Team Manager COACH!
Chapter 21
DENNIS PULLED INTO the parking lot at school and just looked at the building. It was the scene of so much negative and so much positive that had happened in his life that it made him dizzy. He still avoided the boys’ locker room, dressing and showering in the coaches’ locker room. And he wasn’t always sure he felt secure there. Nonetheless, right now there was more positive than the negative vibes put out by Si Goodman. He got out of the car and went to the cafeteria for lunch with his girlfriends.
“Coach Griffith wants to see you before Calculus class, Dennis,” Roberta said. “I think he wants to make a suggestion for workouts, but he might have some other news, too.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t say. Just try to get there as soon as possible after your government class.”
“Okay. I’m guessing he wants to pull the basketball players out of conditioning earlier and get practice started. I’ll have to confirm with Coach Graves,” Dennis said. “You girls are my first priority.”
“We love being your first priority,” Natalie said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“Well, I have to get through Coach Torvalds’ Government class first. Did you see him working out with the teams last week? I never expected that!” Dennis said. He promptly forgot all about Coach Griffith.
“Dennis, please. A minute with you?” Neil asked as Dennis sat for class. He jumped up, remembering the request to meet.
“Yes, sir. Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
“No problem. Just a sec. Class, please hand your papers to the person next to you and check the answers against the sheet I have projected on the screen. I’ll be with you all in a minute.” He saw Leanne snatch the homework from Dennis’s notebook and set about correcting both his and Bob’s papers. He was sure Dennis’s wouldn’t need much. “Now. Two things. First, Ardith tells me you have some good dribbling drills in your repertoire. I swear some of these guys act like they’ve never touched a basketball before. I’m wondering if you could shorten the usual workout to forty-five minutes and spend fifteen minutes working with all three teams on dribbling skills. I’ll have the other five team managers make sure all the basketballs are in the gym so they can feed them out to the teams.”
That was almost what Dennis expected as far as shortening the routines. He wasn’t expecting the dribbling lessons, though.
“Sure. I can do that. I haven’t worked with the cheerleaders on dribbling, though. We’ve only done floor exercises.”
“That will be okay. Don’t know if the cheerleaders will want to learn to dribble anyway. But there’s one other thing. I discussed it with your mother in our conference Thursday.”
Dennis wasn’t even aware that his mother had a conference with Coach Griffith on Thursday. Yes, it was Parent-Teacher conference day, but that didn’t mean all parents and all teachers.
“We just got approval to offer this class as a college credit course. I have three of you I’d like to make that offer to. You’ll get credit both here at Bartley and five hours per semester of college credit at DMACC. I understand you’re already taking courses there and this could advance your program significantly. Interested?”
“Wow! Yes! Is there a significant amount more work I need to do?” Dennis asked.
“Some, but I don’t think it is beyond either you or Leanne. I met her earlier today. There’s a syllabus and description of the differences on our website. Just go to our usual assignments page and you’ll see the link,” Neil said. “Now I need to get back to the whole class.”
“Yes, sir.” Dennis was a little shocked at the proposal, but the idea of picking up an extra ten hours of credit for a course he was already taking anyway appealed to him. He glanced over at Leanne and she winked at him.
“We’re going to accelerate the workout a little today. Loosening up and aerobics will take twenty-five minutes and conditioning will go just twenty minutes,” Dennis explained to the cheerleaders. “I was kind of expecting this to happen, so the music cuts will work fine. Just follow my lead for what exercise we’re jumping to. Then I’m going to work with the basketball teams on dribbling for fifteen minutes.”
“You have exercises for that?” Fred asked.
“Drills. Apparently, some of the players can’t keep the ball off their feet.”
“How about if we take the non-team members, who aren’t headed straight to the weight room for wrestling, and lead them in some slower stretching and flexibility routines?” Sara asked. “I’ve been feeling like we should be doing that with them anyway but were too rushed to clear the gym.”
“I like that idea, Sara. Let’s plan on it. The gym will be noisy, though. Fifty basketballs bouncing at once really make a racket.”
The compressed exercise routines went fairly well and the whole group was surprised when the non-team students were split from the basketball teams and the team managers rolled ball racks onto the gym floor to pass them to the players. The racket of balls bouncing began almost immediately and Dennis blew his whistle to get everyone’s attention.
“We’re going to do some dribbling exercises before you break for your practice courts. I want you all to focus on the ball and the rhythm I set. Dribble with your right hand only,” Dennis called. He began dribbling and waited for everyone to come into some semblance of rhythm with him. He kept the rhythm slow and easy, something that is hard for new players to master. The tendency among new players was to pound the ball harder when they are learning to dribble. There were still a few out of rhythm when he called, “Switch to the left hand. I want to see all eyes up here as you control the ball. Focus on where the ball is all the time.”
The switch to most players’ off hand was met with several balls getting loose and players scrambling to retrieve them—sometimes knocking someone else’s ball loose in the process. Dennis maintained patience with them and saw more and more eyes focusing on him.
