Team Manager COACH!
Chapter 11
DENNIS HAD HIS BOOKS open, but wasn’t concentrating on calculus, English literature, US Government, or physics. He was working on an outline of what exercises would be best to warm up the volleyball team and how to condition them better. He nearly missed hearing a question from Coach Torvalds on the three branches of government.
At 3:15, he quickly dressed for cross country conditioning, and ran out to talk to the coaches. Ardith had already explained to Andy that Dennis would need to leave early to tend to the volleyball team. After half an hour of conditioning exercises, Dennis excused himself to go deal with the volleyball players.
The first in line to be taped were his girlfriends, of course. They’d all been at his exercise session for the cross country team and were ready to dress and catch the bus. Dennis went into the locker room with them to get them ready, but when the other girls began arriving about a quarter till five, he left the locker room and taped the remaining eight players on the bus. Neither Dennis nor his girlfriends made a big deal about where he sat on the bus to work on players. Pat and Renée watched closely but didn’t say anything. Shelby and Thoms worked next to him, doing the under-wrapping and then switching for Dennis to do the final taping. They worked well as a team.
At the gym, Dennis took the lead in getting the team warmed up and stretched, watching how the girls responded to having their ankles taped. Once they had put their knee socks on, the tape was not visible. The team was dressed in their burgundy uniforms with two girls in yellow jerseys to indicate they were the liberos.
Volleyball is an easy game to watch. The team serving is on offense. If the ball touches the ground on the defense side, the offense scores a point. If it touches the ground on the offense side, the opposing team receives the ball to serve. However, understanding all the nuances of the rules is another matter entirely. Not only who can block and spike, but which girls can dig and set. Whether the ball is properly above the net and whether a player crosses the plane of the net. And who the libero is substituting for and when. It is a very complex game.
Pat and the girls all seemed to understand it perfectly as they put the Tigers down in three straight.
It was a jubilant team that boarded the bus for the hour trip back to Bartley. On the bus, Dennis cut the tape from each girl’s ankles. He examined the first aid kit carried on by Shelby and Thoms and found several items missing.
“No one opens your kit but the two of you,” Dennis told them. “You always need ice packs, tape, and scissors. You have gauze pads, but haven’t replaced the elastic bandage we wrapped Daphne’s ankle in a week ago. There is a stock of supplies in the equipment cage. If you can’t get access or need help determining what supplies go in your kit, just tell me and I’ll get you whatever you need. You have a printed list of supplies on the lid of the kit, so you should be able to check off everything you need. And one item I’ve found needs to be in the kit that isn’t on the list is tampons.”
“Yes, Dennis,” the managers responded. He was firm but not unkind and when he mentioned the tampons, several players and both coaches burst out laughing. If they were going to tape up before every match, they were going to need a lot more tape. He made a note on his own list to check with the football guys and the cheerleaders regarding their usage, and order more tape and underwrap.
When they got back to Bartley, the girls headed to the locker room and Pat called Dennis into her office.
“Dennis, I owe you an apology and I’m not very good at them. I discounted your value to the girls’ teams because you are male and what would you know? I see that I was wrong about how seriously you take your responsibilities and how hard you are studying to design warmup and conditioning exercises that benefit the players most for their sport,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Dennis responded. “It’s a pretty unusual situation and I know it must look strange to know that several of your players claim me as a boyfriend. That has to look pretty suspicious.”
“It does, but to each his own. But when you wrapped Daphne’s ankle and I took her to the hospital, you mentioned your suspicion of female athlete triad. I know I dismissed it when you said it, but I kept replaying that idea on the way to the hospital. Not one doctor who isn’t specifically a sports physician would have ever thought to test for the condition when faced with a stress fracture. It was because you goaded me into it and I suggested it to the doctor that she ordered the tests. Daphne was hospitalized for two days for observation and analysis. It turned up exactly what you suggested. You might think I am a pretty blind mother to not have seen the signs in my own daughter. All I can say is that it’s harder to see as a parent than you’d believe. We adjust to what is happening gradually and it seems less significant than it is. All that’s the long way around to say I’m sorry and I hope you will help get my team managers up to peak performance and will help guide the conditioning of my athletes. I’m going to move them all into your conditioning exercises with the cross country team and the cheerleaders immediately.”
“Thank you for your confidence, Coach. I’ll do the best I can for you and your team.”
Dennis left the office and grabbed a lift home with Natalie, Daniella, and Roberta. He thought about how difficult it must be for a mother to identify things that just gradually appear in their children. Like him and his twelve girlfriends sleeping over together and engaging in sex. Once Dot realized she’d given permission for them to all be together it was way too late to do anything. Well, he supposed she could have put her foot down and forbade gatherings, but it would have been a source of intense conflict. Like Daphne’s feeling about her needing counseling and getting fat.
In all, Dennis decided he needed to be more supportive of his mom, Daphne and her mom, and his girlfriends and their moms. It was a heavy burden, but one he would take on willingly.
