Chapter Six

Ihated my English Comp teacher, and she hated me.

It all started the first day of class.

Ms. Thomas was a little Tweety Bird of a woman, her yellow hair worn in a bun, her dresses always patterned with some kind of floral design, arms making a slight flapping motion whenever she talked in her squeaky voice. As though she were trying to fly away.

She made it clear even before all of us were seated and had stopped fidgeting that she was “a strict punctuationist.” She pointed to several large signs posted on every wall—“MYP.”

“‘Mind Your Punctuation,’” she interpreted. “I’ve had brilliant students who were good enough to be professional writers whom I’ve failed because of their poor punctuation.”

Her first lesson covered parts of speech, and this is what she wrote on the blackboard:

What is a noun.

Some smart guy in the first-row center raised his arm and furiously waggled his hand as though it was on fire.

“‘A person, place, or thing,’” he said when she called on him.

“That’s absolutely correct,” she smiled.

That’s when I fucked up. But, really, I couldn’t help myself. And who could blame me?

My raised hand got her attention, so I said, “That answer is superfluous, because it answers a question that wasn’t asked. In truth, the word ‘what’ in the sentence on the blackboard is not a noun. It’s really an interrogative pronoun. MYP, Ms. Thomas.”

She blushed, quickly changed the period at the end of her sentence to a question mark, and just as quickly dismissed us.

At the end of our next session, she gave us our first writing assignment, “My Favorite Hobby,” to be typed and submitted on Monday.

Guess what I wrote about: The challenge of isolation basketball. The glory of pick-and-rolls and give-and-goes. Teamwork and knowing your role. The court being metaphorically tilted to that offense is played downhill, while defense is played uphill—and the center-jump circle spins but remains in place like the nub of an axle in the center of a wheel.

I really didn’t know what that last sentence meant, but it somehow sounded “deep” and meaningful.

And, I must admit, all of it beautifully written.

But she gave me D+ and her handwritten note said, “So many arcane phrases that the entire piece makes little sense!!!!”

Thenceforth things went from bad to worse.

Her midterm exam consisted of a composition—“How Taking This Course Is Making Me a Better Writer”—plus a bunch of bullshit “True or False” questions:

The verb in this sentence is “is.” ______

The sentence “He enjoyed his studying” is a perfect example of a gerund. ______

Fool that I am, I wrote T or F in answer to the questions, and because I “didn’t follow instructions,” my grade was D–.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A week before practice began, the camera man was absent, but Marwane Wright and the other eight returning players showed up for the afternoon runs. Wright took charge and announced that he would play on the red team along with the four best holdovers, and that LeVonn could team up with the other four lettermen to form the yellow squad.

The rest of us watched the scrimmage for ninety minutes without any of us being summoned to play. My fellow recruits only sat and watched, but I ran wind sprints outside the sidelines and did some shooting in between the runs.

Definitely a fucked-up situation.

I was also disgusted by the way Wright and his buddies played. They never ran full-speed, and except when they dutifully passed the ball to Wright, they only had eyes for the basket.

Only LeVonn played hard, dominating the glass and blocking shots. When he smacked a lazy layup attempted by Wright, I expected that the smackee would retaliate with some super-duper move that would embarrass LeVonn. But all the guy did was laugh.

I began to be concerned about what the upcoming season really had in store.

My first contact with Coach Woody certainly did nothing to alleviate my foreboding.

Prior to our initial practice, we were all wearing our practice gear as we convened in the Film Room, where Coach Woody kept us waiting and fidgeting for fifteen minutes before making an appearance. He was preceded by his six assistants, walking two abreast, all of them wearing shiny red sweat suits with USA emblazoned across the front in large, scripted yellow letters.

Then came Coach Woody, bringing up the rear. He was clad in a shiny black sweat suit with “South” written in a convex curve above the concave “Arizona”—and both in extra-large yellow block letters. While his escorts were hatless, Coach Woody wore a black hat with “Coach Woody” written in yellow script above the bill.

I knew that he had been an All-American center at Ole Miss back in the late 1930s and had played with a modest degree of success in the scrambled alphabet of pre-BAA-cum-NBA leagues. The ABL, EBL, MBL, NBL, and PBLA. In those days he was listed as being six feet seven inches and a trim 220 pounds.

After a military stint in WW II, during which he played basketball and never saw active service, CW began his coaching career as an assistant to William Kramer. Twelve years ago, when Kramer became USA’s athletic director, CW became the head coach.

The only images I had previously seen of CW was of him leaning toward the game action from the bench, or else shaking hands with some player or big-shot politician. He had always looked extremely fit for a middle-aged man, so imagine my surprise to see him in person looking somewhat stooped and with an ample belly.

Even so, his grand entrance definitely had a militaristic air. I almost felt like jumping to my feet, standing at attention, and jerking my right hand into a stiff salute.

