Swagger

by Carl Deuker

  Every offensive set started with four players outside the three-point arc. The point guard was positioned at the top of the key. From that basic set, we ran a weave: pass and cut, pass and cut, pass and cut.

  If a defender lost focus, then the offensive player was supposed to make a backdoor move to the bucket. The guy with the ball would hit the cutter with a simple bounce pass for an easy lay-up. If the defense stayed alert, then it was up to someone—usually Cash—to knock down a three-ball before the shot clock ran out.

  All week Knecht had us practice that basic set over and over. It was boring for us, so it had to be even more boring for Hartwell. He stood on the court, whistle in his mouth, taking instructions from Knecht. I could feel him chafing under Knecht’s tight control.

  The dustup happened on Thursday. I was point guard on the second team, and my defensive assignment was to guard Brindle. Early on I anticipated a pass and tipped the ball free from Brindle. It wasn’t a clean steal, so Brindle was able to get back on defense, but I pushed the ball up-court anyway. Brindle set his feet in the paint, hoping to lure me into a charging foul. I didn’t bite. Instead, I drifted to his left and banked in a ten-foot jumper.

  The ball was barely through the net when Knecht’s whistle sounded. I hoped he’d praise me both for scoring and for avoiding the foul. Instead he wobbled onto the court to let me have it. “If you don’t have a lay-up on the fast break, pull the ball out and set up the offense,” he growled. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  Hartwell came to my defense. “That was a good shot, Coach. Ten feet. Uncontested. A clean look. That’s a shot you have to take.”

  Knecht’s eyes flashed. “I’m the coach of this team,” he snapped. His eyes came back to me. “If you don’t have a lay-up, pull the ball out. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Then he turned to Hartwell. “Got it?”

  At first Hartwell didn’t answer. The two stared at each other. “I got it,” Hartwell said at last, and only then did Knecht make his way back to his chair along the sideline.

  We practiced right up to Thanksgiving break, but when Wednesday’s practice ended, Knecht told us to take the rest of the week off. “Family first,” he said. The time off was okay with me; I’d run Knecht’s weave so many times, I think I could have done it in my sleep.

  Thanksgiving wasn’t much different from any other night. There’d been some talk of going to Uncle Frank’s, but that had fallen through, which was okay with me. The Blue Jay restaurant was open, so my dad was working. I sat across from my mom and ate a turkey leg, some mashed potatoes, and a slice of pumpkin pie. After dinner I went to my room and played video games. I thought about calling Levi and seeing if he wanted to head over to the Good Shepherd Center to shoot some hoops by streetlight, but I knew he’d be at the dinner table with his whole family.

  PART FOUR

  1

  THE SEASON OPENER WAS ON November 30 at home against Juanita High. My mom would be in the stands, but for the first time ever, my dad wouldn’t be at my opening game. When I told Levi, he stuck his hands in his pockets and frowned. “My dad has never seen me play.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “He says sports games are for children, not for adults.”

  “What about your mom? Does she come to your games?”

  “My mom doesn’t understand basketball. Besides, she’s got the girls.”

  The tension before an opening game is about the same as before a championship game. As we suited up in the locker room, everyone was jumpy, laughing too hard at jokes that weren’t very funny. Once we were in uniform, Knecht called us together for a moment of silent prayer. Levi closed his eyes and prayed, and Brindle also had his head bowed. Most of the guys looked at one another, uncomfortable.

  Once the prayer ended, Cash, as team captain, led us onto the court. Cheers rained down on us from the stands, the adrenaline kicked in, and I felt a familiar tingle up and down my spine. I could almost believe I was back at Redwood High playing for Coach Russell.

  Almost, but not quite. As game time drew nearer, the starters—including Brindle—peeled off their warm-up clothes while the rest of us stayed in our sweats. I felt my spirits start to sink, so I forced myself to stay positive. A lot can happen in a basketball game. Brindle could twist an ankle, commit a bunch of fouls, or turn the ball over and get yanked. Or I could sub into the game to give Brindle a breather, hit a couple of jumpers, and force Knecht to keep me in. “You’ll get some minutes,” Hartwell had promised me. “Play well and you’ll earn more.”

