against Camp Chickasaw,” Billy urged him. “They won’t be able to shut you down!”

Wanda nodded. “You’ve really improved since that first session. I think you could make it work for you.”

“Maybe,” Tim said evasively. “If I’m feeling it after tomorrow’s practice … maybe.”

The next morning, Tim had another fun mentoring session. This time, he took the kids to the waterfront, led them into the water above their waists, and handed them each a ball.

“We’re in the water for two reasons. One, so you’ll learn to start your jump shot with the ball held above, not at, your waist. Bringing the ball up from down low gives your defender extra time to slap it out of your hands. Here in the water, you’ll have to start the shot high because the water is in your way.”

“What’s the second reason?” Red asked.

Tim splashed him. “I was getting tired of hearing you complain about the heat!”

He showed them how to grip the ball with the fingers of their shooting hand spread across the ball’s stripes and the other hand holding the ball in place. “Use your finger pads, not your whole hand,” he added. “Then, as you jump for the shot, push the ball straight up and, at the very top, flick your wrist to send it arcing to the hoop.”

Peter gave it a try. “Whoa!” he cried in astonishment when he landed. “I feel like I jumped a mile into the air!”

“That’s because the water makes you buoyant,” Tim said. “You’ve got hang time like Dwight Howard or LeBron James!”

“Hey, that should be the code word for this!” Peter said.

“What, Dwight Howard?” Tim asked. “Or LeBron James?”

“No—‘hang time’!”

“I’m good with that,” Tim said. “Now enough talk. Get your hang time going, boys!”

Tim watched the boys practice their shots, stepping in every so often to correct something that wasn’t quite right. That afternoon, at Eagles practice, he was surprised to hear Sam compliment him on his own shooting form.

“Not that it was bad before,” Sam hastened to add. “But your shot just looks smoother and more consistent today.”

It suddenly occurred to Tim that Peter, Red, and Keanu weren’t the only ones benefiting from the mentoring program. Every time he explained how to do something to them, he was reminding himself how to do it. Now, whenever he caught himself doing a move wrong in practice, he corrected himself.

He mentioned his discovery to Dick a few days later during a water break. Dick grinned. “So you figured that out, huh? Good for you. Think Mike has learned the same thing?”

Tim thought about the way Mike yelled at his kids and shrugged. “Truthfully? No. But then again, he’s probably teaching his crew a whole lot more than I’m teaching mine.”

Dick drained his cup. “Guess we’ll see during the demonstration on Parent Pickup Day next week.”

Tim, in mid-sip, sputtered and choked. He had forgotten all about the demonstration!

W
ith the demonstration suddenly looming over his head, Tim made a vow to teach Red, Peter, and Keanu an honest-to-goodness play the following morning. But a torrential rainstorm shut down all outdoor activities the next day. Tim didn’t meet with his mentees, and the Eagles had only a short indoor practice so other teams could use the gymnasium.

At the end of the session, Tito announced the starting lineup against Camp Chickasaw. When Tim heard his name called along with Donnie, Brian, Cue Ball, and Mike, he had to clamp his lips shut to keep from shouting in triumph.

He’d set a goal to start on the court, not the bench—and he’d reached it!

His triumph was short-lived, however.

“You better not blow it for us
this
summer, Daniels,” Mike growled as they passed each other. “I want a win.”

Because of Tim’s missed foul shot at the end of the game last summer, Chickasaw had ended Wickasaukee’s ten-year undefeated record. When the Chickasaw bus rolled into the camp the next morning, it was clear from the chants and shouts that the visitors were looking to add another hash mark in their win column.

But Wickasaukee was just as determined to regain their lost crown.

Competitions of all sorts took place from after breakfast to lunch and then from lunch until dinner. Tim took part in a three-inning softball match that Wicky won, a water balloon toss that left him soaked to the skin when Billy flung the missile too hard, and the hundred-yard dash that saw him placing second overall. But as always, the highlight of the day was the much-anticipated boys’ basketball showdown.

