Team Manager 1: SWISH!
Chapter 9
“I JUST WANT to know that you had nothing to do with it,” Ardith said.
“Nothing to do with what, Coach?”
“Nothing to do with Lee Smith landing in the hospital this weekend.”
Dennis blanched. He hadn’t heard anything about it. “Why is he in the hospital?”
“Someone decided to clobber him, apparently with a baseball bat. Never mind. It’s obvious you didn’t even know about it,” Ardith said. “While I understand the perpetrator going that far, it’s not something we could condone on our team. Or even in the school at all.”
“I try to stay as far away from Lee and his gang as I can, Coach. You know I wouldn’t be safe if I was within reach,” Dennis said. Even the mention of Lee Smith made his stomach hurt.
“You should continue to stay away from him. I’ll take you home tonight after practice. I want to talk to your mother and let her know we’re still doing everything we can to keep you safe. But if someone on the team was responsible for this, she won’t be on the team any longer.” Ardith absolutely hated laying down the law like this, but she was just practicing on Dennis for what she needed to tell the rest of the team.
It bothered Dennis, too. He wanted to be safe. He wanted Lee and his gang brought to justice, but he didn’t want any of his friends to be involved. It still bothered him that they were protecting him each night on the way home. On the other hand, he really liked riding with Diane and Judith, or with Brenda. Of course, nothing compared to riding with Natalie and her sisters. He just liked being near her. And even though Leanne hadn’t kissed him again, the nights he walked home with her and Rosie were great. He never got to walk home with Amy. She let him know that it wasn’t because of him, but her brother had been one of the three boys disciplined for bullying Dennis last year. She didn’t think they’d either one be safe if she walked him home and encountered the gang. Sometimes she sat next to him at lunch, though.
Of course, Carol didn’t spend time with anyone on the team except in practice. She dated some guy who went to college in Ames—that Tom Perkins guy—and thought she was too mature to ‘play with the children.’
Coach put it right on the line to the team. She went through the standard of behavior she expected from everyone.
“I’m not going to come down on you if you get caught in a situation where you need to defend yourselves, or someone else. But no matter what injustice you feel has occurred, you are not the law, judge, or jury. Restrain yourselves.”
Dennis remembered that she’d attempted to run down the boys when she found them beating on him so, he wasn’t too worried about anyone getting into trouble for protecting him. For the millionth time he wished he was bigger, stronger, and could see better than he did. As it was, he was a little uncomfortable sitting in the girls’ locker room while the coach lectured them. Some of the girls didn’t have their shoes on yet and Coach had held him back when they went to the locker room while someone put on her shirt.
“Does anyone have any questions?”
“Who’d bother?” Carol asked. “We know it couldn’t have been little Denny. He couldn’t even reach the back of Lee’s head.” She laughed but none of the other girls did.
“Let’s get some practice in,” Ardith said. “Let me introduce you to our new official. I want to be able to coach you and correct you but I want you to play by the rules. Dennis and I went to an officiating clinic on Friday and I’m confident that he’ll be able to call the game. If his whistle blows, it’s just like the ref at any game you play. You stop immediately and pay attention. Grab both your practice jerseys, I’ll be moving you around.”
Once they were in the gym it was all basketball. Dennis led them through warmups and then Ardith assigned teams. Their practice jerseys were bright red and powder blue. Coach read off the assignments as she walked down the line.
“Amy, red. Brenda, blue. Rosie, red. Natalie, blue. Daniella, red. Roberta, blue. Judith, red. Diane, blue. Carol, red. Leanne, blue. Take a minute to sort yourselves out and make sure you’re clear about who is playing what position. Ref, the game’s yours.”
“Two lines at the side of the key. Red on my left and blue on my right. Each person gets one shot. When one team is ahead after an even number of shots, they get the ball,” Dennis said. It was one of the ways listed in the officials’ manual for determining who was the home team and who was away during tournament play. It worked and on the third shot red led by one. Dennis blew the whistle and held the ball under the basket to give to the red team to inbound. He blew the whistle and the game was on.
Dennis wasn’t as fast as some of the girls, but he could last longer than any of them. Coach was holding a stopwatch and would call a timeout in eight minutes. By the time her whistle blew, they all needed a break and got a drink of water. Everyone had her own refillable water bottle and was responsible for it during practice. During games, Dennis would have bottles open for them when they needed them.
“Carol, switch to blue. Natalie, switch to red,” Ardith said. The two girls put on their alternate practice jerseys and headed back to the floor. Dennis held the ball and called, “Blue ball!” Diane took the ball and tossed it in to Brenda. The game was underway again. Coach made two more switches shuffling the team around. At the end of thirty-two minutes of playing time, they all came off the floor and sat on the bench.
