Tim’s palms turned sweaty. He took a moment to hand the paper the kids had given him to Billy.
“You’ll do great,” Billy whispered. “Trust yourself, man!”
Tim returned to the floor and took the microphone. He cleared his throat a few times and wet his lips.
“Hi, everyone, I’m Tim Daniels,” he said at last. “I’ve been working with Red, Peter, and Keanu for the past week. Although, um, I guess it’s really been more like a couple of days because like they said, I spent the first few days just yelling at them.
“I might have gone on yelling at them, too,” he continued, “if I hadn’t remembered something Dick once said to me. He told me that if I could show the kids that basketball is fun, then they’d want to keep playing. That made a lot of sense to me. I mean, let’s face it—if they hate the sport, they’re not going to want to keep playing it, right? And it would stink if they gave it up because if you ask me, they all have the ability to be really good players.”
He glanced over at Keanu, Red, and Peter. All three were beaming at him. Suddenly, any nervousness Tim had vanished. He turned off the microphone and put it aside. Then he gathered the boys into a huddle.
“Okay, are you guys ready to show ’em what you can do?”
The threesome nodded eagerly.
“Should we keep our capes on?” Red asked.
“Of course!” Tim replied, ruffling the boy’s bright thatch of hair. “You’re superheroes, right?”
“Right!”
They broke apart. Tim faced the audience again and explained that to make the basketball sessions fun as well as informative, he’d devised different activities to help the boys learn defensive and offensive skills. Then he had the boys demonstrate each activity while he described each drill and its goal.
“The first one is called dribbling without dribbling,” he said as he handed basketballs to the boys. “The boys held ice cream cones in their free hands on a really hot day. As they dribbled the ball, they watched their ice cream for signs of melting. The drill taught them to keep their eyes up instead of watching the ball and to hold their free arm up to block defenders.”
“And we learned to lick the ice cream fast so it wouldn’t drip onto our hands!” Peter added, drawing a laugh from the crowd.
As Tim went through the rest of the drills—the potato-passing games, hang time, shield, laser vision, and take off—he told the audience where he got his inspiration for them.
“Keanu was my superhero, so it was with him in mind that I made the capes,” he said. “Peter always seemed to be hungry, so the ice cream cone drill was for him. And Red, well, he didn’t like the heat—and neither did I! So that’s why we practiced in the water sometimes.”
When he was finished, the audience applauded long and loud. Tim ducked his head, suddenly shy, and took his seat in the stands next to Wanda and Billy. Wanda gave him a big hug, and Billy punched him lightly on the shoulder.
“That was awesome!” Billy whispered.
“You were awesome,” Wanda added, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and smiling into his eyes.
Tim’s face reddened again—but in a good way. Then he turned his attention back to the court to watch Mike.
Mike flicked on the microphone. “Good afternoon, parents. That sure was entertaining, wasn’t it? Well, I’m going to take things in a more serious direction now, because I take basketball very seriously. It might be just a game to some”—he cut his gaze at Tim, eyebrows raised—“but to me, it’s nothing to laugh about.”
He jabbed a finger at his mentees. “All right, you three, come out here.”
The small boys hurried onto the court. Mike passed them each a ball. “Dribbling drill one,” he ordered.
Obediently, the boys dribbled the balls from the center line to the end line, switched to their other hands, and dribbled back. As one, they stopped, held their balls under their arms, and looked at Mike expectantly.
They’re waiting for the next command, Tim realized with a touch of envy. Mike’s really got them under control. Pretty impressive.
Yet as Tim watched the boys demonstrate their skills, he began to wonder if it was that impressive after all. Sure, Mike’s mentees performed each task better than his had. But the expressions on their faces were so blank that they looked like robots going through programmed motions. There was no energy, no life—no fun!
Mike finished his demonstration fifteen minutes later to a smattering of polite applause. Dick said a few final words, thanking both Tim and Mike for their efforts and inviting the parents to the dining hall for refreshments.
Tim had barely gone a step when Red bounced up to him and grabbed his arm. “Come on, you’ve got to meet my mom and dad!” he said, tugging Tim excitedly toward a young couple. Tim would have picked out Red’s mother in a second, for her son had inherited her bright hair.
“My folks want to meet you, too!” Peter echoed.
“And mine!” Keanu put in.
“Okay, okay!” Tim said, laughing. A moment later, he was surrounded by six adults, all of whom were telling him how happy they were with his mentoring job.
“They made it easy because they were so enthusiastic,” Tim confessed. “They’re great kids. I’m going to miss them.”
And to his surprise, he realized it was true. He wouldn’t have believed it a week earlier, but he was going to miss spending time with the three little guys!