Basketball (or Something Like It)

THE NORTH BRIDGE FORUM

SIXTH GRADE

THE CLINICS

THE TRYOUTS

LET THE SEASON BEGIN

FLAGRANT

BOUNCE PASS

FADEAWAY JUMP SHOT

POST UP

SECOND HALF

TRAP

DETENTION

COURTSIDE

FULL-COURT PRESS

START TIME

THIRTY-SECOND TIME-OUT

GAME

HIGH SCHOOL

OVERTIME

Other books by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Copyright

About the Publisher

Perfect.

It fit into his hand. His fingers bent and gripped the leather. Leather, these balls were real leather. He started to dribble without thinking, and everything started to feel better. The sound of the ball bouncing. The rhythm and the bounce. Against the floor and into his hands. Between his legs, back and forth. Behind the back. Dribble. Head up. Ball low.

NORTH BRIDGE BASKETBALL TEAM
MAKES IT TO SEMIFINALS

THE NORTH BRIDGE
P
ANTHERS
have surprised all the basketball pundits by making it to the semifinals of the state high school tournament in the Class S division. State top seed Colby High and the sixteenth-seeded Panthers battled it out in a classic game on Monday night. Even though the Panthers were the decided underdogs in the quarterfinals, the players felt confident that they would prevail. North Bridge narrowly defeated Colby High 67–65 on Monday evening in a game played in the Roton, Connecticut, field house.

“Games are won or lost at the foul line,” winning coach Pat Trimboli stated after the victory. “Tonight we made our shots, and we’ll just have to see what happens Friday night. The kids are confident.”

According to Trimboli, scouts from the University of Connecticut and even Virginia and Tennessee will be coming to the semifinal game. It’s no secret which one of the Panthers they are going to be watching.

The winner of tonight’s semifinals will play for the state crown next Tuesday. If North Bridge wins, then they will play for their first ever state championship. However, according to the team captain, these kids have been working toward this moment since long before they ever got to high school.

“
MOST OF US GIRLS PLAYED ON
the middle-school travel teams,” Anabel Morrisey said on the bus ride up to Colby High. “We’ve been working hard toward this night, some of us since sixth or seventh grade.”

The big game was only a couple of hours away, but senior captain Morrisey seemed calm and collected. When asked what she thought about the scouts from UNC and UConn who would be at the game to watch her, she shrugged.

“It’s just a game,” she answered. “I mean, it’s fun and it’s real exciting sometimes. I love being part of a team. But I learned a long time ago where basketball, or any sport for that matter, should fit into your life.”

As the bus got closer to Colby High, the girls got quieter. There was a tension building, an anticipation. No one knew what the outcome of the game would be, but it was clear these girls deserved to make it this far. It was obvious that Anabel Morrisey had won, even before the first whistle was blown.

H
ank heard everything while he was brushing his teeth, getting ready for bed. His parents were downstairs talking about him, again. And basketball. Again.

“Don’t think they don’t do it on purpose,” Hank’s dad was saying.

Clanking and clinking.

“That’s ridiculous.” His mother’s reply.

Hank could hear their voices moving around the kitchen and into the living room and back. His mother was cleaning up from dinner, which explained the clanking and clinking.

“Why else would they schedule this basketball clinic at the same time as soccer? And don’t think
they didn’t
know
about the soccer playoffs. Because they do.”

Turning the tap water on didn’t drown out their voices. Hank stared at himself in the mirror, his mouth foamy with toothpaste.

“So call somebody and complain….” This was his mother’s brilliant suggestion.

“Somebody! Like who? Like Joel Bischoff? If Hank misses all the clinics and screws up at the tryout, who do you think is going to look better?”

“Who?”

“Who? Are you kidding? His own son, that’s who.”

Upstairs, Hank spit toothpaste into the sink. It couldn’t have been better timing. He felt like spitting. He imagined his parents could see him, only it wasn’t the sink, it was the floor. Right in front of their faces. He imagined they would stop, stop talking about
him
all the time. Stop talking about basketball or baseball or whatever season and whatever sport they felt Hank should be getting more playing time in playing a better position.

“You mean Tyler Bischoff?” Hank’s mother asked, and answered her own question. “Hank is five times better than Tyler Bischoff. Ten times.”

His father was silent. Hank figured he was making
that
face. That face that says, “Isn’t it obvious?”

As in, isn’t it obvious that Joel Bischoff would
want Hank Adler to miss all the pre-tryout clinics and screw up completely and be cut from the travel basketball team so that his kid would have a better chance? And that that is obviously why he scheduled the clinics for Wednesday nights. Soccer night.

Hank’s parents had the conspiracy theory down to an art.