“Who won?” Amy asked.
“Who knows?” Dennis answered. “We weren’t keeping score.”
“That makes sense,” Natalie said. “Most of us played on both teams.”
“This isn’t about keeping score. Yet,” Ardith said. “It’s about seeing how you work with your teammates, and how you would defend against them. You all did pretty well. Some of you need to be more diligent in getting to the weight room and doing your routines. You should never airball. At least be able to shoot the ball to the backboard, even if you can’t make a basket yet. That means lift, girls. You need the muscle.”
“Are we going to get shooting practice?” Daniella asked. “We’ve been doing almost all conditioning practice through October. I feel like I need to learn where the basket is all over again.”
“Yes, we’ll do shooting practice tomorrow. I need to be on the phone when practice starts tomorrow, so Dennis will lead shooting practice. Follow his advice. He knows where the basket is.”
“How can he know that?” Carol asked. “He can’t even see the basket.”
“I can see okay with my glasses,” Dennis defended himself.
“All right. I’m getting pretty sick of this. Dennis, Carol, on the court. Twenty foul shots each. Natalie and Brenda, feed them balls. The rest of you chase,” Ardith said. They all headed back for the court. Carol stepped up to the foul line and started tossing her shots up. She didn’t do too badly, sinking half of the twenty shots. Dennis stepped up to the line. He missed his first shot, bouncing off the front of the rim. Carol snorted. Dennis calmed himself and thought about how he practiced in the back yard. The important thing was to do it exactly the same every time. He bounced the ball twice, took his grip on it, and launched it toward the net. Swish. He followed the same routine eighteen more times and had eighteen more baskets. He wasn’t as fast as Carol, but his accuracy was outstanding.
“Holy cow! That was amazing!” Rosie said. “Teach me to shoot like that!”
“Why did you miss the first one?” Brenda asked, genuinely curious. Dennis shrugged.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he shrugged.
“I did some investigating,” Ardith said. “Dennis, I hope you don’t think I’m invading your privacy. This is what I want to talk to your parents about this evening.” She turned to the team. “Without his glasses, Dennis is legally blind. He’d have to walk around with a cane or a seeing eye dog. With his glasses his vision is corrected to 20/50 vision, but with a narrower focal range. That means that what you can see at fifty feet, he needs to be twenty feet from in order to see as clearly. It’s fifteen feet from the foul line to the backboard. Dennis can see that fine.”
“So, he can see anything that’s within twenty feet of him?” Diane asked, still not quite certain what the lesson was.
“No. It just means that what you can see from across the court, he can see from the foul line. None of you have difficulty seeing the basket from mid court. You don’t have the power and accuracy to shoot from there, but you can see it just fine. Dennis, take a shot from the three-point line.” Dennis dribbled out to the spot at the top of the key where he was most comfortable sighting in on the basket. He looked, figured what he needed, and launched the ball. It bounced off the backboard, the front of the rim, and dropped through the net. “The three-point line is nineteen feet and nine inches from the backboard. Once he is confident of his range, Dennis is a very good shot. I think you’ll be able to learn something from him in your shooting practice tomorrow.”
The practice broke up and the girls headed for the showers. The new delivery of towels hadn’t arrived yet, so there was still just one apiece. Most of the girls brought fresh towels from home on Monday. It was when the towels had been damp in their lockers a couple of days that they began to smell.
“Thank you for participating in my little demo this afternoon,” Ardith said as she drove Dennis to his house.
“Thank you for warning me ahead of time,” he answered. “I don’t think I made any friends today, though.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You earned some respect, though. I’m going to have to leave you to them for an hour tomorrow while I deal with this online Coaches’ meeting. I want them to listen to you.”
They arrived at Dennis’s home and went in. Peg came thundering toward him and hugged her brother. She looked at Ardith, uncertain of how to greet her. Finally, she said, “Hello, Miz Coach.”
“Hello, Peg,” Ardith said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Mommy said I can’t play with Dennis until you leave. Are you going to be here long?” Peg asked.
“I think it will only be a few minutes,” Ardith said. “Can you wait that long?” Peg nodded solemnly.
“Ardith, welcome,” Dot said. “Do you mind sitting at the kitchen table? I have fresh coffee and some cookies.”
“Thank you. That would be wonderful. I hope you didn’t go to any bother.”
“I wouldn’t normally serve cookies to the kids so close to dinner, but it’s special to have you visit. I’m sorry, the cookies are just store-bought,” Dot apologized. They sat at the table and Dot poured the coffee. “What are we meeting about again?”
“There are actually two subjects,” Ardith started. Just then Will came in from down the hall and seated himself at the table.
“Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled. Dennis was glad he just looked tired and not hung over. “As you were saying.”
“Well, the sheriff visited the school this morning to inform us that there had been a mugging in town over the weekend and we should all take extra precautions with the kids heading home from school. I’ve asked the team members who drive to take all the other, generally younger, teammates home after practice. I know the girls volunteered to escort Dennis home at night, but I wanted to let you know that now all the girls will be driven home as well. I’ll take a turn driving when needed, too.”
“Are you going to every girl’s home to talk to parents?” Dot asked.
“No. I came to talk to you because it could affect how people perceive Dennis. The boy who was attacked was Lee Smith, who I believe has a record of personal conflict with Dennis. I don’t know of anyone who believes Dennis could possibly have hit Lee the way he was hit. A witness said it sounded like a baseball bat and the doctor confirmed the contusion was consistent with that. Fortunately, the victim will recover but he’s still in the hospital for observation. I just wanted you to know there could be questions or repercussions.”
“Well, Dennis didn’t have anything to do with it,” Will said emphatically. “You know as well as I do that those boys are the aggressors and Dennis is the victim.”
Ardith nodded her head. “There is another reason I wanted to talk to you. I was looking for some information over the weekend regarding assistance for physical handicaps. I was put onto it by a coach I met at the clinic Dennis and I attended Friday. He was questioning whether Dennis qualified for assistive technology under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I don’t know, but I noticed there was nothing in Dennis’s school record requesting special allowances, like a larger screen computer or audio text books.”
“Dennis is not disabled,” Dot said firmly. “Surely you know that from having worked with him for two months. He does everything that normal boys his age do.”
“I know he has adapted well and I’m not trying to reduce the importance of that accomplishment. Please believe me, I only wanted to bring to your attention that there might be assistance available if and when it is needed. Having done that, I’m going to butt out. Dennis has become extremely valuable as my assistant and I want the best for him if there is something I can do.”
“Ms. Graves, please don’t be offended at our reluctance to take this advice. We had a lot of ‘helpful’ people give us advice when we first discovered he had vision problems. He was in kindergarten before we managed to get him glasses. Some people have insisted that he was unable to do things that he could do once he got lenses. Thank you for your concern. Dennis, are you happy with your work with Coach Graves?”
“Yes, Dad. I love managing the team.”
“Then, if you are satisfied with his performance, Ms. Graves, I don’t think there is anything else we need to do.”
“Yes, sir. I am more than satisfied with Dennis’s work. I hope I tell you that enough, Dennis. I truly don’t think I could have created this team without your help. Please forgive me for interfering,” Ardith said.
“Coach, I know—and I think my parents know—that you are one of my greatest allies. It’s so different working with you and the girls this year than it was working with the JV last year. I’m having fun and making friends. That’s what’s important to me,” Dennis said.
“Thank you. And thank you Mr. and Mrs. Enders. I know Peg is just waiting for me to leave so she can have her brother back. I’ll head out now,” Ardith said. Dot went with her to the door.
“Ardith, please don’t take offense at anything I said. I’m a little sensitive, having two kids who are unique. I know you truly care. Will and I are glad to have you as an ally, too. And thank you for warning us about that thing with the Smith boy. We’ll be extra careful. Goodnight.”
“You were awesome, Dad,” Dennis said as he stood to put the cups in the sink. “I’m glad you expressed things so clearly to Coach. And did it so nicely. I really like her.”
“I like her, too, son. I inherited my great sensitivity and eloquence.”
“From Grandpa?”
“No. I got it from my son.” Will chuckled and ran his hands through his son’s hair wondering who had cut it. Dennis didn’t see the hardened expression on his father’s face as he left the kitchen. He’d need to find some other way to get rid of Lee Smith. And the rest of them as well.
“Hey, um… Dennis,” Natalie said when they sat in the back seat of the car with Roberta driving on Tuesday. “Some of us are planning to attend the first varsity home game on the twenty-first, the Friday before Thanksgiving. Since I’m going with Roberta and Daniella, I can stay for the dance after the game. You could like get a ride with us if you wanted.” She’d gotten it all out in one go and saw Roberta nodding in front of her.
“Wow. I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my parents. After last season they might not think it’s a good idea.”
“I’m sure there wouldn’t be any problems at the game or dance,” Natalie said. She leaned across the seat and whispered, “We could pretend it was a date.”
Dennis swallowed hard. A date with Natalie at a dance where there’d be dancing. And maybe holding hands. And slow songs. His jeans were starting to get uncomfortable as he swelled.
“I’m sure I can convince them,” he said, nodding. He mustered all his courage and reached across the seat to touch her hand. “I’d like that.” Natalie just smiled at him. But she didn’t pull away.
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