by Marc Skelton
The author Pat Conroy wrote in My Losing Season that “Sports books are always about winning because winning is far more pleasurable and exhilarating to read about than losing…Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass.” I agree with the first part of his statement—there’s no better teacher than a loss—but we didn’t have a free pass; we had had plenty of trials and dilemmas.
Here the season was ending. I took a page out of Richard Nixon’s playbook. He had two Apollo 11 landing speeches prepared, depending on the success or failure of the mission. I wrote down memories from the last seven months: Tyree fouling the shooter at Clinton; Kaleb getting his only point with a little help from the referee; Charles’s innumerable dunks; Frankie’s valiant comeback; Shamar’s unprecedented improvement; Joshua’s rehabilitation in the classroom to gain his academic eligibility; Cris’s proof that good things happen to people who work hard and have patience; Walfri’s unmeasurable leadership; Jaelen’s toughness, playing injured most of the season; Kenneth’s métier, supporting his teammates unconditionally; Gaby’s faith in the system; Kyheem’s loyalty; Mack’s fight to get back on the court; Bryant’s transformation from a novice into a dependable role player; the guys behind the scene, Dalen, Mohammed, and Henry, and all their work in practice and help during the games. Only one question remained: Who would be the 2017 New York City PSAL Class B champion? That would also determine which speech I gave at the end of the next game.
THE REMATCH
After the Adams Street victory, we stayed to watch South Bronx Prep play Wingate High School from Brooklyn in the other semifinal game. The game was close. I could sense none of the Panthers wanted Wingate to win. The team wanted revenge. We beat Wingate in 2013 for the city championship; could we beat them again when the whole team wanted South Bronx Prep? I sat next to Gaby and Kyheem, impartially developing scouting reports on both teams. South Bronx Prep finally wrestled control of the game. Up five late in the game, SBP held the ball and ran a guy baseline with less than ten seconds on the clock. No second option. What happens if that doesn’t work?
Bingo! That was it! There wasn’t a second option. None of their plays had second options! The guy with the ball was resolved to play hero ball. He would try to create something himself. If somehow we could force them into more hero-ball tactics, they would use up all their superpowers late in the game. At least that was what I was thinking. Was it more important in a championship game to be dominant or relentless? We had to be the latter; the former was a daydream because the Cougars were older, taller, and quicker than we were. Can we will ourselves to victory? Can we just play team basketball like we have all season? We couldn’t out-finesse them; they had better dexterity, strength, endurance, and nerves. They had already beaten us, but I wasn’t convinced they had a stronger will.
The stage was set. We would face the only team to beat us all year. At forty-two years old, I was still under the spell of the 1986 Boston Celtics. Thirty years later the wizardry of the greatest basketball team of all time still intoxicates me. Know what really sticks with me? My hatred toward the Lakers. South Bronx Prep reminded me of eighties Showtime. The South Bronx Prep coaches had their fancy suits like Pat Riley did, and man oh man, did the Cougars put points on the board, averaging over 100 points a game. But their point totals were necessarily lower in their first four playoff games. Playoff basketball relies on execution and an ever-present sense of calmness.
I wished I could just text Larry Bird and ask, “Yo, how did you guys beat Showtime in 1984?”
I knew the only way to beat Showtime was if we were wearing the blue collar.
You could not have created a bluer-collar team than us. Shamar and Walfri had battled back from being cut from the team sophomore and freshman year, respectively. They fought through the doubts of ever being a varsity basketball player and were now starting in a championship game. Charles had lost his best friend twice, once when he was ten years old, the other time when Latrell quit early this season. Tyree’s right arm was almost severed in a strange accident. Cris battled the loss of his father. Frankie had not only traveled a long, lonesome road to recovery, his confidence was now fuel for his teammates. This team had guys who were relentless. We had guys willing to do the dirty work of sweeping the gym before the game. Everyone filled up the water bottles for one another. Everyone picked up their dirty uniforms and put them in the laundry bag after the game. They played with heart on the court. And it was evident they had compassion for one another off the court.
We had two days of practice before the championship game on Saturday. We were already prepared.
At Thursday’s practice we looked ready. The passes were sharp and the attitude was merciless.
“To beat the trap, you don’t use your eyes.” During those two days of practice, we ran a drill where we trapped Cris and had him close his eyes. “Close your eyes. Who is open?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see,” Cris said.
“Yes, you do,” I implored. “This is not Jedi training. If Frankie’s man leaves him to trap you, they will rotate to Frankie. Charles needs to flash hard to the ball. He will be at the nail. Trust me.”
On Friday, a day before the game, Ty and Gaby were in my room during the lunch period.
“You know what today is?” Gaby asked.
Ty quizzically stared at me.
“St. Patrick’s Day,” Tyree said.
“We won the city championship on this day four years ago,” Gaby stated.
“Stop it. You’re going to make them even more nervous,” I said.
I received a text message from Jamaal Lampkin. He was always checking up on me like a concerned friend. He was in the stands when Frankie was injured in December.
“Congrats on another finals appearance…proud of u man,” Jamaal wrote. “U ready?”
