Center Court Sting (4 page)

Daren walked by Lou, who was slumped
in front of his locker, wiping his face with a towel, then stopped.

“Why don’t you double-team Spratt?” Daren snapped. “Coach said to help on defense. If you would block his driving lane, he
wouldn’t —”

“Is it
my
fault
your
man is scoring? I have my own man to guard,” Lou answered. “Don’t blame me!”

Daren sneered. “You don’t care if we win or lose, just so I’m the one who looks bad. Right?”

“Are you two at it again?” a voice barked behind them. Daren and Lou looked up and saw Coach Michaels, a hard look on his
face. “Team meeting. Now. And leave your argument behind.”

C
oach Michaels whistled sharply to quiet the rest of his players. “I don’t have to tell you that Don Spratt is doing most of
the damage so far,” he said. He shot a look at Lou. “And let’s get something clear: I don’t want anyone blaming Daren. Spratt
does this to every team in the league. He’s good at getting free to shoot — it’s that simple. But we need to stop him to win
today, and here’s a way we could do it.”

Using the chalkboard, the coach showed how the Rangers needed to collapse on Spratt, hemming him in and making it tough
for the Blazers to get him the ball. Coach Michaels explained that Daren’s job in the second half would be to stay between
Spratt and the basket, while the other Rangers would stay between Spratt and the ball, wherever it was on the court. Maybe
that would slow down the star forward and let the Rangers get control of the game.

“Rangers, huddle up.” All the Rangers formed a circle and stuck a hand into the middle. The coach placed his hands on top.
“This is our game to win. If we play like a team, we
will
win! Make these guys earn their points! Remember, defend with your legs as well as your arms! I don’t want to see you waving
your arms as a Blazer goes by you. You have to keep moving, block the lanes, know where the ball is, and keep your heads in
the game! Ready to get ‘em?”

“Yeah!”
they shouted in chorus.

The coach clapped. “All right! Let’s go!”

As the second half began, the coach’s strategy looked good. The Blazers tried to force passes to Spratt, but the Rangers picked
them off and turned the interceptions into baskets, giving themselves a two-point lead. The Blazer coach jumped up and called
time out.

“All right!” said Coach Michaels on the sideline. “Tough
D!
They’re out of sync!”

But in the time-out, the Blazers made changes of their own. On their next possession, Blazer guard Bucky Manning took advantage
of the fact that the Rangers were clustered around Don Spratt and not guarding their own men closely. With no one on him,
the little guard hit a jumper from behind the foul line to tie the game.

On the following Ranger possession, Lynn got the ball to Lou. Lou missed a close shot that Blazer Toby Flynn rebounded. This
time, Lynn picked Bucky up outside and stayed
on top of him. But Bucky faked left, drove to his right around Lynn, and hit a layup.

The Rangers put the ball in play. Lynn passed to Lou under the basket. Instead of shooting or passing, Lou tried to get closer
to the basket — and was called for walking. Bucky tossed the inbounds pass to Toby Flynn, who gave it back. Manning raced
down the court and, when Lynn came up to head him off, fired a bullet pass to Don Spratt. With Daren in his face, Spratt wheeled
and made a beautiful hook shot. Two more points! The Blazers were ahead by four.

It seemed like whatever the Rangers tried to do, the Blazers stayed one step ahead of them. When they concentrated on Spratt,
Bucky Manning took over, hitting from outside, driving, or getting the ball to Toby Flynn under the basket. If they eased
up on Don and spread their defense out, Bucky
would find the tall forward with a sharp pass.

Lou looked like his feet were weighed down with cement. He stopped getting rebounds, and Toby Flynn, who wasn’t much of a
shooter, got a few baskets. Daren cooled off in the second half and couldn’t seem to hit anything at all.

Only Lynn’s play kept the game from becoming a total disaster. He was all over the floor, stealing passes, scoring, and making
assists. Daren thought that Lynn had never looked better — but it was in a losing cause.

Even with Lynn’s heroics, the Rangers trailed by twelve with five minutes left. Don Spratt took a pass from Bucky and whirled
to shoot. Daren jumped with him, right arm extended. He deflected the shot, touching nothing but ball. When the ref blew his
whistle, Daren spun around to stare in disbelief.

“Number four, defense — on the arm,” said the ref. “Two shots.”

