Читать книгу Reflections of a 5th-Grade Girls Basketball Coach - Charlie Duncheon - Страница 4

“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot … and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why … I succeed.”

–Michael Jordan

In Shenzhen, China, on a late Friday February morning, young Chinese boys aged eleven to thirteen compete in a rigid training session on one of the thousands of new courts recently installed by the Chinese government. Lay-up drills and passing drills are conducted like a military exercise as the sun appears then disappears in a partly cloudy sky. The rigidity of the drills loosens up later, as the red shirt team plays a game against the white shirts. There are no smiles on the young faces, but they are smiling inside. All of them want to become famous basketball players like their hero, Yao Ming. The shortest player on the court dribbles past the tallest and makes a reverse lay-up. He breaks into the first smile of the day, showing a missing front tooth that may have been lost to an opponent’s elbow. Five years ago he would have been a second priority compared to the taller player he just beat, but the Chinese have now learned that fast guards are just as important to develop as the tall “Mings.” A lone government official taking notes at center court observes that this game has both promising forwards and fast, shorter guards.

Later that Friday in Melbourne, Australia, locals walk past the entrance of a gym and hear the constant squeaking of shoes on wood. The sources of the squeaks are ten girls ranging from ages sixteen to twenty-three, playing on a polished wood panel floor. All ten girls play intensely, with hopes of someday proudly representing their country in the Olympics and wearing the bright yellow jerseys with blue stars that form the Southern Cross. More than half the girls have blond hair bound in ponytails that match those jerseys. A tall, lean six-footer with curly red hair boxes out an even taller blonde, grasps the rebound from the missed shot and quickly whips the ball to the waiting Aussie girl in the wing. Another of a series of fast breaks ensues toward the other basket, as ten girls run full speed in the other direction, ten ponytails bobbing up and down in unison. Even the tenth girl, furthest from the girl making the lay-up, runs full speed toward the basket until she sees the ball fall through the net, then turns around to sprint full speed toward the other basket.

As that same sun now shines on Wau, Sudan, it relentlessly fries an outdoor asphalt court without a single square centimeter of shade. Eight young Sudanese boys with their black skin glistening in perspiration are going at it on one end of the court, oblivious to the heat or pebbles of sand blowing across the faded three-point line. Three more young boys wait under the only tree close to the court, a scraggly set of branches barely providing any shade for the boys or for the bottles of water taped with their names. Shoes (and in one case, sandals) slip on the sand, but every athlete gives 100% and never blames lost footing. One very thin fourteen-year-old defender anticipates a pass at the top of the key and intercepts the ball, moving full speed toward the other basket. He increases his lead on the other team as he passes the center line. Thoughts of Luol Deng, famous Sudanese basketball hero, float through his mind as he passes the three-point line, then the free throw line. Picking up the dribble and putting both hands on the ball, he begins the launch off his left foot for what he hopes is his first dunk. He slips on the pebbled surface and goes crashing into the sandy terrain just off the court. The ball rolls harmlessly in the sand while laughter erupts from the other seven on the court and three on the sidelines. Embarrassed, but showing his bright white teeth in a broad grin, he gets up with sand clinging to his bare back, shouting “next time!” in Arabic.

Later that day in Tuzla, Bosnia, a group of young girls plays in an aged stone building with a faded tile floor. One dark-haired girl by the name of Mila, wearing Mujanovic on the back of her shirt, scores a putback and dreams of playing for her country like her heroine, Razija Mujanovic. Flakes of snow from the gray skies outside curl through a broken window, but the heat of battle on the floor shows no effect from the temperature. Despite aggressive man-to-man defense, it seems that fast passing always finds an Eastern European sharpshooter open to make a long three-point shot, touching nothing but net. Some smack talking ensues from Mila, as her defender had not respected her shooting and had double-teamed the pass to the low post, leaving the shot maker open. Unlike her male counterparts in Bosnia, this smack talking is done with a smile, and the beaten defender smiles back and promises she will not leave her open again, as she raises her right hand and presses knuckles with Mila.

In the streets of Brooklyn, New York, neighbors gather to watch mostly young men compete in a basketball game on cracked asphalt courts on this unusually warm late winter afternoon. Today’s game has a different flavor, as one of the ten participants is Leslie, daughter of Ruben, who is also playing. Leslie is a high school phenom and no one on the court objects to this unique gender exception. Wire fences keep the ball from bouncing to the street but do not prevent local family and friends from entering and taking seats on the rusty three-row bleachers to watch the players, who “should be playing in the NBA.” The splendidly talented athletes in their late teens and early twenties (except for Ruben) go at it into the night, with no let up in perspiration or their obsession of putting that leather ball through the bent rims with tattered nets. No matter how late or how long the athletes streak up and down the paved courts, there is always energy left for some special dance after a dunk or some trash talking after a shot rejection in the paint.

