Technical Foul (2 page)

Jared stepped out to the narrow driveway and began dribbling slowly, working the ball from hand to hand. There was no light to turn on, but the streetlight around the corner kept the night from getting completely dark, so he could always see the basket. And the light from his kitchen and the house next door also made it brighter.

The old houses in this neighborhood were tightly packed, with only about two feet of space between the driveway and the walls of the homes. That’s one reason why Jared was a great shooter from close to the basket: in the driveway, he couldn’t get any farther away unless he went straight back to the street.

He tossed up a jumper that swished through the net, then raced in and grabbed the ball, softly banking it in off the small backboard, which was attached to a pole.

Jared loved to hear the
bonk, bonk, bonk
of the ball off the cement driveway and to watch the gentle flight of a shot. It seemed so easy here, as if he could do no wrong. He had spent countless hours at this basket over the past couple of years, driving past imaginary defenders and tossing in game-winning shots.

All of those solitary practice sessions had paid off—he was the best player in the school. But one thing he hadn’t learned in all those hours alone was when to pass the ball. He wasn’t much of a teammate.

Spencer was probably right. There were times when Jared could help the team more by giving up the ball than by shooting it. He’d work on it. But when the game was on the line, he knew he was the man to take over.

The go-to guy
, he told himself.
You have to be that man.

Jared looked over at the house next door and waved to old Mr. Murphy, who was watching from his kitchen. He trotted out to the sidewalk, then shifted low and sprinted up the driveway, dribbling past one defender after another.

The clock was ticking down, and another player was in Jared’s face. He stopped short, fading back and lofting the ball high over the imaginary defender’s outstretched hands. The ball hit the backboard at just the right angle and dropped through the hoop.

Game winner!

Jared raised his arms in the dark and smiled. He never missed that shot—the short fade-away jumper in the final seconds of a game. That shot was a lock. It was golden.

At least out here in the driveway it was. Jared stared at the backboard for a few seconds, right at that sweet spot where the ball would hit before settling safely into the basket.

He hadn’t hit that spot this afternoon. With the game on the line, he’d blown it.

M
r. Vega, the math teacher, was writing on the blackboard, so Jared turned around and whispered to Jason Fiorelli, “Think we’ll be running all afternoon?”

“Depends,” said Fiorelli. He played forward and was nearly as tall as Jared and definitely more agile. He had a presence that exuded confidence. “Davis gets bored pretty quickly when we do drills. He’d rather watch us scrimmage. He’ll probably start off real tough, then decide we learned our lesson.”

“Yeah. That’s not the problem, anyway. We’re in good shape. Just not smart.”

Fiorelli nodded. “We play stupid sometimes. I mean we should be 3 and 0, not the opposite.”

“No question,” Jared said.

“Jared.” That was Mr. Vega.

“Yes, sir?”

“Eyes front please.”

“No problem.”

“Unless Mr. Fiorelli has something more interesting to say than I do.”

Several students giggled. Jared shook his head. “How could Fiorelli possibly have something more interesting than
math
to talk about?”

Mr. Vega raised his eyebrows and gave a small smile.

“We
were
talking about math,” Fiorelli said. “I was saying to Jared how the inverse of three and zero is zero and three. And he said he wanted to get smarter. Really. He did.”

Mr. Vega nodded and smiled a little more broadly. “Thank you, Jason. You’ll both get smarter by looking at this equation on the blackboard.”

“No problem,” Fiorelli said. “I’m with you.”

Practice started with ten laps around the gymnasium, then a series of sprinting drills. Coach Davis had the players sit in the bleachers after that. He stressed that the running wasn’t a punishment for losing, simply a matter of conditioning. “Somehow we fall apart late in the game, and the only factor I can think of is that we’re just getting too tired to execute.” Coach looked right at Spencer, as he always seemed to do when he needed to make a coaching decision.

“It’s not that,” said Spencer, who had taken a seat on the bottom row of the bleachers. He was holding a basketball between his knees. “Some of us just panic when the score gets tight and think we have to do it all ourselves.” He turned and glanced at Jared, then looked back at the coach. “Some of us think we have to turn into heroes.”

“And are you one of them?” Coach asked.

“Nope.”

“So you’re blaming your teammates?”

“I’m just saying what it is,” Spencer said. “Jared here thinks he doesn’t have to pass the ball. He takes lousy shots over and over when the rest of us are open.”

Coach looked up at Jared. Jared just shrugged. He knew that Coach Davis had little coaching experience. The previous coach had resigned last spring, and Davis hadn’t been assigned the job until late October. He’d even told the players at the first practice session that he’d never coached a team before. “But I know the game,” he’d said. “I’m a fan.”

Jared wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his gray T-shirt, which was damp with sweat. “I shoot because that’s what I do best,” Jared said. “I’m the leading scorer. Scorers have to shoot.”

“And shooters have to pass,” Spencer snapped. “At least some of the time they do.”

“Spencer’s right,” said Fiorelli, “but it isn’t all Jared’s fault, either. We’re good players. We’re just not playing like a team. We’re thinking too much about how many points we all score. What matters is scoring more than the other team.”

“Hey, speak for yourself,” Spencer said. “I’m not the guy with all of my individual stats memorized. The only stat I care about is our record. And our record stinks.”

Coach Davis held up his hand. “I don’t care what the record is. What I care about is playing hard, playing smart, and acting like a team. If we’ve got some rivalries boiling up here that I didn’t know about, then it’s time to iron them out.”