With the rearranged conditioning exercises after school, the cross country team and cheerleaders moved into the gym with the volleyball players. The weather had cooled suddenly and they were looking at a forecast of rain by the weekend. There were still forty members of the cross country team, but most of them were there to get or stay in condition before basketball season. The coaches didn’t have any difficulty choosing seven to nine for each team, boys and girls. The rest were happy to work out each day and not worry about competing. With the volleyball team, the cheerleaders, the team managers, and six coaches, there were well over sixty in the gym for conditioning exercises.
Dennis worked especially hard with the cheerleaders, who had become his team for leading conditioning. Once they moved indoors, they piped their exercise music over large speakers. The conditioning class became almost a dance class and everyone had fun in the exhausting hour-long session. Dennis watched closely to see that everyone was doing the exercises correctly and that they were not straining themselves more than was required by the exercise. The coaches scattered themselves among the athletes exercising and helped with form as the cheerleaders led the routines.
Starting Wednesday, Dennis noticed Olivia in the bleachers with a video camera. Thursday morning during his free periods, Dennis reviewed some footage and the mockup of his new website. She demonstrated the link to a video site where he could get subscriptions and possibly earn some income from the advertising. It was looking more and more like it would be a successful launch. He gave her his first blog post to include.
Friday night, they got to see how the Wolverine football players handled rain. The answer was: Not very well. The crew sat in the stands holding a large sheet of plastic over their heads for most of the game, stubbornly refusing to leave their team and their cheerleaders. The field started out slippery and eventually turned muddy. There was no thunder and lightning, so the game wasn’t suspended. The Bulldogs still managed to put the ball in the air—something the Wolverines had not yet mastered. Bartley’s ground game averaged less than a yard gain per play. At the final buzzer, the Wolverines were down 0-30, and both the fans and the players were relieved to leave the stadium.
Dennis congratulated the cheerleaders on lasting the game and keeping the fans cheering even in adverse conditions. Then, despite the rain, he walked out to the field and looked at the condition it was in. They needed to get out there and reseed before the ground dried out fully. There were places that were pretty torn up.
Saturday morning, the cross country team was on the bus to go to the Panthers when Coach Andy got a call. It was raining hard at the Panthers and showed no sign of letting up. The meet was canceled.
It seemed that rain had settled in. Randy had to delay the remainder of the corn harvest until either the ground dried out or froze so he could safely get the corn picker into the fields. Other farmers were in the same situation. So far, the harvest wasn’t lost or damaged, but it was delayed.
Dennis continued to lead conditioning in the gym and traveled with the volleyball team to the Trojans. The volleyball managers were becoming more proficient at wrapping the athletes’ ankles. On the bus, they did all the under-wrapping and Dennis did all the taping. Everyone was ready to warm up when they got to the school and took exaggerated care to stretch appropriately before the game. Pat split the team and dressed ten for a JV game and ten for the varsity game. Everyone got a chance to play. Something seemed to have gone right because the Angelines took the JV match 3-1 and the varsity went 3-0.
Thursday, though, the cross country meet was rained out once again. Most of the schools were unable to reschedule the meets with all the same participants. Getting eleven teams to the meet at one time was a scheduling mess. Getting the same eleven teams to a second scheduled meet was impossible.
Friday night, the Wolverines traveled to the Hawks. This time, their ground game—wallowing in the mud—paid off and they won the game 10-0. They didn’t have a dependable kicker, so after their touchdown, they ran the ball into the end zone for a two-point conversion. In the last quarter, the Hawks were deep in their own territory and lost control of the slippery ball. The ball went into the end zone and the quarterback chased it down before the defense could get to it and fell on the ball for a two-point safety. The fans were beginning to wonder if the team could only win away games.
Dennis and all twelve girlfriends gathered at the Armors’ house on Saturday afternoon to study. They were all tired from the schedule and drained by the constant week-and-a-half of rain. While there was a little cuddling that went on, they mostly focused on studying. And snacking. They started the afternoon with chips and pop. That progressed to pizzas by dinner time. For all that the athletes tried to eat healthily, when they were all together to study, the dietary plan went out the window.
They spent the night on the floor in the family room, and while sex wasn’t completely absent, it was limited and very quiet. Natalie crawled on top of Dennis and coaxed him to an orgasm that matched her own. They were both so tired at that point that they collapsed on the sleeping bag and were asleep before he’d pulled out. That meant that in the morning, Natalie had to fish the used condom out of her vagina because Dennis had shrunk out of it as they fell asleep.
Nonetheless, Sunday morning, all thirteen dressed for church. The weather finally broke and they walked to church in the morning sunlight. Everything looked bright and clean and fresh. Peg was learning to sing with the choir now that it had started up. While she still sang a solo, being backed up by the other voices in the choir enriched the sound. Everyone was moved to tears. A few people clapped, which was not normally accepted in church. But when Pastor Donnelly stood and joined in the applause, the rest of the congregation joined in.
“Let us say that our applause is our way to join the praise of this beautiful music,” he said.
“I need to get a car,” Dennis moaned. It seemed like a very decadent declaration. For years, his parents had managed with just one car between them, but having Brenda drive to school on Monday and Wednesday and then have to bring Dennis back to Bartley and turn around to return to Boone for her afternoon classes was taxing. Before long, they’d be dealing with Brenda’s practice schedule for basketball and with weather conditions that might make it more difficult. Dennis also started looking at courses he could take online as part of the high school program instead of physically traveling to Boone.