Leslie collects a pass from her father at the free throw line, pivots toward the basket and feigns a shot as Jamal leaps high, fully expecting to reject Leslie’s shot. Once Jamal is in the air, Leslie takes the dribble to the hoop for an easy lay-up. Ruben high fives his daughter and reminds Jamal that he just got juked by a girl. Making up for his defensive lapse, Jamal takes the ball at the top of the key and drives to the basket, directly at Ruben. Ruben, with a gut matching the weight of the dribbling paint perpetrator, rejects a running one hander. Trotting down the court, Ruben reminds Jamal and his four teammates to keep that “excrement” out of there and turns to the crowd to repeat the banter. Jamal’s mother in the third bleacher row will have nothing of it and yells out, even louder than Ruben, a statement of defamation regarding Ruben’s lack of prowess off the court. The bleachers break into hearty hysterics; nine players on the court fall to the asphalt, overcome with laughter, followed by Ruben himself. After sixty seconds of levity heard ‘round the Brooklyn neighborhood, Ruben, clearly the recognized leader of this basketball community, summons the other nine to their feet and the intense game continues well into the night.

Just outside the small town of Cannelburg, Indiana, four Amish brothers play a two-on-two game in the family barnyard. Cannelburg got its name from a type of coal, cannel coal, discovered a few generations prior to that of these Amish boys, and just a few miles from the barnyard of this hoops engagement. Basketball, farming and coal mining are the three most important aspects of life around Cannelburg—except, of course, God and the Amish religion.

A young twelve-year-old in bibbed overalls and thick brown hair cropped at the ears takes a shot at a rusted goal nailed to the side of the barn. Deciding on a bank shot, he aims for the “I” in the faded “Vikings” painted white on an arch above the rim. The rim is made of a one inch steel band formed into an eighteen inch circle. There is no net attached to the rim but rather a burlap feed bag with a faded Purina logo. An hour earlier, these boys and their dad were hoisting hay bales inside the wall on the other side of the rim; now they play under the Viking emblem that represents the high school they will quit when they reach the age of sixteen. Despite the inevitable interruption of their education required by their Amish culture, they fantasize about being Vikings in their intense game, where the first team to ten baskets wins.

A bearded father with a black, soft felt-brimmed hat coaches one team, wiping his brow while his oldest son Jacob, coaching the other team, yells, “Roll off that pick, Eli! You cain’t help the defense no how if ye just let him pick ya still!” Eli vows to watch for the pick next time, as he never wants to disappoint his older brother, the best barnyard basketball player he ever saw. He knew his brother would have been the star of the Vikings if he had stayed in high school for four years. The game is called at nine baskets to nine, when a woman in a white bonnet and white apron over a ground-length plain blue dress comes out to the yard announcing dinner. Intense as this game is, it will be delayed for now and determined later, in deference to Mother’s dinner.

It’s a Friday night in Atlanta, Georgia; the Atlanta Hawks go head-to-head with their rivals, the Miami Heat. Ten of the best basketball players in the world play on national TV and in front of a sold-out crowd of more than 19,000 people, who make so much noise that the squeaks on the floor cannot be heard. Rabid fans’ eyes are adhered to the court below. Some faces are painted in red and black while others wave cards for their beloved Hawks. When a Hawk star guard from the University of Arkansas steals an inbound pass to make a quick jam to build the Hawk’s lead, bedlam erupts, deafening all in attendance. The roar pours well beyond the doors and through the packed parking lot surrounding Phillips Arena.

And now, toward the end of this global Friday, in the small northern California town of Los Gatos, Karen and Alasdair, a recently married couple who both work in the Silicon Valley, walk with two out-of-town guests toward downtown. They have a reservation at a superb steakhouse called Forbes Mill. The Silicon Valley couple are native Brits with working visas and their two guests are from Birmingham, England. Strong British accents flow into the evening air as the four of them marvel at the mild evening temperature and the beauty of this quiet, scenic California town.

Los Gatos is a small town that cozies up to the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It began over a century ago, as the last stop before horse-driven carriages and wagons began the trek over the mountains toward timber mills and the town of Santa Cruz on the Pacific coast. Los Gatos, Spanish for “The Cats,” acquired the name from the mountain lions that frequented that same trail the carriages and wagons used. The first business in Los Gatos was the Forbes Mill, along the creek next to the trail. Forbes Mill Steakhouse and the Los Gatos High School Wildcat mascot name are a couple of the few remaining traces of the first settlement. The town has become a wealthy suburb made up of those who succeeded in high technology companies in the adjacent Silicon Valley, and those who succeeded in servicing those who made money in the high-tech companies.