Spencer bounced the basketball and stood up. “Can we play some ball now, Coach? Seems to me we can fix things better by hammering them out on the court. We could talk all night or we could start getting better. We’ve got another game tomorrow. I say we play some ball.”

Coach looked at Spencer, then at Fiorelli, and then at Jared. “All right,” he said with a shrug. “I guess we should play some ball.”

O
n his way to the cafeteria for lunch the next day, Jared stopped by his locker. As he rooted around in the locker looking for a pen, he felt a smack on his arm.

Jason Fiorelli was grinning at him as he turned.

“What’s up?” Jared said.

“Just checking on ya,” Fiorelli said. “My man Spencer’s been giving you grief.”

“He’s talking too much,” Jared said. “If he doesn’t watch out, he’s gonna get it. Yeah, I made some mistakes, but like he hasn’t? I don’t think so. He’d better quit whining.”

“He’s just trying to keep things in balance,” Fiorelli said. “He’s the point guard, the
man
. He’s running the show.”

“He’s running it bad,” Jared said. “If he wants to talk, he should be positive out there. The whole fourth quarter he was riding my butt. Every time I missed a shot, I had to listen to him gripe.”

“He’s just trying to make us win, dude.”

“What he’s doing is making us lose.”

Jared slammed his locker shut and shook his head. “I’m getting tired of his mouth. We’d better win this afternoon. I’m even more tired of losing.”

 

Jared raised his arm and shouted for the basketball, leaning into the defender who was guarding him. Jared was tired after nearly three hard quarters of basketball, but he had a lot of fight in him. He had good position near the basket, but Spencer was still dribbling, scanning the court. “Feed it here!” Jared yelled.

Instead, Spencer passed the ball to Ryan Grimes, who drove toward the basket. Jared stepped out to set a screen for his teammate. Ryan came hard and his defender smacked into Jared. The whistle blew.

The action stopped and Jared stepped toward the free-throw line, certain that he’d been fouled. But the referee was pointing toward him. “Foul on number thirty-three, red,” he said.

Jared’s mouth fell open and he stared at the official. “I had position,” he said.

“But you were moving your feet,” the official said. “The foul’s on you.”

Jared shook his head as he looked up at the scoreboard. Hudson City was trailing by four points. “Get me the ball,” he said sharply to Spencer.

“Make some shots,” Spencer replied.

Jared could feel his frustration mounting. He’d missed three straight shots, and now Spencer was freezing him out.

Emerson added to its lead with a quick layup, and Hudson City took possession.

Fiorelli had the ball in the corner, and he fired up a long jumper. Jared and the Emerson center went shoulder to shoulder, pushing for the ball as it bounded off the rim. Jared grabbed it and went right back up to shoot, but the Emerson player shoved hard and Jared missed the shot.

“Where’s the foul?” Jared shouted to the referee as the players ran back up the court.

“No foul,” said the official.

“You’re blind!” Jared said. “Get some glasses.”

The referee blew his whistle. “That’s a
T
,” he said, putting his hands together to make a T shape, signaling a technical foul. “Number thirty-three, red.”

Jared shook his head and let out his breath.

“Nice going,” said Spencer sarcastically as he walked over.

“Back off,” Jared said.

“You’re really helping us today,” Spencer said. “Can’t shoot and can’t keep your mouth shut.”

Jared thrust his arm quickly toward Spencer, smacking his shoulder and sending his teammate back a couple of steps. Spencer squared up to fight, and Fiorelli got between the two players. “Calm down,” he said. “This ain’t the place for that.”

The official blew his whistle again, pointed toward Jared, and said, “You’re gone! Hit the bench.” He walked to the scorer’s table and said, “Number thirty-three is ejected.”

Jared walked quickly to the end of the Hudson City bench and sat down hard, staring at the floor and exhaling in a huff.
Bunch of jerks
, he thought.
I barely touched the guy
.

Coach Davis was glaring at the floor. He turned toward Jared and said, “Hey.”

Jared raised his head and looked over.

“You can’t lose your cool like that,” Coach said.

Jared frowned and looked back at the game. Spencer gave him a little smirk as he brought the ball up the floor. Jared was seething—if Spencer had kept his mouth shut, everything would have been all right.
I’m no hot head,
he thought.
It’s Spencer’s fault for goading me on.

But with Jared on the bench, the Hornets began to play more like a team. The ball moved from player to player, and they found openings in the defense. Little by little they ate away at the margin, finally taking the lead midway through the fourth quarter. From there, Spencer and Fiorelli took control, and Hudson City had its first win of the season.

 

Jared’s hair was damp from the shower as he left the locker room, and the cold air bit at his ears. He needed to get home, to put this game behind him. They’d finally won one, but he felt worse than he had after the losses.

Spencer’s voice, sounding high-pitched and mocking, stopped him as he reached the chain-link fence. “Oh, Jared!”

Jared stopped and walked back toward Spencer and Fiorelli, who were halfway across the blacktop area. “What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

“You think this is over?” Spencer said. “Not quite, my friend. I don’t let cheap shots like that one go by unrewarded.”

“Cheap but justified,” Jared said sharply.

“Jared—we’re
teammates,
jerk. At least the rest of us are. You almost cost us another ball game. Thank God you got thrown out.”

Jared sneered. “Fifteen points, nine rebounds.”

“I know the statistics,” Spencer said. “Look at the record. We finally won a game because you spent the last quarter on the bench.”

Fiorelli was standing back with his arms crossed. Willie Shaw and a couple of other players had come over, too.

Spencer pointed at Jared. “You smack your own teammate right on the court,” he said. “What a jerk.... I don’t let things like that just slide, buddy. You going to the high school game tonight?”