  The horn sounded and the season was under way. I took my seat on the bench and watched anxiously. Three minutes into the game, Brindle committed his second turnover. I peeked down at Knecht, but the old man had his eyes fixed on the court. Finally, with two minutes left in the first quarter, he pointed to me. “You, get in there for Donny.” I reported at the scorer’s table and then knelt down, waiting for the next dead ball. With just over a minute left, the ref finally called a foul, stopping play.

  A minute to do something.

  I did something all right. I drove past the guy guarding me and tossed up a wild shot that didn’t even hit the rim. After that stupid shot, I hustled back on defense, staying in front of Juanita’s point guard, not allowing him to penetrate. He passed off to a forward who missed from fifteen feet. Levi cleared the boards and hit me with the outlet pass. I wanted to fast break, but from the sideline I heard Knecht: “Slow it down, kid. Set up the offense.” So I did. We ran twenty seconds off the clock before Cash hit a jumper to tie the score. Ten seconds later the quarter ended, and at the beginning of the second quarter, Brindle was back on the court, and I was back on the bench.

  I didn’t get another call from Knecht until the last minute of the second quarter. This time, I didn’t make any mistakes, but I didn’t do anything, either. When the half ended, Knecht patted me on the back. “That’s what I’m looking for, kid. No mistakes.” His words were like a punch in the gut. Was that all he thought I could do? Did he even know my name?

  The score stayed tight throughout the second half. That’s how games usually are when a team runs a slow-it-down offense. You don’t put up many shots, but neither does the other team. I didn’t play in the third quarter, but I got a couple of minutes to start the fourth. Once again, I was like a cardboard cutout of a player; I took up space, ate up time, and did nothing more.

  Watching the final minutes of the game while stuck on the bench tore me up. I saw three fast-break opportunities that were wasted. I kept looking at Knecht, but he never even glanced my way. I did catch Hartwell’s eye a couple of times. Both times he grimaced and then shook his head.

  With thirty seconds left in the game, we had the ball, trailing by a single point. Brindle ran Knecht’s offense: pass and cut, pass and cut. With five seconds on the clock, Cash broke backdoor and—for a split second—was wide open. Brindle made the pass, but the ball was inches too far. The ball slipped through Cash’s fingertips and out-of-bounds, and that was that.

  After the game, the guys dressed and filtered out. I was sitting on a bench in front of my locker, still only half dressed, when Hartwell came over to me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Hang in there, Jonas.”

  2

  I’M NO QUITTER. I WANTED that scholarship, and I needed playing time to get it. That night I lay in bed, staring at the shadows dancing across the ceiling, trying to figure out how to make Knecht give me those minutes. There was only one sure way: Knecht had to see that I could make Levi into an all-star and that Levi could turn the team into a statewide force.

  How to make him see it, though? With any other coach, I could have hit Levi during practice with some backdoor lobs ending in thunder jams. But Knecht wouldn’t be impressed by powerful dunks—he’d be angry.

  Still, there was a version of that play that Knecht would like. I pictured it in my mind. Levi would cut to the basket; I’d feed him a high lob. Instead of dunking, he’d kiss a sof
t shot off the glass and through the twine. Knecht would rise up out of his folding chair. “That’s basketball,” he’d shout. If Levi and I could pull off that play in practice, Knecht would have to give me more minutes in the game.

  As we were shooting around that afternoon, I drew Levi aside and explained what I wanted to try. “At least once,” I said, “and hopefully a couple of times.”

  “What if I’m not open?”

  “I’ll put the ball above the rim where only you can get it, just like we practiced at Green Lake with Hartwell. You can do it. Just don’t dunk it, okay?”

  I was eager for the scrimmage to begin, but Knecht was Knecht, which meant we did drill after boring drill. As time passed, my excitement ebbed. If we didn’t scrimmage, how could I show Knecht what I had?