Half a block from the main drag on Bean Avenue, the four pass St. Mary’s church and Howley Hall. This hall and small gymnasium serves everything, including St. Mary’s grades kindergarten through eight school plays, the St. Mary’s parish country fair spaghetti dinners, bingo, adult and school volleyball games and any other church or school function that needs the space. In this early evening, under the backdrop of the dark-green mountains below a dimming blue sky, the old building’s windows emit a yellow glow. As it was time for another St. Mary’s paint job; this gymnasium has a slightly worn look. Its somewhat weathered look sticks out, an anomaly in this otherwise perfectly manicured neighborhood. It could have been a gym in Tuzla, Bosnia or Gary, Indiana; but here it stood in a neighborhood in which the average home price is $860,000. This was not your typical universal neighborhood setting for hoops.

Stopping in front of the building, the curious four climb the steps to the double doors facing the street, as they hear what sounds like squeaks accompanied by a pounding sound from inside the gym. To the two Silicon Valley engineers and their friends, these are not familiar sounds, so they slowly open one of the doors an inch or two and peer inside. They see two men with whistles in black-and-white striped shirts running back and forth with ten grade school girls. Blondes, redheads and brunettes with their ponytails and pigtails bobbing up and down were running back and forth ahead of the referees. One girl dribbles the ball at a time, while all ten run back and forth on a wooden floor that needed its annual coating.

Four girls wearing the St. Mary’s uniform are yelling, “Carson!” and “Carson, I’m open!” while Carson, determined not to lose the ball to the attacking visiting defenders, dribbles the ball down the floor, eyes fixated on the ball and not her open teammates; her first priority is to protect the ball from the attacking visitors. Carson’s team wears yellow shorts and shirts with blue trim and St. Mary’s written across their chests just above their numbers.

“Go Cougars!” yells a St. Mary’s parent. The Cougar mascot name follows the Los Gatos feline tradition, begun with the high school Wildcats. The opposing team, now gathering around the dribbling Carson, wears bright red shirts and shorts with white trim, and Sacred Heart written in white across the front of their jerseys. When Carson sees Betsy open, she picks up her dribble and makes a bounce pass to her.

That leads to Jordan, Carson, and Betsy’s twin brunette sister Meagan yelling, “Betsy!” or, “Betsy, I’m open!”

“Look up! Pass!” yells the St. Mary’s volunteer coach, who is also Carson’s father.

It is a relatively small gymnasium. The engineers and their guests peer further through the doors; one of the baskets and the baseline reside a mere twelve feet from their position at the doors. They see both teams lined up in a single row of chairs on the right side of the gym narrowly separated by the scorer’s bench, run by the St. Mary’s athletic director and his son. The feet from both team’s benchwarmers rest a mere twelve inches from the out-of-bounds line. Another single row of fold-up seats is on the left side of the gym, mostly fans from the visiting Sacred Heart team from nearby Saratoga. Like the player benches, they’re also lined up with twelve inches separating their feet from the out-of-bounds line. More hometown fans are sitting on the stage opposite the entrance doors. The curtains are pulled and some parents sit on the edge of the stage under the far basket. There is a single row of chairs seating additional parents and relatives of the home St. Mary’s team behind those hanging their legs off the edge of the stage. Younger brothers and sisters wearing St. Mary’s school uniforms of white shirts, blue pants or pleated plaid skirts play dodge ball on the back section of the stage, most of them not as interested in their siblings’ game as their parents. Any available space to see the game is taken.

“Stop ball!” yells the Sacred Heart coach. It’s a spirited and close game between host St. Mary’s Cougars and the Sacred Heart Mustangs. But the absolute beauty of the scene at Howley Hall is that while the squeaks of shoes are fewer and less intense than the whistles, the rules and actions are mostly the same as those of the best in the world playing at the same time in Atlanta, or for that matter earlier in the day in Sudan. You can’t dribble again if you pick up the ball. You can only stand in the three-second lane for three seconds. A field goal is two points, a free throw one. Every player on the floor plays offense and defense. If everybody is hustling, then all ten players are involved in every single offensive and defensive play. Even those on the bench contribute with warnings about a defensive move, or a “back door” move by a forward on offense. The team that plays as a team and does not try to go “one on five” has a better chance of winning. You get two free throws if a defender fouls you while shooting, etc. And the fans, mostly family, sitting on the stage or on folding chairs in Howley Hall are every bit as vocal and excited as thousands of Hawks fans in Atlanta.

That’s what makes basketball such a beautiful game. While the skill level changes dramatically from fifth-grade girls playing at Howley Hall to that of the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat, the challenge remains the same. How do we put that leather ball through the metal hoop more times than our opponents? And if the many other volunteer youth basketball coaches do their job effectively, like Carson’s dad, grade school girls can receive equal or even more emotional rewards than those professionals playing in Atlanta.

The four British “outsiders” leave the doorway, intrigued by what they saw on the floor at Howley Hall. With a peck on the cheek, the new bride tells Alasdair that if they get citizenship they should consider St. Mary’s when they have children. They could spend beautiful Friday nights watching their children playing that game that makes squeaks on the floor, that draws whistles from the guys in the striped shirts and smiles and cheering from those in attendance.