“Switch hands back and forth. Right, left, right, left. Keep your eyes up but your focus on knowing where the ball is.” Next, he had them advance forward while dribbling. Then they backed up. All the time, with his constant beat and rhythm. “We’ve only got a few minutes here before the coaches are going to take you for practice. They just wanted to make sure you could dribble the ball before you start learning plays.”
“What makes you such a hotshot dribbler?” Bryce Miller asked. “I think I’ve got more experience on the basketball court than you do.” The senior guard was probably one of the most experienced players on the team next to Rick Probst. Dennis estimated Bryce was an inch taller and might have a little reach on him, but he’d never shown evidence of being a great player in the team’s 3 and 19 season last year.
Whistles blew as if the coaches were expecting this. Maybe they were.
“It seems like every single sport needs a demonstration from their trainer as to why he’s the trainer,” Coach Griffith said. Coach Andy and Coach Graves stepped up beside Dennis to confer.
“Are you up to a one-on-one demonstration?” Ardith asked.
“What do you all have in mind?” Dennis asked.
“You face Bryce and see if he can stop you from dribbling around him to score. Straight one-on-one rules, just to five baskets,” Andy said.
“I guess I’m okay with one-on-one. It’s when there are people I can’t see coming from the sides that I get knocked silly,” Dennis said.
“I saw you work with the girls last year when you were short a player and your sixth sense seemed to be pretty sharp,” Andy laughed.
“May the force be with you,” Ardith agreed. She glanced over at Neil and nodded.
“Now, since you need a demonstration as to why we have Dennis teach basic skills, Bryce, come out here and face off against Dennis. You’ve all had some instruction on one-on-one rules. Bryce, you will feed the ball to Dennis and Dennis will try to dribble around you for a score. If you block his shot or steal the ball, you take it to half court and try to dribble around him. We’ll play this to five baskets. Everyone else to the sidelines and watch both of these players for what they do wrong and what they do right. There will be a test!” Neil shouted.
Dennis took his place at half court and Bryce faced him with a sneer.
“Right. Bring it,” Bryce said as he passed the ball to Dennis from ten feet away. As Dennis expected, he followed the pass, charging hard. Dennis didn’t bother to catch the ball, but sent it straight into a dribble between Bryce’s legs. He picked the ball up on the other side and drove to the basket for an easy layup. He jogged back to half court, letting one of the team managers chase down the ball and pass it back to Bryce. The guard was more wary this time and threw the ball more slowly so he could get in position to move with Dennis.
Dennis started dribbling to his right and Bryce defended well, slapping ineffectively at the ball. During the exercises, Dennis had focused the team on smooth even dribbling in a constant rhythm. That was nothing like how he dribbled against his opponent. The rhythm was so irregular that Bryce could never tell when the ball would leave Dennis’s hand. This time, Dennis drove to the left, passing the ball behind his back and switching directions on a dime to drive to the other side. Bryce stayed between him and the basket, but Dennis stopped short and lofted the ball over his opponent’s head for an easy basket.
Bryce was beginning to get heated up but knew if he let his temper control him, he’d never see the ball at all. The next three baskets were harder played, but Dennis’s ball control was so consistent that Bryce never got a hand on the ball.
“Why the heck are you managing a team and training people instead of playing on our team?” Bryce asked angrily as the final basket sank.
“Geez, Bryce. Would you give up managing those girls in order to play with you guys?” Dennis asked. The team laughed and the coaches moved between the two competitors to address the teams.
“Dennis has other, very good reasons for not playing on a team. Not the least of which are the goggles you see him wearing. While those provide valuable protection to his eyes, they cut his peripheral vision by fifty percent,” Ardith said. “With ten players on the floor, he can’t effectively see those who are coming from the side. But his individual skills and ability to teach them is what made the Angelines a championship team last year. We intend to repeat that this year.” There was a cheer from the Angelines and the coaches moved to their various courts as the team managers gathered up the basketballs and moved with them.
“Now, Angelines!” Ardith called. “If we had the kind of time we had last year, we’d spend another two weeks just working on the basic skills. But we need to develop as a team, as well. So, we’ll do some scrimmaging for a while and then Dennis and I will work with you on shooting drills. Practice jerseys! I’m just going to split you right down the middle here. On my left, blue jerseys. On my right, red. Dennis, take the red team and switch players at every whistle. Lana, keep notes for me on the clipboard. Um… We need another team manager to keep notes for Dennis.”
“I’ll do it,” Pat said. Everyone looked at the volleyball coach. “Hey, I’m learning something here, too!”
Dennis chose his starters and gave them positions. It happened to work out that he had mostly younger team members, but that didn’t make them all inexperienced. The two teams engaged and played until someone accidentally made a basket. The whistle blew and Dennis swapped out two players. The ball was put in play again and the whole process was repeated.
“Liz needs to be reminded of her arm position when she tries to shoot,” he said as he followed the action and Pat wrote down his comment. “Bobbie needs extra drills on dribbling.” “Daphne needs to learn low passes as well as high ones.” “Jaydyn needs speed drills, she’s falling behind.” And so the practice went. Pat was surprised when he occasionally gave notes on one of the opposing team’s players as well as his own. By the time Ardith called the scrimmage to a halt, both Pat and Lana had nearly two pages of notes.
