Going the Distance (6 page)

At the start of the third week of practice, two weeks before our first game, he called a team meeting in the locker room before we took the court. Cody explained this was when he named a team captain for the season, usually the most senior player since they had been around the longest. The captain didn’t have many duties outside of keeping team morale in check, which was a task all by itself. Now I know this sounds sexist, but I have no idea how someone could handle a team of girl athletes, because I know every team I’d been on so far had been filled with its share of guys who were overly emotional, started fights over every little thing, and were jealous as hell about everything.

In other words, they acted in the same manner I imagined spoiled teenage girls did.

A good team captain knew how to talk to the guys, calm them down, fire them up, and more importantly, knew how to keep certain guys away from each other. Don’t let awesome teamwork ever fool you into believing that every person on the court likes each other equally. There were whole currents of fuckery coaches and trainers never even got a whiff of that, if left unattended, could sink a season before one tip-off ever happened.

Cody was only a year ahead of me, so there was no chance he’d get it, and he was the only person on the team who wasn’t outright hostile to me behind closed doors. The safe bet was Tommy Grazier, a decent senior who had played this court since he was my age. As it was his last year, he had been a shoo-in as MVP and all-around stud for the team. From what Cody had explained to me, that was all before I showed up. People were talking about me, and not all of it was bad. Though I was oblivious to most of it, Cody kept me apprised of the scuttlebutt the best he could.

What this meant was that the second Tommy was made team captain, my problems were going to just get worse.

Though the coach would call the plays and who did what, once the ball hit the court, it was up to the team to make it happen, and Tommy would make sure as much of it happened without me as possible. It was worse than being benched, because once you’re seated you know there’s nothing you can do to help the game. On the other hand, out on the court I could do something to help us out, but I wouldn’t have the chance because no one would pass me the ball. My head hung low as I stared at a spot between my sneakers, wondering if I should have quit the first week and saved myself this kind of shit. Cody elbowed me, and I looked up quickly.

The coach was looking at me, gesturing for me to come up. I looked over at the team, and I saw a dozen narrowed eyes glaring at me. I started to rise. “Huh?” I asked Cody.

He pushed me forward, whispering, “You’re team captain, retard! Go!”

I stumbled forward as the coach slapped me on the back. “Come on, people, make some noise!” he commanded. There were strained sounds of a few people slow clapping that only drove home the point I was the absolute worst choice he could have made. I stood there trying not to openly look fucked, while inside I was screaming my head off like a blond in a horror movie. This was the absolute worst-case scenario. The only thing that would have made this worse is if I realized I had forgotten to put on clothes and was standing up here naked.

What had been smoldering as thinly veiled resentment suddenly burst into a raging hatred as they all drilled holes through me with their eyes. I had less than nothing to say. I just swallowed hard and looked at the coach with panicked eyes.

The coach looked at me and then back to the team, taking in the scene for a moment before nodding at me to sit down. I sat next to Cody, who in no way looked happy at the announcement, since he knew it was about the worst of all possible outcomes. After pacing in silence for almost a minute, the coach began to talk. “You guys make me sick.” The words didn’t have their normal impact, since his tone was conversational instead of berating. “Show of hands, does anyone think we have a snowball’s chance in hell of placing this season?” A few hands went up at first, then a few more. Finally everyone except Cody and I raised their hands.

The coach looked at Cody. “Why do you think that, Mr. Franks?”

Cody refused to look at anyone else as he answered, “Because we suck.”

There were a few snorts of laughter from the other guys, along with some grumbling that the coach shut down with a loud “
Shut it!
” Silence echoed through the locker room. “Don’t know why you’re laughing, because he’s right.” The smiles fell off everyone’s faces as the coach pressed his point. “It’s not just that we suck; it’s that you guys don’t care that we suck.” He looked at Tommy. “You haven’t done one thing to make this team better, Grazier, not one. All you’ve done is bitch about Danny over here nonstop since he joined. In fact, if you spent even half the time trying to better this team as you did whining, I’d be naming you captain. You people have had access to someone who knows more about basketball than any three of you put together, and other than Cody here, you won’t talk to him. So this is the deal. You want to play basketball because of the letterman jacket and the pussy it will get you, walk the fuck out of my locker room right now.” No one even breathed. “If you want to try to win something this year instead of wandering around the court while people laugh at you, then you’ll listen to him. Any questions?” He paused for effect and then interjected, “And by questions, I mean last words before I throw you off the team?”

