Long Shot (3 page)

“Didn't see that one coming,” Kia puffed.

“Nope. Hope it's going to be okay.”

“Why wouldn't it be —”

“Less talking and more running!” he called out.

I fell into line behind Kia and concentrated on running.

I watched the last of the parents file out of the gym and then saw Mr. Barkley pull the door closed.
Not only weren't they going to be in the gym, they weren't even going to be peeking into it.

“Pick it up!” he yelled. “I said first five were at half-speed, not snail speed!”

The line started to move more quickly. Kia and I were somewhere in the middle of the pack — a very large pack. With nothing else to do I focused on the other kids in the gym. There were a lot of them. More than I ever remembered before. There were also a lot of people I didn't recognize. Who were these kids and where did they come from?

The line started to move more quickly as the first in line finished the fifth lap. Like a long snake the speed change passed down the line until it reached me. I dug in deeper. Within a lap Kia and I were passing people — kids who didn't have the legs or lungs to keep up the pace. That felt good. I always liked to end up close to the front. I kept my eyes trained on Kia right ahead and trailed behind her and — somebody whisked by me on the outside and then passed Kia! That wasn't supposed to be happening. He was no more than a few feet ahead of her when Kia did exactly what I knew she'd do — she kicked it into a higher gear and started after him. I kept my eyes on Kia and ran with her.

This kid — I'd never seen him before — wove his way past another kid and then another, and
another. We passed the runner at the head of the line, really digging deep, but even though we were passing other kids the gap between us and the other kid was still growing. Whoever he was, he was fast. We weren't going to be catching him in the half lap we had left. At least nobody else was going to be — another player shot by us, even though we were running nearly at a sprint. I wanted to catch him, but I had nothing left. I slowed down as we reached the finish and then dropped down to a walk.

Behind me other kids finished up. Some of them came to a complete stop or were doubling over. A couple walked over to the bench and grabbed their water bottles and—

“I didn't call for a water break!” Mr. Barkley yelled and the two guys put their bottles back down.

“Hurry it up!” he bellowed. “This ain't no walk in the park! If this run is too much for you, maybe you should just gather up your stuff and leave now!”

Looking at all the bodies filling the gym I would have been happy if about half of them
would
just leave. Of course, anybody who left now wouldn't have been anybody to worry about anyway.

“Gather around,” Mr. Barkley called out as the last few stragglers finished their laps.

I got there fast and stood directly in front of him. 24

“When I call you in, I want you to run — just like that kid did,” he said, pointing at me.

Everybody was staring at me. I felt embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

“Anybody who doesn't come will cost everybody laps. I want to start by setting up some ground rules,” he said. “I am the coach of this team and none of you or your parents are my assistant coaches. I don't want any opinions or ideas or disagreements. What I say is law and I am the judge and jury. If you don't like it, then too bad!”

Kia looked at me and I knew exactly what she was thinking — that was so different than Coach Riley.

“You will address me as Coach, or Mr. Barkley, or simply as sir. Nothing else is acceptable. I am not your pal, or next door neighbor or your mommy. Do you all understand?”

I didn't think there was any danger of mistaking him for my mother — or a pal.

“When I blow my whistle, you stop whatever it is that you're doing. I don't want to hear anything, including the sound of bouncing balls. Your eyes, ears, and attention will be on me.”

There was a collective nodding of heads.

“Most of you know, and many of you have played for Coach Riley. I want you to know that I have a great deal of respect for him.”

My ears perked up — whenever somebody
said something like that I was always waiting for a “but.”

“But there are many things that I'm going to be doing differently.”

Part of me was proud I could predict what he was going to say — the other part was worried what he meant by ‘different.'

“I don't believe you can practice soft and then play hard, so my practices are going to be harder, more demanding, and more physical than most of you have ever experienced. When you're through with one of my practices, you're going to know you've been worked. You may even think you've been through a war. I'm doing that for your own good, although, when you're holding your gut or feeling the burn, you may not think so. Being nice as either a player or a coach doesn't win basketball games and we're here to win games. Now, enough talking. Time to move. I want six lines, about ten players per line. We're going to start with suicides! Raise your hand if you know what a suicide drill involves!”

About half of us raised our hands.

“For those who don't know, you run full speed to the foul line, touch the floor, and come back to the base line. Then full speed to half court, touch the floor, and race back to the base. Then to the far foul line and back, and finally all the way coast to coast at full speed.”

A groan went up from some of the players.

“I told you I wasn't looking for any assistant coaches. That groan will cost you all five more laps!”

A couple of people in the back grumbled.

“Make that seven more laps!” he bellowed. “Anybody want to make it ten?”

There was dead silence.

“Good. Now get running!”

* * *

“Everybody gather around!” Coach Barkley yelled.