“Get a drink. Layup drills next. Blue team, go with Dennis. Red with me,” Ardith called. After a five-minute break, the girls were back at work. Pat continued to shadow Dennis as he coached the girls on their shooting and dribbling. She noticed that the older girls all seemed to have a connection with Dennis already and showed their receptivity to his instructions as well as their more mature skills. She noted that Ardith had the less skilled players and spent time on more fundamentals than Dennis did.
“Oh, Pat, thank you for helping out today,” Ardith said as they walked to the female coaches’ locker room. “In a school of any size, our basketball program would merit two or three coaches for each team. It was really helpful to have someone else watching.”
“Ardith, don’t spread it too thick. You and I both know that I was watching Dennis and learning as much as any player out there,” Pat said.
“I learned plenty from him as well. I was fortunate that he matched with my style of coaching so well. We worked on the court together for a week before we brought the girls in for tryouts last year. I quizzed him and I liked what I saw,” Ardith said.
“You sure got a winner with him. I feel like I wasted an entire volleyball season by not getting him involved,” Pat said.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself for that. It was Jim who first spotted his potential and told me I needed him for a team manager. By the end of the season, when we started track, we turned all the conditioning exercises over to him. But he would have been hard-put to handle any greater responsibilities with the volleyball team with all we were pushing him to do with the cheerleaders, cross country, and basketball teams. Besides, I don’t think he knows as much about volleyball as he does about basketball. It’s really a first love for him.”
“As I count it, it was about nine first loves for him,” Pat laughed.
“The stuff you did with the basketball was so cool!” Rae said when the cheerleaders joined Dennis for another recording session. It went surprisingly smoothly and they were all done within an hour. “Do we have a master plan for your programs?”
“Oh. Sort of. I guess I was thinking we’d gradually work up to some longer and more intense workouts, but I also want to level out where people who aren’t athletes can continue the workouts without committing to becoming hardbodies like you guys,” Dennis laughed.
“Says he who points fingers,” Fred said. “I think Rae might be onto something, though. We led the non-athletes for another half hour after you split off for the dribbling. Some of them were talking about how much fun it looked to just bounce a ball like you were doing. They don’t want to play basketball, but they all talked about wanting to become more coordinated.”
“Some of them have been told they are uncoordinated since they were toddlers,” Roz said. “They’ve been convinced. You might not realize it, Dennis, but the exercise program is not only getting people in better shape, it’s changing their self-images. Teach us how to teach them to dribble a basketball.”
“Wow! I never even considered that. I’ve tried to make sure that all our exercises could be done without equipment. I can see a whole different way of approaching the problem with simple equipment like a bouncing ball.”
“Jump rope,” Sara suggested.
“Rubber bands,” Melanie said.
“Wrist and ankle weights,” Donna said. The cheerleaders were nodding and Dennis was getting into it.
“Can we meet tomorrow to brainstorm a progression and type of exercises, instead of recording?” Dennis asked. “It sounds like we’re onto something and I’d like to follow through with it. Also, you guys and Olivia and Jayden are all putting in as much work as I am on all this. We need to devise a way we can profit from our labor. Everyone. I don’t know how, because right now, no one is making anything from this. If we can get a revenue stream, though, I want it split with you.”
“You’re a gem, Dennis. I’m willing to go a few months the way we are so we can see if there is even a continuing job to make money from. Let’s not worry about that end until we see something coming in,” Sara said.
“I don’t know if we can sell this to the school board or not,” Ardith said. “In principle, there’s nothing here that is objectionable. I just don’t know if they’ll think it goes far enough. I just don’t know.” Dennis and the athletic dress committee had set Friday after practice to hand in their recommendations.
“We worked on this a long time,” Dennis said. “We looked at the uniform rules for all major sports, including cheerleading. Most sports say ‘a regulation, school-issued uniform.’ Many have guidance regarding what a player can wear under a uniform if it shows, like the color of a T-shirt or leggings. Of all the sports, cheerleading has the most stringent rules that cover what they can and can’t wear even in practice, right down to the shoes they can wear. But if we start adopting things like that, who’s going to be responsible for checking? Are you going to be responsible for measuring from a girl’s crotch to the leg of her shorts to make sure it’s two inches and not an inch and a half? Or a guy’s? What’s the top point from which it’s measured? The center seam or the top of where it touches the leg? The more we spelled things out, the more ridiculous enforcing the standard became.”
“I agree. It’s not that. It’s whether we can sell it when we have hyper-conservative church people trying to get everyone covered from neck to knees,” Ardith said.
“I don’t think the church people will be a significant factor,” Dennis smiled.
“What do you have planned?”
“Me? Nothing. I hear, though, that certain churches could find girls in bikinis waving signs in front of them.”
“Oh, my God! They did that the Sunday after the strike, didn’t they? I foresee the new sheriff getting involved. I understand there are six new deputies being trained as well as new office staff. This could get ugly,” Ardith said. “I’ll forward this to the other coaches and the board. At the meeting in two weeks, you’ll need to make the presentation.”
“We figured that. We’re preparing a slide show.”
“The poor school board.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