No one said a word.

“Danny, stay. The rest of you start laps,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the gym.

The class rose slowly. Tommy asked, “How many laps?”

The coach gave him a hard stare. “Until I say stop or you pass out.”

One by one they filed out of the locker room, Cody giving me a shoulder shrug in a way of saying “Sorry, you just got fucked” as he left.

The coach turned around and opened the file cabinet in the corner. “If you want to cry or scream or lose it, now’s the time to do it.”

“I’m not going to cry,” I said coldly.

He stopped what he was doing and looked over at me. After a few seconds he admitted, “No, I don’t think you are.” He went back to digging through the cabinet as I tried to formulate my next words.

“I don’t know if this is going to work,” I started with.

“Then make it work,” he responded, not even looking up.

“They don’t like me,” I said, standing.

“So?” He slammed the top drawer and opened the next. “They aren’t here to like you. They’re here to listen to you.”

“But they won’t!” I exclaimed.

He pulled out a circular patch that had a capital C on it. “Then make them listen,” he said, tossing it at me. “You’re captain now, deal with it.”

I looked at the patch, never in my life hating something as much as I did that little piece of cloth. The coach walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Danny, you have a gift. If you don’t learn to share it with others, it will do you no good in the long run. God gave you basketball. I’m about to give you leadership. If you are as good at one as you are the other, you have no idea how far you’ll go.” He continued walking out toward the gym and said over his shoulder, “You have five minutes, then I want you on the court.”

And I was alone.

The funny thing was that in no way was this a new feeling for me. I had wandered through most of my life with nothing but my dad’s support. I still had that, and this time there was Cody on my side as well. What the rest of the team didn’t know was that even though they had all shunned and ignored me, I had already effectively doubled the number of people I cared about in the past three weeks. I wasn’t afraid of them not liking me. I was afraid of them not liking me so much we’d lose. Being hated I could handle; being hated and losing I could not.

My first thought was the same thought any male teenager would have in that situation—try to force my dominance on them. Nine-tenths of high school consisted of what my dad had called social evolution. Forcing your own self to
be
yourself in spite of the pressure around you to conform to someone else’s version of you constituted evolution. I didn’t want to be the stuck-up know-it-all who walked on to the team thinking he was better than everyone else. That guy was the person they thought I was and the person it looked like I needed to be at first glance. The only thing was that I had a voice in the back of my head telling me there was another way to get this done. A way to not only show these guys I was here to help them but to win games as well.

When the five minutes were up, I knew what I had to do.

I walked out into the gym changed. I wasn’t going to be hesitant or embarrassed into being timid anymore. The coach had effectively ended that mode of behavior for me. I knew I was going to be hated for acting like a captain and equally reviled if I didn’t act like one. I walked over to the coach and said, in the best estimation of my dad’s voice I could muster, “I have a few thoughts on the season and how we can win.”

His mouth slowly spread into a grin as he grabbed his whistle and blew it twice. “Everyone, line up.” The guys stopped jogging and made their way over to the court line. I’m sure they were a little more pissed because I wasn’t sweating like them, but I couldn’t worry about that crap. “Listen up, your captain has a few words to say.”

I saw the eye rolls from most, and Tommy elbowed the guy next to him as he muttered something under his breath. He knew I had seen him and was daring me to say something. He had a long way to go if he was going to actually piss me off. “Okay, let’s lay it down,” I said, pacing as I tried to formulate my thoughts. “Anyone here think they can outplay me?” No one moved. “One on one, anyone think they can beat me?” I looked at Tommy, who said nothing but glared. No one else dared speak up, so I went on. “Right, so you know I’m the best guy on the team. What we need is for everyone else to know it.”