I grabbed my ball and moved as quickly as I could to his side. I wasn't moving nearly as quickly as I had two hours before, but quicker than most of the other kids. A few hadn't been able to handle the pace and had to sit out. Others weren't given a chance to find out.

Before the try-out was even half way through Coach Barkley started to make cuts — at least I was pretty sure they were cuts.

At first I didn't even know what was happening. I saw him call this kid over to talk to him. I thought he was just asking him something or giving him some advice or suggesting how he could do something better. Then I saw the kid go off to the far end of the gym. Then I saw him go up to a second kid, and a third and a fourth, and send
them down there too. They were shooting hoops at one of the nets. He wandered down there a few times but basically he left them alone. I could tell myself that none of those guys were very good, but they should have at least had the chance to last the whole first try-out. It got to the point that when the coach even looked my way I got nervous.

We all stood around Coach Barkley.

“Lots of you have been making very basic, very fundamental errors. I've spoken to many of you about those mistakes,” he said.

I looked away. I didn't know about all the others but he'd spoken to me about my jump shot. He said my legs weren't straight enough and that was why I was aiming off to the side. After he'd spoken to me, I'd tried to do it his way, but it seemed to throw off my whole shot. I was aiming straighter but coming up too short or too long.

“I want to make it clear that a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn from it. If I've made a suggestion, then you should spend time — and I mean a lot of time — working on it between now and the next try-out. I hate, I repeat
hate
, telling people the same thing more then once.”

He didn't have to tell me that twice. I'd be out on the driveway working on it until I could do what he wanted. I figured it might even be better
to miss a shot using the technique he'd shown me rather than making one my way.

“That's it for today. Your parents are waiting for you outside,” Coach Barkley said. “Some of you will be hearing from me between now and the next week. If you don't get a phone call, you're welcome to come back to the second try-out.”

Great! Now I got to spend the entire week cringing every time the telephone rang. I started to walk away.

“Could last year's team please remain behind for a few minutes?” he called out.

I stopped and spun around. What did he want to say to us? I looked at Kia and she gave me a ‘don't worry' look. That was easy for her. She never worried about anything.

We all filtered back as the rest of the kids moved off to the side, gathered their things, and started out of the gym.

“I want to tell you players that my expectations are going to be higher for you,” Coach Barkley said. “Since you've all played a lot of ball, I think you should know the basics and, if you don't, then something is wrong.”

I thought about my jump shot. Was he talking about me?

“I'm going to be slightly more tolerant of new players. If they don't know something, it might be because nobody ever told them before. For
you players, I suspect if you don't know, then you refused to listen to your coach or you simply can't do it.”

I stared so hard at the spot on the floor in front of me I wondered if I was going to burn a hole through the hardwood.

“I also see that you all wore your Magic shorts from last year,” he said. “This will be the last time that happens during these try-outs.”

“What do you mean?” one of the guys asked.

“What I mean is that I don't want you — any of you — wearing those shorts or your jerseys to my try-outs again. It isn't just the try-outs that are going to change, but the roster too. It's a long shot that you're all going to be here at the end of these try-outs. Last year's team is gone. You get on my team because of what you do this year and not because of what happened last year. Now gather up your stuff, the next squad needs the gym.”

We started off once again.

“He's a fun guy,” Kia said.

“You have a strange idea of fun,” I said quietly.

I looked back over my shoulder. Coach Barkley was gathering up balls and stuffing them into a net bag. He had a noticeable limp when he walked. I'd thought he was limping slightly at the beginning of the practice, but it definitely got worse during the two hours.

“So just how worried are you?” Kia asked.

“Didn't you hear what he said?” I asked in return.

“Of course, I did, but we don't have to worry. We're both good players.”

“We're all good players,” D.J. said as he peered over Kia's shoulder.

“Yeah, third best team in the whole region last year,” Jamie piped in.

Something told me that Mr. Barkley was not the sort of guy who'd be happy with third place. Or second. Actually I didn't think he'd even be what you'd call happy if we finished first. He just didn't seem like a really happy guy.

“Anyway, he's probably just talking,” Kia said. “Saying things to make us work harder. I don't think anybody has anything to worry about.”

“I hope you're right,” I said, although I was pretty sure she wasn't. This guy didn't seem like somebody who said one thing and did another.

“Look over there,” Kia said.

I turned around. Coach Barkley was talking to some kid who'd been slow getting his stuff and getting out of the gym. We couldn't hear what he was saying, but judging from the way he was gesturing and the expression on his face, he wasn't too happy.

“Let's get out of here fast before he wants to say anything more to us,” I said.

“How did things go?” my father asked as we jumped into the back seat of the car.

“Terrible … awful,” I muttered as I pulled the door closed.

“Come on, Nick, they couldn't have been
that
bad,” he said as we started to drive away.