Before Daren could scream, Lynn grabbed him. “Dar, chill! No technicals!”

Daren let his breath out and nodded to Lynn, who smiled. “You’re my man,” Lynn said.

“Yeah,” Daren said. But he was mad. He knew that he had been robbed again.

Don Spratt made the free throws, and Coach Michaels called time out.

“It’s not over yet,” he reminded his team. “There’s time for us to get back into it. One or two quick baskets could still
turn it around. The main thing is not to give up or lose your composure. Just play your game.”

But Daren felt that the Rangers were beaten. They weren’t together. He had lost his touch, Lou was sleepwalking, and nobody
could stop the Blazer scoring machine. It wasn’t their day. Lynn couldn’t beat these
guys all by himself. The crowd, which had cheered loudly for the Rangers most of the game, grew quiet, and some people got
up to leave. They, too, seemed to know that there would be no miracle comeback.

With three minutes to go, the Blazer coach took out his starters and cleared his bench. They were up by eighteen, and he wanted
the subs to get some playing time.

Against the subs, the Rangers cut into the lead. At the final buzzer, the Blazer margin of victory was eleven. But the Rangers
knew it hadn’t really been that close. They had been blown out — and on their home court, too.

Daren walked off the floor with the silent Rangers. He hated to lose any game, but this one was especially embarrassing. Shaking
his head, he walked toward his locker — and stopped short, staring in shock.

Taped to his locker door was a towel —
his lucky towel. But he almost didn’t recognize it because it was smeared with red paint. A sign with red lettering was pinned
to it.

It said,
IT TAKES MORE THAN LUCK TO BE A DECENT PLAYER
.
MAYBE YOU SHOULD STICK TO USING A PAINTBRUSH INSTEAD OF A BASKETBALL
.

D
aren ripped the towel off the door and marched toward Lou, who was sitting by his locker. He threw the towel on the floor
in front of him.

“You think this is funny?” he yelled.

Lou looked at the towel and then back at Daren. “What are you talking about?” he asked, with a puzzled expression.

“You know what I’m talking about!” Daren kicked the towel down the aisle. “Is this how you get back at me for painting those
shoes — which I didn’t do, anyway?”

Lynn hurried over. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Daren picked up the towel, waved it at Lynn, and read the message out loud. “I found this hanging on my locker! It’s Lou’s
idea of a joke!”

Lynn looked at Lou, who shook his head. “Hey,
I
didn’t do it. Don’t look at
me!”

Daren laughed. “Yeah, sure! I know you’ve had it in for me for a long time, and —”

“I’ve
had it in for
you!
” Lou looked amazed. “You’ve been on my case for weeks! You never miss a chance to take a shot at me! And then you ruined
a good pair of shoes —”

“I told you,
I didn’t do that!”
Daren was raging. “And I only ride you when you screw up in a game. Which is, like, all the time!”

Lynn tried to get between Daren and Lou, but Daren pushed him aside.

Shawn ran up. “I told you to cut it out,” he said to Daren.

“Shawn’s right,” said Peter Stuber at his locker. “Daren runs his mouth too much, and not just at Lou. I mean, he’s not Michael
Jordan!”

“Lou played bad today,” Cris snapped, getting in on the quarrel. “We all know it. He’s been terrible for a long time now!”

Suddenly every Ranger was yelling, some defending Lou and some taking Daren’s side. A few just wanted everyone to shut up
and chill. Voices got louder, and feelings got uglier.

The coach came out of his office, looked at the yelling players, and shouted,
“Listen up, all of you! QUIET!!”

The noise stopped. Coach Michaels sighed and began pacing back and forth. “I don’t get it,” he said quietly. “I really don’t.”

Daren felt his anger dissolve. The other Rangers seemed to feel the same way.

The coach went on softly, as if he didn’t have the energy to yell anymore. “At the start of the season, we had a shot at the
title. Now, today, we got blown out — not because the Blazers are so much better, but because they
played
better. They moved the ball and played team
D
. They knew what to do and did it.

“Now here you are, yelling at each other.” He saw the towel by Daren’s locker, picked it up, and read the message. He sighed.

“We play the Rebels next, the team with the best record in the league. They have Drew Capp, who’s six-foot-two and owns the
boards. They have Tony Tisdale, the league’s top scorer. If you can’t get it together, we may as well not bother to show up.”