Tommy raised his hand, and I shook my head. “If you got something to add, say it. Don’t need my permission.”

He lowered his hand as he said, “So let me guess, we’re going to build our whole game around you? The rest of us on the court are just going to be the guys who pass to you all game?” I saw almost everyone else nod and agree with him, happy someone else had voiced the sentiment.

“You have a problem with that?” the coach roared, but I held up my hand.

“Actually, Coach, I have a problem with that,” I said, cutting him off. I never took my eyes off of Tommy’s as I kept talking. “See, that’s what we want people to think. We want as many people as possible to think that I’m going to be our secret weapon.”

Cody cocked his head and asked, “If it’s not you, what is our secret weapon?”

I smiled as I silently thanked him for the setup. “You guys are. See, I don’t want the ball at all.”

Everyone looked confused except the coach. “You want to force the other team to play to you.”

I nodded as I explained. “Look, if I was our secret weapon, it’d take them five minutes to figure out that double- or even triple-teaming me is the key to locking the team down. We don’t do that; we use me as a decoy.”

“Decoy?” Tommy asked, skeptical.

I nodded. “We force them to go man-to-man with me. No matter how good they are, that’s going to leave at least one person unguarded.”

“And if they don’t take the bait?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Then I blow past my defender, score, and teach them the error of their ways. A couple of those, and they’ll put a guy back on me.” The guys all just stared at me, not sure if they were truly understanding what I was suggesting. “All we have to do is practice layups that look like we’re trying to move me into position to score. What we’ll actually be doing is setting the rest of you up for me to pass it off to. Either they watch me and risk you guys scoring or let me go and watch me school them. Which one would you choose?” I asked Tommy.

“Lock you down,” he answered instantly, and I saw he was getting it. Once the word got out that I had experience on the court and actually knew what I was doing, any team facing us would gang up on me in seconds. High school basketball isn’t big on sacrifice and teamwork. It’s a place for guys to hone their talent and get seen by college scouts “Why would you give up points just to pass it off?”

“To win,” I said without hesitation. “And if anyone else isn’t here to win, I suggest finding another sport, because we’re going to win a lot this year.” I gave them my best confident smile. “Count on it.”

Cody pumped his arm, cheering, and a couple of other guys followed, caught up in the moment. I saw Tommy’s expression soften a little. It wasn’t a lot, but I was going to take what I could get right now. I glanced at the coach. “We used to practice keep-away drills in Germany…,” I began.

He nodded and handed me his playbook. “Way ahead of you”—and with emphasis he added—“Captain.” I thumbed through the plays, and all of them were based on the principle I’d just outlined. I looked over at him while the rest of the guys talked among themselves. “Why didn’t you just tell me this was your plan?”

He took the book back and put his arm around my shoulder. “Because they needed it to be yours.”

That was how the season started.

We built a zone defense principle that became what we jokingly referred to as
zone offensive
. In a sense, we were practicing reverse basketball. Instead of people moving to positions to get the ball to their best player, our team scrambled to get into place for me to ditch the ball to whoever was standing there. At first we sucked at it pretty bad, since we were relearning the way we played the game. It took about three days of constant practice before we stopped looking like we were doing a bad impersonation of the Washington Generals and began to ease into the new rhythm of play. By that weekend we almost looked like we knew what we were doing.

That first week nothing changed with the team at all.

I wasn’t sure what I thought was going to happen, but besides the minimum communication needed to run plays, no one said one extra word to me. Cody tried to convince me they’d come around, but I wasn’t holding out hope for it. My dad took me out to dinner as congratulations on making captain. When I told him about the guys’ reactions, he just nodded and said, “Yeah, that figures.” He kept on eating while I stared at him in disbelief. When he saw my reaction, he asked, “What?”