“Born ready,” I wrote back.
“Lol,” Jamaal replied.
* * *
—
On Saturday, March 18, I had had a restful night’s sleep. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through Instagram. I saw Coach Campbell’s post:
Been up all night tossing and turning so focused on today’s championship game. I can’t fall back asleep…so eager and anxious; this feeling is unexplainable. When you work so hard and sacrifice so many things to get to that point; that defining moment of your hard work and dedication…success and triumph is all you expect in return. “You can’t ReWrite What’s Already Written” I’m Locked in; Can’t Nobody Take This Away From Me. How Bad Do I Want To Be Successful you ask As Bad as I Want to Breathe.
That was normal chatter. But there was this from @harlems_coach_k: “It’s SHOWTIME!!!”
I finished breakfast and was about to leave. Jessica was deciphering the short red cuneiform of burst capillaries on the bridge of my nose.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. I kissed her and headed out the door.
“Didn’t you forget something?” Jess said. “Can you take the trash with you?”
I walked into school around 9:30 a.m. Shamar was there. He looked as if he had been there since last night, nervously waiting for the game to start.
“You’re here early,” I said.
“Yeah, I wanted to leave the house before my mom started making me do chores and stuff.”
“I guess your brother can help her,” I said.
“He’s coming to the game,” Shamar said.
“Great,” I said.
“He said he wished he had come to Fannie Lou,” Shamar confessed.
“I hear that a lot,” I said.
On the weathered chalkboard I wrote the details for the game. Clouds of chalk were still on the board from Friday’s lesson; I can see details from the semifinal game watermarked into the
green chalkboard. I get this strange feeling when I am writing on top of old game plans. They are like ghosts trying to escape; they cling to the corner of the board, avoiding the eraser.
* * *
—
The rest of the team arrived and we went over some last-minute details. “When trapped, find Rucker and pass away from him,” I instruct. Everyone is seated in front of me. We have done this close to thirty times this season. They are locked in. “He leads the PSAL in scoring. I think he probably has a quadruple-double, he has to average at least ten steals a game. We need to limit the live turnovers.” Those are the turnovers when the whistle doesn’t blow and it’s easier for them to score when our defense is not set up.
“Here is their play ‘X,’ the baseline out-of-bounds play.” I was giving them answers they already knew. I reviewed what we went over in practice the last two days:
#25 the Hitman. He loves to dribble and drive. He won’t have any legs in the fourth.
#33 George Foreman. Keep him off the boards. Use a pump fake around him. Get him in foul trouble early.
#1 Roberto Duran. Limit his big plays. He will take charges.
#2 Sugar Ray. Make sure you box him out.
#3 Ali. When he catches baseline he is going to spin. Wall up. If he gets out, dig and get that ball.
“Like the last four games, let’s control the Pace and Pressure, and keep our ComPosure,” I said.
Tyree released his hair, imprisoned all night in a black do-rag, the ripple of his hair attracting all the attention in the room. “Look at them waves.” Everyone was staring at Tyree’s hair.
Once the commotion had subsided, Tyree said, “I couldn’t sleep last night. I was throwing up.”
“That makes two of us.”
We grabbed the downtown 6 train to Twenty-Third Street. Baruch College was a short walk from the train station. My mind was on one thing: How were we going to stop Ty Rucker? He led the PSAL in scoring, at 37.4 a game. He was second in assists with almost 11 a game, and had 10 rebounds a game. Ty was a smaller version of Russell Westbrook. He could score from the outside and inside. If we stopped him, there was Ali, the center. Ali averaged 26 points and 16 rebounds a game. Danny and Mark, the wings, pitched in with around 10 points a game. They had four guys averaging double digits in scoring. On paper it seemed like they had a championship formula, but it was basketball alchemy. Rucker disproportionately took more shots than anyone else, and they often ran up the score. But what happens when the game slows down and there are fewer possessions and fewer opportunities to shoot? When we won the championship in 2013, we had four guys in double digits. I have always thought if you have four guys averaging double digits, that is without a doubt a championship team. There was only one way to beat them: to have five guys averaging double digits. And we had five. Team basketball versus hero ball. I have a deep conviction that team ball in this situation will win.
We are at Twenty-Third Street when I hear the subway door open. There’s a man with a crazed look in his eye. He is pushing everyone out of his way and is headed straight for Walfri. This guy just bumped into a bunch of scared tourists. Walfri’s not going to back down. Walfri won’t let him get away with pushing him. If this guy hits Walfri, I know Charles and Cris are going to jump in. He’s about two people away from Walfri when the train doors open. Walfri and I make eye contact. “Twenty-Third Street,” the automated voice murmurs.
“Everybody off!” Walfri yells. A close call.
It was March and the ground was still frozen. Piles of snow and great lakes of slush parked in front of street corners. Small valleys of snow, small enough for my feet to be side by side, allowed pedestrians to exit and enter just one at a time.
We enter into the warmth of the lobby. Move effortlessly through the metal detectors and school safety officials. We recognize each other. I couldn’t tell if the escalator was broken or turned off. It didn’t matter. We would have to descend gingerly into the maelstrom. We spelunked into the bowels of Baruch College. We entered the gym, where the girls championship game was going on. We would have to wait.