Tim had butterflies in his stomach as he joined the other Eagles on the court. Today they were all dressed in the camp’s light blue and white jerseys with dark blue shorts. The Chickasaw players wore dark green uniforms. The two teams warmed up for fifteen minutes, and then the starters headed onto the floor.

Both teams were playing a half-court man-to-man defense. Tim identified who he’d be covering and then took his position for the tip-off. A moment later, the whistle blew, the ball was tossed up between the centers—and the game began!

Donnie was at center. He leaped and batted the ball into Mike’s hands. Mike dribbled a few steps. Then his defender jumped in front of him, hands waving.

Tim dodged free of his man in case Mike looked to pass. But Mike hadn’t lost his dribble. Rather than pass, he feinted to the right, switched hands, and tried to slip past the defense to the left.

The defender wasn’t fooled. He dogged Mike every step, snaking his hand in so often that Mike finally stopped just outside the three-point arc.

He needs help!
Tim darted toward his teammate, hands up.

But Mike didn’t pass; he shot. His defender jumped with him and—
boom!
— walloped the ball straight down! A Chickasaw player moved to grab it off the bounce, but Tim was faster. He nabbed the ball, put it on the floor, and dribbled into the paint. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cue Ball slide into position under the basket. Without missing a beat, Tim directed a pass into his waiting hands. Cue Ball went up—score!

“A beautiful play by Tim Daniels, and Wickasaukee gets on the board first,” a voice over the loudspeaker bellowed. Tim glanced over and saw Dick Dunbar grinning from behind the microphone.

Tim raced back on defense, turning to jog backward when he crossed the half-court line. It was a good thing he did, too, because his man was bringing the ball down at top speed. If he’d still been facing the hoop, the guard would have blown by him for sure!

Shield
popped into his head. He dropped into his low defensive stance, arms out.
Laser vision!
He kept his eyes trained on the man’s midsection. When the guard stutter-stepped, Tim stuck with him instead of moving out of position.

The Chickasaw player passed the ball to a teammate. Mike dove for the steal but missed. Now his man had an open path to the hoop. He drove in and went up. Missed!

The Chickasaw fans groaned and the Wickasaukee fans cheered. Bobby Last came down with the rebound. He fired an outlet pass to Mike, who dribbled madly toward the hoop. Tim was sure he was going to go all the way, but at the last second he dished to Donnie, who was waiting at the low post. Donnie caught the pass at his chest and jumped with the ball.

Slap! Fweet!

Play stopped at the sound of the whistle. The referee tapped his arm to indicate that Donnie had been fouled, reported the offender’s number to the table, and sent Donnie, whose shot had missed, to the line to shoot two.

Donnie sank them both. Wickasaukee, 4, Chickasaw, 0.

Two minutes later, Chickasaw drained one from the corner of the key to make it 4–2. Tim inbounded the ball to Mike. Mike took his time getting across half-court and then called out, “Twenty-two!”

Twenty-two was their standard pick play. Cue Ball ran to the top of the key and set himself sideways. Meanwhile, Mike sped up, drawing his defender with him—and smack into Cue Ball. Now free of his man, Mike took the ball to the hoop and laid it in for two more points.

“Mi-i-i-ke Gru-u-u-ber!” Dick drawled in perfect imitation of a professional announcer, eliciting laughter from the audience.

Back and forth the play went, with the score mounting steadily on both sides of the board. Yet try as they might, Chickasaw couldn’t gain the lead. By halftime, they were eight points in the hole to Wickasaukee.

Tim had contributed two of his team’s 32 points and had stolen the ball twice. He’d played most of the entire first half, too, and so wasn’t too disappointed when Tito put Sam in to start the second half.

Mike, on the other hand, protested when Tito subbed Elijah for him. “Pipe down, Gruber,” Tito snapped. “If you look closely, you’ll see every starter’s been replaced.”

“But if we want to win—”

“Then we’ll do it as a team,” Jody interjected. “A
whole
team, not just a handful of players.”

Mike looked as if he wanted to argue more. But Tito and Jody simply ignored him.

Tim couldn’t believe it. Mike Gruber was their golden boy. What, he wondered, had happened to change that?