“I really don’t mind making the trip back,” Brenda said. “If you start driving, we’ll lose all the time we spend together each week.”
“We could still travel together on Fridays,” he said.
“Until basketball season. It’s going to be chaotic with the boys’ basketball, the girls’ basketball, and the college basketball all going on at the same time. And my practice starts in mid-October.”
“Coach says the school has simplified the schedule this year. The JV team will be playing most of their games on their own schedule. Some will be before the girls play. You know that means the poor guys will probably only have their parents attending their games. The girls’ games have all been scheduled to precede the boys’ varsity games,” Dennis said. “I think they’re hoping the crowds that come to the girls’ games will stay for the varsity.”
“It’s going to be really different this year than last year,” Brenda said. “Lots more games and probably some tougher schools.”
“Maybe and maybe not. You know we were the smallest school in 3A last year? This year some other school gets that honor and we’re one of the largest in class 2A. It really makes it hard to gauge how well we are doing from year to year,” Dennis said. “Say, can you help with the new website? I’d like to make it multi-contributor if we can. Olivia has done some really good stuff and we should be ready to launch in a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks? What are you doing to advertise the launch? Who is going to know that we’re out there ready to work people’s butts off? There’s a ton of work to be done!”
“Well… I didn’t think I needed to do anything special. We get the site up and I start doing blog and video posts,” Dennis said.
“Clueless! Honey, you’re so smart about some things and so clueless about others. We need a girlfriend meeting this weekend. It needs to go big as soon as possible,” Brenda said. “And yes, I’ll help with it. I’d love to contribute sometimes. We’re really learning a lot in our Intro to Phys Ed course.”
“Like the difference between Spartan training in ancient Greece and Medieval Knighthood training?” Dennis laughed. “It seemed to be mostly the weight of the armor.”
“Seriously, we need to get the girls all behind this. Have you even discussed it with the rest of them?”
“Um… We’ve mentioned it a few times,” Dennis said lamely.
“Yep. Clueless.”
Tuesday, Dennis traveled with the volleyball team for a three-way meet with the Rams and the Titans. A three-way meet is really two dual meets. The Angelines would play against the Titans and then they’d play against the Rams. Somewhere during the evening, the Rams and Titans would play. As far as the season was concerned, it was two different matches, played best of three. Daphne was dressed and securely taped, but her mother only used her for limited play time. She wasn’t happy.
The Angelines won the first game against the Titans, 21-18. That was the last victory they saw for the day. The Titans took their match 1-2. The Angelines lost to the Rams 0-2. The girls went home a little more quietly than the previous week.
Thursday, it was the cross country team’s opportunity to travel for an eleven-way meet at the Tigers. The 6:30 start time was beginning to border on twilight as they were just past the equinox. Fortunately, the school was only half an hour away and they arrived in plenty of time to get their timing devices and get warmed up for the first race. Only seven girls and six boys had made the trip for this meet. They were the best the school had to offer.
The field of sixty-six girls was off right at 6:30. Janice was keeping a good pace but seemed slightly off. She was nearly a minute and a half behind the first place finisher at 21:32. But that was still good for fourth place. What made the difference overall was that Janice, Diane, Tori, and Judith all placed in the top ten and Liz was not far behind in thirteenth place. With those scores, Bartley walked off with a first place team score of 43.
Dennis and the rest of the guys took their places and the start sent them off at 7:15. Dennis maintained his practice of ignoring all the other runners and setting the best pace he felt he could maintain for three miles. It was a good run at 17:07. Unfortunately, the Tigers had an elite runner who came in at 16:14. Dennis got second. Unlike the girls, though, he was alone from his school in the top ten. And in the top twenty. And the top thirty. In fact, Donnie managed to come in at fifty-sixth at 21:18. Janice would almost have beaten him. The other four Bartley runners trailed out in the last five places in the race. In spite of Dennis’s second place finish, the team placed dead last of eleven.
There was no school on Friday, but it was a big day for athletics. The volleyball team traveled to the Huskies for a six-school tournament. It was a long way to travel and then play five matches. Dennis and Shelby got the team taped up while Thoms worked with Coach Fisher on the lineups for each game. Dennis did all of Daphne’s tape himself and talked quietly to her to encourage her. All twenty players were dressed for the tournament, but the thirteen on the bench were the playing team for that match. When they entered a match against another school, a new lineup was delivered to the judges and those thirteen players took the bench.
The body mechanics were of much more interest to Dennis. He watched how the girls jumped, what positions they were in when they hit the ball, what kind of strike they used on the ball, and how often they twisted and turned. He wanted to work with them on exercises that would strengthen the way they played. And noted a couple of girls who should have their wrists taped. He could see Amy wince as she set for the spike.
All his study was not helpful for the Friday tournament. The Angelines won two matches and dropped three. But they were still pleased with the results and he had forty feet placed in his lap on the forty-minute bus ride back to Bartley so he could cut the tape off them.
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