  I wasn’t the only one frustrated. Hartwell was using Nick and DeShawn to explain defensive rotations when Knecht stopped him with a tweet on his whistle. “Forget about rotating,” Knecht snapped, getting up from his chair and heading onto the court. “They need to work on man-to-man defense, straight up.”

  Hartwell squeezed the basketball so hard his fingers went white. Then he turned on Coach Knecht. “Coach, you wanted the team to work on fundamentals. Rotating to the ball is fundamental.”

  “Mr. Hartwell, man-to-man is fundamental. The rest of it comes only after the man-to-man has been mastered.”

  As he was speaking, Knecht had moved toward Hartwell until there was no more than a few feet between them. Hartwell, eight inches taller and seventy pounds heavier, towered over the old man, but it was Hartwell who backed down. “You heard your coach,” he said, turning back to us. “Back to work on your man-to-man defense.”

  Ten minutes before the end of practice, Knecht finally let us scrimmage. Hartwell refereed, with Knecht still sitting in his folding chair along the sideline at center court. Hartwell mixed up first- and second-stringers to make the teams even, and, as usual, he put Levi on my team.

  We’d played a few minutes when I caught Levi’s eye. He nodded ever so slightly to let me know he was ready. We worked the ball around the perimeter. DeShawn popped out; I faked a pass to him at the exact moment Levi broke to the hoop. I made an absolutely perfect pass. Levi snatched the ball and, in the same motion, softly kissed the lay-up off the glass and through. When he came down, Levi’s excited eyes caught mine. We’d pulled it off perfectly. Then Levi’s eyes clouded. Something was wrong. But what? I wheeled around to look at Knecht. I’d expected him to be out of his chair, smiling and giving us a fist pump, but the old guy had his head down and was writing notes on his clipboard.

  He hadn’t been watching.

  That day Levi skipped his tutoring session with Hartwell and instead came to my house to study for a health quiz. We didn’t talk about what had happened at practice. What was there to say? Levi spread out his stack of notes on my dining room table, and I helped him whittle them down. When we finished, I asked how Hartwell was as a tutor.

  Levi sat straight up. “He knows everything, Jonas. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met.” He paused. “He comes to my father’s services now. Every Sunday for the last three weeks he’s been there. You’re surprised, aren’t you? That first time, I figured he was being polite. But it’s more than that. Coach Hartwell is looking for God, and when you look for God, God finds you.”

  3

  THE NEXT TEN DAYS WERE one long nightmare. We played three games and won two, but for me they were all losses. Knecht used me strictly as a role player, someone to give Brindle a chance to catch his breath. If I was lucky, I’d get six minutes of playing time over the course of an entire game. Once I played only three minutes, all in the first half. Coach Richter at Monitor College had our schedule. After every game, he’d shoot me an e-mail. What was the final score? How many assists did I have? Turnovers? Points? Rebounds?

  What did I send him? After four games, these were my grand totals for the season: Six points. Three assists. Two rebounds. Two turnovers. I’d had better numbers by halftime of games at Redwood High. The other kid Richter was considering had to be doing more.

  Right in the middle of that stretch, Hartwell pulled me aside in the hallway of school. “Jonas, if you need to talk, I’m ready to listen. You could come see me during my planning period or after school. If you want, you could come to my apartment and watch a movie or study there. Just don’t hold it all inside.”

  “Thanks, Coach,” I said, but I did hold it all inside. What else could I do? There was nothing Hartwell could do for me. If I complained to my parents, it would make them feel guilty about the move to Seattle. And I couldn’t say anything to Levi. As far as he was concerned, Coach Knecht was just a little bit below God.

  On the Saturday morning after our fourth game, Celia and I had arranged to meet at Zoka to study for a chemistry test. Having Butler’s files had changed everything for me. I didn’t get As on my chemistry tests—that would have been too suspicious. But I was getting Bs, and the class wasn’t sucking up every spare minute of my life.

  I didn’t want to waste time, so for each section I told Celia exactly what to study and what to skip. We’d been studying for about twenty minutes when she pointed to a passage on denatured alcohol. “How come you’re so sure we don’t need to know this? I think it’s important.”