“Well, somebody should say something,” Hank’s mother said again, but a little more quietly. Then he heard his mother’s determined footsteps leave the room.

Oh God, Hank thought. He felt a headache coming on. No, he definitely had a headache already. He knew just what his mother was going to do. And Hank knew, even if his mother didn’t, that that was exactly what his father wanted. She was going to call “somebody.” Probably not Tyler Bischoff’s dad, who was on the basketball board, but somebody. Somebody’s mom maybe, and get them all worked up. Maybe two or three other select moms from the soccer team. And then she’d go in for the kill.

He wasn’t sure how it worked exactly, because she did all her heavy phone calling during school hours. She even had one of those headsets that strapped around her head and plugged into her ear, like she worked for the Secret Service.

Only one thing was for certain; Hank knew she’d
make a big stink, and they either would or would not change the dates for the clinic, or change the time of the soccer playoffs for the entire county. New flyers would go out, or more angry phone calls would ensue, and some people would think it was great while just as many would get pissed as hell. But most surely, Hank would be going to every one of those basketball clinics.

And he’d have to wonder the whole time if his parents had totally ruined his chance of making the basketball team at all.

N
athan knew better than to ask his dad. He had said no last season, and Nathan had spent the whole year having to hear from the travel basketball kids at school about all the games and other towns, the fights with the referees, the fights with kids on the other teams, the fights with the
parents
of kids on the other teams. And everybody always asking Nathan why he wasn’t playing.

They just assumed. They just asked him why he wasn’t playing, as if
had
he tried out, of course, he would have made the team. Of course, because he was black. Nathan was the only black kid in the
whole North Bridge sixth grade. No, that wasn’t exactly true. There had been one other. A girl. But she and her family moved to North Carolina in the middle of October.

So how come you’re not on the team, Nathan?

They just assumed.

Nathan felt the same way except that he knew the answer. His father wouldn’t let him. So this year he decided not to ask.

Nathan stared at the ceiling. He needed a plan. He rolled over and faced his clock radio. It was 11:34. He readjusted his blanket. He even sat up and tried to touch his toes, which poked up like two woolen, miniature mountains. He lay back down with a thud. It was 11:35.

No plan yet.

“I
think you should do this, Jeremy,” his grandmother said. She was going through Jeremy’s backpack. It had been a long time since she had done anything like this. In fact, when her kids were little she
never
did anything like this. She didn’t remember all these papers coming home from school. And all the different colors. All these announcements.

But now she was taking the time. She read them all. She wanted to make sure she didn’t miss anything. This time she would do it right.

“I don’t want to do anything,” Jeremy answered. He was sitting at the kitchen table eating a snack. He needed a haircut, his grandmother thought, but she didn’t say anything. It might have been a long time since she had little kids to take care of, but some things never change. One thing at a time, she thought. I’ll start with this first. I’ll mention the hair later tonight.

“It’s basketball, Jeremy,” she said. She was certain she remembered Jeremy playing basketball when he lived with his father in Central City. In a big building right in the middle of the city, some kind of center. A church-sponsored center with two big doors and nowhere to park her car. It was run-down, she remembered. The bathroom was down these long stairs, and there was rude graffiti all over the walls inside the stall. It must have been summer, because it was brutally hot inside the gym, but Jeremy played there. And he was good. She thought she remembered that, too. Yes, he was good.

“I don’t care,” Jeremy answered. “I’m fine, Grandma.”

He always said that: “I don’t care.” When she asked him about school he always had the same answer for that, too. “Fine.” She didn’t push. His
father’s girlfriend had dropped him off only two months ago. Two days before school here in North Bridge started.

“I can’t take care of him anymore,” Lannie had said. Jeremy was standing right next to her when she said it. She never even came inside.

“What do you mean, Lannie? Where’s his father? Where’s Ron?” Jeremy’s grandmother asked, although, looking back, she wished she hadn’t said anything. Every night she rolled over restlessly in her bed. She wished she could go back and do it all over again. She wished she had just smiled and said, “Oh that’s wonderful. Now Jeremy can live with me! I’m so happy.”

Because she
was
happy. It was so wonderful to have her son’s only son living in her house. He looked so much like his father. It was so wonderful to have a second chance.

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t take care of Jeremy no more,” Lannie said it again. And then she left. No word from Jeremy’s father. Nothing else. And now Jeremy was here.

It was wonderful and it was so hard.

“I remember you were really good. You made lots of points,” his grandmother tried again. “I’ll tell you what. You don’t have to join the team, but why don’t you go to these three basketball clinics and just see
how you like it. You might like it.”

“No thanks,” Jeremy said. He was always polite. He had finished his apples and peanut butter, and his grandmother knew she was going to lose her opportunity.