EllRay Jakes Stands Tall (5 page)

9

COACH

Fwe-e-e-et!
Mr. Havens's silver whistle blows, as we churn our way over to him like a school of third grade fish. A big net bag full of balls—basketballs and kickballs—is at his feet.

“Line up for your drills, boys and girls,” Mr. Havens shouts, clapping his big hands twice. Not that he doesn't already have our attention. “We only have twenty minutes together,” he says. “So, two straight lines—facing each other. Now!”

We form our lines. It's mostly boys, but Kry, Emma, and Annie Pat are in the group, too. I think Kry's the one who will stick it out. She's good at sports.

“Eyes on me, everyone,” Mr. Havens says. “You probably know me as Mr. Havens, but during these training sessions, you will call me Coach. Say ‘Coach.'”

“Coach,” a few of us mumble.

“Louder,” he says.

“
Coach!
” we all shout.

“That's better,” he says. “Remember, this isn't a tea party. Now, here's your go-to stance,” Coach tells us. “I want your legs a shoulders' width apart, one foot forward for balance. And your knees are
a little bent at all times. Your weight should be on the front of your feet—the part up by your toes—so you can move fast and jump. Like this,” he says, demonstrating. “Take the stance!” he shouts.

And we do it. We try, anyway. But Corey crouches down so low that he looks like he's about to dive off a board at the Aquatics Center. Jason goes up so far on his toes that he looks as if he's gonna fall over. And Jared's feet are way too far apart. It looks more like a movie monster's stance than a basketball player's.

Marco looks like he wishes he were someplace else. Is he gonna hurl? He shoots me a glance that says
“Help,”
but I don't know what to do about it.

Instead, I correct my own stance, looking at other kids' mistakes. And Mr. Havens—“Coach”—prowls up and down the middle of our two lines, making adjustments here and there.

“Okay, good,” he finally says. “Remember, that's your go-to stance. As in
always.
And now for a ball-handling drill. Fingertips on the ball, players.
Fingertips!
Not your hands. Got that?”

“Fingertips,” we robot-repeat as he scoops a ball out of the net bag and demonstrates how to hold it.
“Like your hand is a spider,” he tells us. “Practice this at home, if you can—with both hands. It'll get easier as you grow.”

And I'm thinking,
They do this?
Because on TV, you don't notice b-ball players holding the ball that way. They're moving around so fast, or dribbling, which I already know is another word for bouncing the ball—not slobbering on the floor. You have to dribble the ball to move it around on the court. You can't just grab the ball and run.

But the fingertips thing is good, because my fingertips are as big as any other third grade kid's. Fingertips don't care how tall you stand.

“Here are the balls we have to work with,” Coach says, tossing them to us fast. “Here! Here! Here! Basketballs, kickballs. Doesn't matter. Catch them with your fingertips, and then throw them to the kid facing you. Now! Now!”

This guy is not fooling around
.

10

LIKE BIG KIDS

I somehow nab a partly deflated kickball with my spider fingertips. I look across from me. “Kevin,” I say. “Heads up.” And I toss him the ball. He catches it.

So far, so good, even though all that means is that I haven't made a fool of myself.
Yet.

“Fingertips, people,” Coach reminds us again. “And use both hands, Marco! The ball's not gonna bite you. Keep those balls moving, guys. Now! Now! Now!”

“When do we get to shoot baskets?” Nate asks.

“When you're ready,” Coach says. “Which is
not now
. Next, some dribble drills. You're going to start bouncing that ball waist-high, then work it down to the ground. Like this,” he says.

And he starts bouncing his
demonstration basketball, moving around the whole time, knees bent. “Watch my footwork,” he says. He's fast!

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

Bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce.

Bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce.

At the end, his basketball is about two inches off the blacktop as he dribbles it. He even moves in a complete circle around the ball. He's bouncing the ball so fast that it looks like it's glued to the bottom of his hand.

Whoa.

“Okay. Go!” Coach says, and a bunch of us start dribbling our balls.

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

“Hey. I don't even
have
a ball,” Stanley says, hands on his hips. He's mad!

“Only half of you do,” Coach says, pointing out the obvious. “I want the rest of you to run in place—on the balls of your feet. But keep your stance. Then you'll swap places with the dribblers.”

And a little bit of running in place starts to happen. But not a lot.

“I'm not doin' that,” Jared mutters, watching
Major and even the reluctant Marco spring from foot to foot, real fast. “It looks dumb, yo.”

It's like Coach has superpower hearing. “Bad attitudes get to run laps around the playground,” he announces, not even looking at Jared. “Or they can forget the whole thing and go play on the teeter-totters and eat fruit leathers with the little kids. Good times.”

And—Jared starts to run in place.

I think we are all starting to like Coach. He's tough, but that's because he's treating us like big kids, not babies.

“Now switch,” Coach says. “Dribblers, pass the balls—and start running in place. But keep your stance! And bend your knees. No Frankenstein clomping on my watch.”

And I run, even though a fruit leather is sounding pretty good to me right now.

So far, the three best dribblers are Corey, Diego, and Kry. But Emma's having trouble bouncing the ball waist-high more than three or four times without it
boing
-ing off in some weird direction.

Wow! I'm better than someone at dribbling!

I feel bad for Emma, but I can't help but feel a little happy for me.

“Now slow it down,” Coach says after a few more switches. “Slower, slower, slower. And dribblers, bring that ball back
up-p-p
to your waist, if you can. Runners, shake out those crazy legs. Time to cool down.”

“I'm already freezing,” Stanley complains.

“That's probably because you weren't running fast enough,” Coach tells him. “‘Cooling down' means slowly getting your muscles back to normal—like by walking around a little. Now listen, boys and girls,” he says. “We're not meeting again until Monday morning. Any of you have basketballs at home? Or kickballs? Or even beach balls? Just about anything this size,” he says, holding his own basketball up high on one finger while it spins.

Whoa!

Most hands go up in the air, including mine.

“That ball is your new best friend,” Coach informs us. “You play with it over the weekend—with your fingertips, remember. Even when you watch TV, but
carefully.
Just toss that sucker from hand
to hand. Because you guys are two-handed players, am I right?”

“You're right,” we chorus, trying to picture what he means.

“You are
not
gonna say, ‘
Oh, wait a minute, other team. Throw the ball to my good hand, okay?
' Are you?” he asks, using a funny voice when he's pretending to be the goofy, one-handed player.

“No way,” we shout.

I think Jared even added “sir.” Like he thinks he's in the army, maybe.

“Okay then,” Coach says. “Balls back in the bag, people. Quick! Quick! Quick!”

And just as the last ball goes into the big net bag, the buzzer sounds.

How did Coach
know
that?

We kind of shuffle back to class. My legs are numb, but they feel good.

I
feel good.

“Didn't Coach say there was gonna be a tea party?” I hear Annie Pat ask Emma.

“Nuh-uh,” Emma says, shaking her curly head.
“He said this
wasn't
a tea party. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Annie Pat says. And her red pigtails droop.

I kinda know how she feels. I could use two or three minutes at the drinking fountain, that's for sure. Even though the water there always tastes funny.

But this—this was fun!