The cadre of assistants parted in perfect unison, forming two lines of three standing off to the side. (I‘d later discover that Coach Lee was the only assistant whose voice I would regularly hear. The other guys mostly chased down loose balls, and rebounded and passed during shooting drills.)

Then, with his hands placed firmly on his hips, His Imperial Coachness strode forward and began to speak:

“Boys, you should all feel privileged to be playing for the University of Southern Arizona. We have a glorious tradition here, which I’m sure you are all well aware of. And we’re counting on you to continue that tradition.”

He paused to clear his throat with a loose, noisy cough.

I’ll bet he smokes cigarettes.

“A lot will be demanded of you. Obedience. Honesty. Good behavior on and off the court. And diligent effort in practice as well as in games. Nothing less will be tolerated.”

Another fluid cough, more hacking than the previous one.

“Now, some of you boys might be thinking of abandoning us here at Southern Arizona and choosing to turn pro before you graduate, like some other college boys are starting to do. But I would consider that to be a personal betrayal and a personal insult. We have gifted you the chance for a totally free college education, and an excellent one at that. Injuries, incompetence . . . There are numerous reasons why a boy might be a failure in the pros. But a college degree will never fail you. So, boys, it behooves you to show your loyalty and your appreciation to the school and, more importantly, to me, by staying the course. To do so will be to ensure that your life will be a success.”

During this last bit, CW seemed to be staring at Marwane Wright.

Then CW coughed, and graced us with a reluctant, tight-lipped grin as he stepped back. When his assistants began applauding, we all followed suit.

Then, as CW made a quick exit stage left, Lee stepped forward and consulted a list as he announced which of us should flip our reversible jerseys to show the yellow side, and which of us should stay red-shirted.

All of the eight returning lettermen, plus LeVonn, constituted the Red team, while the Yellows numbered ten, which included all of us recruits plus three of the walk-on hopefuls.

Then Lee ordered us to “double-time” down the hall and onto the gym floor, where Chad Brownley was waiting to warm us up. Five half-speed laps around the court, then a lengthy series of stretches before we were directed to form layup lines. That’s when every one of us showed off our power dunks.

Elementary drills were next. Footwork. Defensive postures and slides. All kinds of reverse and crossover dribbles. One-footed changes of direction.

Then Lee dummied us through our basic offensive set. A passing game. Pass and pick away. Pass and dive-cut. Down picks. High picks. Baseline picks. Weakside picks and curls.

Basic high school stuff.

The other assistants fetched loose balls, clapped their hands, and occasionally shouted, “Let’s go!”

This lasted for nearly an hour before Lee picked five-on-five for an “anything goes” scrimmage. Only then did CW appear to sit on a raised chair set adjacent to the court. His feet were planted just out-of-bounds, with each foot on either side of the time line, and he held a battery-powered microphone in his hands.

Maybe once every ten minutes he barked something out, and the metallic sound of his voice froze all the players.

“Hey, Number Seven in yellow. Dive for the loose ball even if you have no chance of grabbing it. Hustle is its own reward.”

“You, Number Ten in yellow. Didn’t anybody ever teach you how to box out?”

An occasional whistle sounded as two of the other assistants adjudicated out-of-bounds situations. Otherwise, the Reds ran helter-skelter, making no effort to run anything resembling the offensive set Lee had demonstrated.

While the three Red subs were periodically shuffled onto the court, the five substitute Yellows (including me) stayed glued to the bench. And for a while, the Yellows did attempt to follow Lee’s instructions, but soon fell into the wild playground pattern established by the Reds.

Wright never passed the ball and only had eyes for the basket. And LeVonn was by far the best player on the court. Rebounding. Swatting shots. Even dunking on the run.

Then we split up into two groups and practiced our free throws. Taking ten at a time. A foolish routine that does nothing to replicate how these shots are taken during a game. In high school, we’d each shoot two, then run full-court sprints until our turn came around again.

Overall, the whole session was a monumental waste of time. Especially for me and the other spectating Yellows.

From there, we double-timed to the weight room, where Brownley and three of his muscle-bulging underlings had us execute all kinds of lifts, from chest presses to bicep curls, from squats to leg extensions.

After another hour of this, we were each given charts that recorded what we had lifted that day and how much the weights and reps would be expected to increase until the season started in four weeks.

We then showered, dressed, and dispersed.

Except for some aching muscles, I felt fresh enough to play a doubleheader.

When I voiced my complaints to LeVonn over dinner, he just shrugged and said, “I thought it was a pretty good run.”

Later, I fell asleep at my desk while trying to read Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.

When I finally roused myself and crawled into bed, I dreamed that I was a knight in shining armor being chased around a basketball court by a growling, coughing giant who was wearing black USA sweats.