No one spoke. “Lou, Daren, stay here,”
said the coach. “You others, get some rest.”

Lynn nudged Daren. “See you outside.”

Daren nodded. He saw Shawn speak to Lou, who shook his head angrily. Shawn whispered more, but Lou said,
“No!”

“Guys,” the coach said, “in my office.”

Shawn walked away, looking unhappy.

The players took seats, and the coach sat on a corner of his desk. “I try not to get mixed up in your off-court lives. But
when it hurts the team, I want to clear it up. Talk to me.”

“Well, I didn’t put that thing on Daren’s locker, no matter what he says,” Lou insisted.

“I didn’t paint those shoes,” said Daren. “I may talk a lot, but I wouldn’t mess up someone’s stuff. No matter what
he
says.”

“Okay,” Coach Michaels said. “So, neither of you did anything to each other. Can you agree and put this behind us?”

Lou frowned. “Well…”

Daren shrugged. “I don’t know…”

The coach stood. “Daren, wait outside for a moment.”

Daren left the office, certain that Lou still blamed him for the shoes. Just as he
knew
that Lou had ruined his lucky towel. Who else would do it?

A minute later, Lou came out of the office and left without speaking.

Coach Michaels poked his head through the office door and beckoned.

“Like I said before, I don’t think you painted those shoes,” he said. Daren smiled.
“And
I don’t think Lou trashed your towel. It’s not like him.”

“But he must have!” Daren protested.

“Funny, Lou said the same about you just now,” said the coach. “But that’s not the main problem here. I’ve coached for a long
time. I’ve had great teams and not-great
teams. But no team ever let grudges hurt their game. I don’t know what to do. I’m stumped.”

“It’s not all
my
fault,” Daren exclaimed.

“No,” the coach agreed. “But — now hear me out, and don’t get angry — you have a way of saying hurtful things, Daren. Maybe
you don’t even know how much they hurt, but they do. You definitely tend to throw fuel on the fire.”

Daren felt resentful. Coach Michaels was blaming all the team’s problems on him!

“I can see by the look on your face that you think I’m out to get you,” the coach went on. “But I’m not.
No one
is. But I want you to try to see what can happen when you’re always putting people down. They remember and may look for payback.
Then maybe a friend of yours decides to get
that
person back, and one little incident snowballs.

“When I talk to you about it, you get this
look, like you’re being made the fall guy. The bottom line is, you have to learn to control your temper and not say hurtful
things. I’m your coach, and I thought that meant something. But maybe it doesn’t, because I don’t seem to be able to get through
to you.”

“But —,” Daren began. The coach held up a hand.

“I don’t want to hear explanations of why it’s not your fault.” Coach Michaels folded his arms. “I hate to say this, Daren,
but I don’t feel I have a choice. If you can’t control your moods and outbursts, right away, I’ll do one of two things: Either
I’ll bench you and use you as a sub, or I’ll have to take you off the team altogether.”

L
ynn was waiting for Daren outside. “How was it?” asked Lynn. “What’d he say?”

Daren didn’t speak. He was afraid that, if he tried, he might start crying. A million feelings whirled in his head. Everyone
was blaming him, but he hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, not enough for him to be kicked off the team!

Riding home, Lynn broke the silence. “Dar? I’m your friend. I want to help.”

Daren looked at Lynn. “Yeah? Then you’re the only one. Everyone else hates me, even the coach. He wants me off the Rangers.”

“He — you sure? It’s not his style to —”

“He
said
so!” Daren braked to a squealing stop. “He wants me out! Maybe I’ll quit and save him the trouble! The team would probably
throw a party, and
you’d
probably go!”

Lynn stopped and faced Daren. “Did he say, ‘I’m kicking you off’ or ‘If you don’t get your act together, I may have to kick
you off’?”

“What’s the difference?” A voice in Daren’s head said
chill
, but he couldn’t stop himself. “He blames
me!
So do you, don’t you?”

Lynn stared at Daren. “I —”

“Don’t you?”
screamed Daren.

“Get a grip,” snapped Lynn, finally angry. “Listen to me! You say mean things, and when someone else does it, too, you complain!
‘It’s not my fault!’ Here’s a bulletin — some of it
is
your fault! And, I
am
your friend! I’m trying to make you see how you hurt yourself.”