  For an instant I was rattled, but then a lie came to me. “I looked at study guides on the Internet.”

  “But Butler might be different.”

  “He won’t be,” I insisted. “He hasn’t been different yet.”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “So you’ve been looking at study guides all along?”

  I felt my face redden. “Not all along. Only for the last few quizzes.”

  She stared at me for a moment longer, but then her eyes returned to the text.

  We studied for another hour. All that time, she seemed to feel my deception in the air around her. When we finally called it good, she stood and gave me a tired smile. “See you at school, and thanks.” I nodded and then she was gone. I headed home a few minutes later, my head pounding.

  4

  I’D BEEN HEARING ABOUT THE Garfield Bulldogs, our next opponent, all season long. Garfield was undefeated, which was nothing new for them. Year after year, Garfield has won the KingCo District title. Most years they either take the state title or come close. As I watched Garfield go through their pregame drills, I could see that their quickness was a notch above any other team we’d faced.

  Just before tip-off, a voice from the stands called out my name. I looked up and saw my dad waving to me. My mouth dropped open—it was the first game he’d attended all year. He must have heard from someone at work that Garfield basketball was special.

  For a second I was excited, but then my gut rolled over. At home, I’d pretended I was getting decent playing time. Now he’d learn the truth. When the opening horn sounded, I sank into myself, pulled a towel over my head, and watched Brindle run the team.

  Knecht’s game plan was to frustrate Garfield by slowing everything down. I’ll give him credit—all through the first quarter, his strategy worked. Our pass-and-cut offense forced the Garfield guys to use their energy playing defense. When they finally did get the ball, they raced down the court and fired up quick shots. Sometimes the shot went down; more often the ball clanged off the rim. When that happened, Levi would clear the rebound, pass the ball to Brindle, and Brindle would walk the ball up the court, taking his sweet time to set the offense, and then run the pass and cut, pass and cut, keeping Garfield out of sync. Their fans began booing us. “Play basketball!” a guy behind us kept shouting. I looked down the bench and could see the hint of a smile on Knecht’s wrinkled lips.

  With one minute left in the first quarter, I stepped onto the court for the first time. I ran the team as if I were Brindle, taking time off the clock, not forcing anything. When the horn sounded ending the quarter, we had played perfect Knecht basketball, but our lead was only 10–7.

  In the huddle, Knec
ht was excited. “Eight minutes down, twenty-four to go,” he rasped. “We keep playing like this and we’ll beat these guys.”

  Knecht kept me on the court for the start of the second quarter. Twice I thought I had Levi on a lob pass for a lay-up, but I didn’t risk it. Instead, I protected the ball as if it were a newborn baby.

  Garfield had tightened up their defense on Cash, figuring he was our only offensive weapon. On our first possession, they double-teamed him as soon as he touched the ball. He immediately kicked the ball back to me. I was wide open for a three-pointer. I should have fired it up without thinking, but I was thinking—Miss this and you’re out of the game—and so I missed, badly. A Garfield guy pounced on the rebound, and they were off on a fast break that ended with a rim-rattling dunk. The crowd roared; Knecht called time-out; and my butt was back on the bench.

  The dunk gave Garfield momentum. On our next possession, they trapped Cash along the baseline, forcing a turnover. Again they pushed the ball, except this time Levi was back to defend. The Garfield guard veered off, and then passed to a shooter behind the three-point line. It was exactly the kind of shot Knecht wouldn’t let us take, and when it ripped through the net, Garfield had its first lead of the game.

  I thought that once Garfield took the lead, they’d swamp us. But Levi kept us in the game by fighting for every rebound and scoring the few points we managed by muscling up offensive rebounds. Still, he couldn’t beat Garfield by himself, and at halftime we were down five.

  In the locker room Knecht was more animated than I’d ever seen him. “We have to play our game,” he urged, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “Discipline, ball movement—do the little things and you’ll win.” His voice was hoarse, and his face was a reddish purple.