We sit in the bleachers. Over to my right I see the championship T-shirts folded as if they were on display at a department store. Auspiciously, they are black and red: our school colors. In the middle of the table is the trophy. It’s a copper basketball balancing on a block of wood. It doesn’t look like much, but it is what we came here for.
“I’m not leaving this building without that trophy,” I whisper to myself.
It has been seventeen days since the playoffs started. It was quite a whirlwind trip. I was quiet and lost in thought. We headed to the locker room. I wrote on the damaged clipboard. The pink dry-erase marker, the same one I have used all season, was losing its spirit. Kenneth and Kaleb stirred uneasily in the corner.
“Coach! Space Jams?” Frankie spied my sneakers.
“It’s the only way I know how to beat the Monstars,” I said with a shrug, referring to Michael Jordan’s movie Space Jam. Nobody noticed my tie, a gift from my wife. I wore a skinny, dark blue tie with mini-harpooners on it. I was prepared to explain it, at length if possible, but no one asked.
“Let’s go wait near the gym,” I ordered. I was feeling claustrophobic.
We had started the season with the idea of Per angusta ad augusta. We began the playoffs with the concept of divide et impera. I spotted Coach Radar. We tried not to look at each other. Civility won. We made eye contact. Shook hands. He smiled and walked away. His suit was gorgeous.
We waited in the doorway impatiently while the girls championship awards ceremony wrapped up. Radar sat down on the far end of the gym. His team was dressed in their dark blue tracksuits, the coaches in their sharp dark blue suits. I just can’t get over the tackiness of some coaches’ basketball attire. No coach in 2017 should be wearing those sleeveless sweaters. I don’t even know where they buy them. They seem to survive in the Catholic League somehow.
My daydream about basketball fashion was interrupted by an unexpected wave. A slow, deep team battle cry of “WE READY, WE READY” echoed behind me, creating a singular intimacy I was totally unaccustomed to. It bound us together, honoring the unbelievable season.
I loved it. But where did it come from? It reminded me of a line from Dante’s Inferno: “Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.” We were not a battle-cry type of team. I don’t like breaking routine. But this was really cool.
The PA system was buzzing with feedback. The gym sounded like we were inside an electrified conch shell. We settled into our warm-up routine. I was lost in the oceanic murmur, staring at the stands as they filled up. The South Bronx Prep crowd found their seats. I could see a few Fannie Lou students. Here come even more Cougar fans, some wearing the “Talent Wins Games. Teamwork Wins Chips” shirts. They arranged themselves in a worshipful manner, like a church choir. It looked like the A.M.E. Zion Church congregation dressed in navy blue. My pregame reverie was broken again, this time by a voice in a red shirt in a sea of navy blue shouting with gusto, “Let’s Go Panthers! Let’s Go Panthers!”
Eight minutes before the start of the game, Kate Belin, the venerated math teacher who works with Bob Moses, didn’t even have a seat; with effrontery and poise she yelled, “Let’s Go Panthers!” over and over again as she infiltrated a hostile environment. Kate, a teacher at Fannie Lou for more than a dozen years, did her Fulbright in Botswana, was a Math for America fellow, and was a Sloan Award winner. Kate has worked with the Bard Prison Initiative. She easily annexed a partition of the Cougars Nation. Teachers, students, and alumni, all wearing red and black, joined her in the small piece of space to create an autonomous Panther Province deep inside enemy territory.
More and more friends and colleagues started to arrive. I saw Aaron Broudo, my fellow history teacher. He was wearing what can only be called a fiery s
weet-potato outfit, a red puffy jacket with orange jeans. Close enough to our school colors. Ryan O’Connell, my tamale partner, was there. Coach Ben from Lab, Coach Chris from Clinton, and Coach Lawanda from BCAM were all there. There were a bunch of former players in the audience: Timmy Hariston, Ken Duran, and Shateek Myrick. I spotted Xavier Rivera.
“Have a great game” read a text from Jessica.
During warm-ups, Tyree sat down next to me. Tyree had written MMP in Sharpie on his kicks; I ask him what it means.
“Make Momma Proud,” he said.
The opening quarter, SBP tore into us. Charles goose-stepped awkwardly after he caught the ball. Travel. He kept traveling every time he caught the ball. With about five minutes to go in the first quarter, it looked like Shamar and Charles had drunk three or four espressos. Shamar was always fast, but today he was derailing himself. He threw the ball away again. Cris subbed in for him. All I could do when he came off the court was to avoid his eyes, so I gave the floor a cold, inescapable stare.
“Settle down. Take a few breaths,” I suggested to Shamar. I needed to listen to my own advice.
They must have been drinking out of the same water bottle, because Cris drove into the paint and threw up a no-look shot as soon as he touched the ball. I had to get him out of there now. I substituted Cris for Shamar, Shamar for Cris, Cris for Shamar, hoping to decaffeinate them at each visit to the bench.
“Cris, do not shoot the ball again,” I warned. “This is not the time to be working on your jump shot!” I screamed.
