Long Shot (10 page)

“I can be there at six.”

“Six-thirty will be fine,” he said. “And let your parents know that they're welcome to come and watch if they want.”

“They can?”

“Parents are always welcome for games. It's practices and try-outs when I want them far away. See you Thursday.”

“Thanks … sure … bye,” I said as I put down the phone.

“Who was that?” mom asked.

“It was the coach. He called to say there's a game Thursday night.”

“What time?”

“Seven, so we have to be there at six-thirty.”

“But you have a piano lesson at six-thirty.”

“I can't make it,” I said. “Can't we reschedule it?”

She shook her head. “We can, but once, just once, I'd like it if a basketball game had to be rescheduled because of piano.”

“Come on, Mom, be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable. Matter of fact I have a very reasonable suggestion. Since you won't be going to piano, you should double up your practice tonight.”

I opened my mouth to protest but thought better of it.

“Sure, Mom, no problem,” I said as I trotted off to start piano.

* * *

“They're huge!” Kia hissed at me as she fell in behind me in the line.

We were going through our pre-game warm-ups. Both of us had one eye on our warm-ups and the other eye trained on our opponents at the other end doing their warm-ups.

“They can't be our age,” Kia continued.

“They're not,” I confirmed. “I heard some of the parents talking. They're two years older than us.”

“Then why are we playing them?” D.J. asked as he filed in behind Kia.

“Outlet!” I screamed as the man under the basket grabbed the ball and fired it to me. I fed the ball to the player charging from the other line and then trotted to join the next line. Kia did the same thing and fell into the line behind me again.

“D.J.'s got a good question. Why are we playing these guys?” Kia asked.

“I guess he figures it'll be a good test or something.”

“A test of what, how much we can lose by?” Kia asked.

“Just because they're bigger and older doesn't mean they're better than us,” I said.

“Since when have you become such a positive thinker?” she asked.

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” I said.

“Great, now you're quoting bumper stickers,” Kia said. “Besides the way I heard it was something like, the bigger they are, the harder they fall on top of you.”

“Funny.”

“It won't be when they land on you. Look at the size of that one guy,” she said, pointing to a player warming up at the far end. “He's bigger than my mom's car.”

I looked away and up to the stands. Both my parents, along with Kia's mother, were sitting alongside other parents and brothers and sisters and assorted people I didn't know.

“Big crowd,” Kia said.

“Bigger than we usually have for a game, especially an exhibition game,” I agreed.

“I think that's because Coach Barkley doesn't
allow parents at the try-outs, so everybody is curious about what we're like.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Although if there are other parents like my father, they're coming here to look at the coach as much as they've come to see us play.”

“You're not kidding. I heard a couple of the parents talking about him. You'd think he was some sort of famous singer instead of a guy who played basketball twenty years ago,” Kia noted.

Just then Coach Barkley waved to call us in. Everybody on the floor rushed to his side. The last to get there, as always, was L.B.

“I'm going to be playing everybody fairly equally throughout the game,” Coach Barkley said. “I want to see how all of you do in game situations.”

He'd already told me that I was one of the players who were starting. That was a good sign — at least I was pretty sure it was.

“There are sixteen of you left,” Coach Barkley continued. “By the end of this game I'm going to know which are my twelve and which four walk out the door.”

He wasn't saying anything I didn't already know. I figured this game was really the last try-out.

“Does anybody know what a ‘practice player' is?” Coach Barkley asked.

One of the new guys raised his hand. “A player who likes to practice?”

“Nobody likes to practice,” Coach Barkley smirked. “It's somebody who's a world-beater during practices but has nothing to give during a game. Try-outs are the same thing. Lots of people can look good in drills or little scrimmages, but don't have the goods when it's game time. Right now is game time. Everybody here want to make the team?” he asked.

There was a rumbling of ‘sure' and ‘yes' and nodding of heads.

“I can't hear you!” he yelled.

“Yes!” I screamed back along with everybody else.

“Then show me! Show me that you want it!” he growled.

Almost like on cue everybody started to howl and scream and cheer.

“I want to see who's got the heart and guts to be on my squad!”

Again, the entire huddle of kids cheered — well almost the entire huddle. L.B. was silent and there was a look on his face … it was hard to describe. He looked as if maybe he'd bitten down on something sour.

“Now let's play ball!”

I walked out onto the court and looked for my match-up. He wasn't hard to find. Just like everybody on the other team he was bigger than me. He smirked as I moved in beside him. I moved into
position for the tip-off and the player stepped into me, pushing me over to the side.

“You going to take that from him?” I heard Coach Barkley howl.

I looked over. He was staring directly at me. I lowered my shoulder and pushed back — hard. He didn't move much but reacted by bumping me with his hip and—

“Both of you settle down or we'll start the game with the two of you having a technical foul,” the ref warned.

We both moved slightly to the side, allowing a little bit of space between us.

“You'll be paying for that,” the player said under his breath.

I figured I probably would, but, if I hadn't done it, I would have been paying for it in a much more painful way. He didn't scare me nearly as much as the coach did.

I looked at our center standing beside their number five man. There was no way in the world we were going to get this tip. Instead what I had to do was figure out where it was going to go. Was their center going to tip it back to set up a play or try to tip it forward — over my head — to try for an early fast break basket? I knew what I'd try if I were doing it.

I took a deep breath and waited as the ref went to toss up the ball. Just as he started to throw it
into the air I jumped away from the circle. My man tripped over me, falling to the ground as the ball soared up and then was tipped right toward me! I grabbed the ball and quickly fed it up to Kia. She stopped, set, and put up a shot … it dropped!

At least we weren't going to be shut out I thought as the bench and bleachers went wild.

“Press!” yelled out Coach Barkley. “Zone press!”

The coach had had us work on the press for the last part of the last practice and had warned us we'd need to know it soon enough.

We all tried to scramble into our places, but before we could set up they threw the ball in and broke the press up the side. A fast pass went up to a breaking man and the score was tied.

“Time out!” screamed Coach Barkley.

We trotted over to the bench.

“What sort of a press was that?” he bellowed. “That stunk! You got beat and you didn't even have the guts to run back up the court when they beat you! Next five into the game.”

“What?” Kia asked in disbelief.

“The five of you on the bench! And if I hear one more word you're on the bench for the rest of the game!”

I felt like somebody had punched me in the side of the head. I staggered over to the bench and sat down. I couldn't believe I'd been benched
… that all of us had been benched. The game was less then thirty seconds old and I was sitting on the bench!

I lowered my eyes to the ground. The last thing I wanted to see were my parents sitting there looking at me. I'd never been benched before in my entire life, and they were sitting up there watching it happen. What would they think?

* * *

The buzzer went ending the first half. The score read 36 to 24. I didn't care about the score. I didn't care about anything except that I wanted to get through this nightmare.

Coach Barkley muttered something under his breath, tossed down a water bottle, and then stomped across the floor toward the dressing room. All of us sat on, or stood by the bench, not following.

“That was unbelievable,” Kia said. “He must have benched everybody at least twice.”

She was right about that. I thought the only reason I or anybody else got a chance to go back out was because he kept getting mad at somebody new. It was like we all took turns being yelled at and benched. And when he wasn't yelling at us he was yelling at the other team's players, or their coach or the refs. There were times it seemed like his eyes
glazed over and he was so mad he was practically spitting when he yelled. I'd never heard anybody carry on like that before — ever — anywhere. It was like watching a madman.

L.B. got up slowly from the bench and started across the floor after his father. Reluctantly other kids began to trail after him. I staggered to my feet and followed along, although it felt like my feet were filled with lead. I didn't want to go into that dressing room. I just wanted to leave — change out of my basketball shoes and go home.

The coach was pacing back and forth as we filed in, trying not to make a sound, and slumped down onto the benches.

“Don't any of you want to win?” Coach Barkley asked.

There was silence.

“Are you all deaf as well? Doesn't anybody here want to win? It looked like none of you were even trying out there.”

“We tried,” L.B. said so quietly I could hardly hear him and he was sitting right beside me.

“What did you say?” Coach Barkley questioned.

L.B. looked up at his father. “I said we tried.”

“Not hard enough!” Coach Barkley stated. His voice had gotten louder with each word. “Those kids in that other dressing room tried.”

“They're older than we are,” L.B. said.

I had to hand it to him. I didn't want to say anything.

“That's nothing but an excuse! I don't want any excuse!”

I could hear him getting louder and he started to pace faster around the room.

“You all just died and the reason you died is because none of you, not one, has enough heart!” he yelled, looking right at his son. “You're acting like losers and I don't want any losers on my team! Do you know what a loser is?” he demanded.

I kept my eyes focused squarely on the floor.

“A loser is somebody who stops trying to win. Is there anybody in here who thinks he's lost already?”

There was no answer. We all just sat there and said nothing.

“Do you think we can win?” he demanded, pointing at one kid.

“Um … maybe … I guess.”

“You guess! If you don't think we can win, maybe you better just pack your things and go home now!” he bellowed. “Do you think we can win?” he demanded of him again.

“Yes … yes, I think we can win,” he stammered.

“Because if any of you don't think you can win, then maybe I'm going to have to cut everybody in this room and start fresh with those kids I've
already cut! Maybe some of them don't have as many skills as this bunch, but they certainly have to have more heart! You all have the last half of this game to prove something to me … and if you don't … don't any of you expect to be on
my
team.”

“Are you okay?” my mother asked as she went to put an arm around my shoulder.