Nikki on the Line

by Barbara Carroll Roberts

  “Oh,” I said. “Right.” Even though I didn’t actually know what they were talking about. I mean, I knew colleges gave sports scholarships. But there were different divisions of colleges? And you had to “get on the recruiters’ radar” to make a college team? And Kate and Adria were both thinking about that? All I was thinking about, apart from the game we were about to play, was making my high school team.

  “So, um,” I said, “why’s your dad so obsessed with all that?”

  Kate pulled her shoes out of her gym bag. “He wants me to have”—she lowered the pitch of her voice again—“better opportunities than he had.” She started relacing her shoes with the striped laces that Autumn had tossed to her. “My dad was a supergood player in high school,” she said. “He got scholarship offers from a bunch of big universities. Syracuse, Indiana. Schools like that. But his parents wouldn’t let him go that far away. So he played at this smaller college near where he grew up and never got to go to the NCAA tournament or be on TV or anything. He doesn’t want that to happen to me.”

  I looked over at Kate’s dad, still standing on the gym floor, talking to the recruiter guy, and I tried to picture Mr. Nyquist as a high school kid, being good enough to play basketball on a really good college team, but his parents not letting him go. And as scary as he was, it made me feel sad for him. I mean, I couldn’t help thinking about how I felt when Mom said I couldn’t play on the Action.

  Kate pulled on her shoes. “Dad says the whole reason to be on a club team like the Action is that we’ll play in showcase tournaments where college coaches will see us.”

  “We will?” I said.

  “I guess so. I think they mostly watch older girls, but Dad hopes they’ll come to watch me.”

  “My dad hopes the same thing,” Adria said.

  I wanted to say my mom hoped so, too, but how stupid would that be? Adria knew my mom was clueless about all this stuff.

  And I’d just found out that I was clueless, too.

  A Black Hole on the Basketball Court

  “Ladies,” Coach Duval said. He’d been sitting a few rows in front of us, but now he stood up. “We’re up next on Court Four. Let’s get over there and warm up.”

  We all trooped down from the bleachers and Coach led us across the gym, showing the parents where they could stand or set up their folding chairs between the courts during the game. And all of us Action girls bounced around, jabbering, then lined up on the running track to do our ankle flips and Frankenstein walks and over-unders.

  All except Kate. She stood by herself, bent over a trash can, throwing up.

  I ran over to her. “You okay?”

  She straightened up, took a drink from her water bottle, swished the water in her mouth, and spit it in the trash can, then took another drink. “Just nervous.” She glanced up into the bleachers where the recruiter guy sat.

  “Don’t look at him,” I said. “You’ll play great.”

  Kate took another sip of water. “I better.”

  The game clock on Court Four buzzed, ending the game on the floor, so we all ran over, dropped our gym bags behind our bench, grabbed the balls out of Coach’s bag, and ran onto the floor to warm up our shooting. I don’t think any of us put up more than a few shots, though. Balls from the courts next to ours flew over into our layup lines and whistles blew and game clocks buzzed on all the other courts, and the whole gym was one big, wild, blaring mess. I wanted to put my hands over my ears the way I did when Sam bellowed at me.

  When there was a minute left of warm-up time, Coach called us over. “Okay, first game. We might have a few jitters, but we won’t worry about that, right? You make a mistake, forget it and move on. Run the offense. Play tough defense. Talk to your teammates.”

  Maura bounced on the balls of her feet, Kate chewed on the side of her thumb, all the rest of us nodded.

  “Starters for this game: Maura, JJ, Linnae, Adria, Kate. Looks like they’ve got some tall girls, too, so we’ll start in our two-three zone on defense and try to keep their bigs out of the lane. All right, hands in. ‘Action’ on three. One, two, three.”

  “Action!” we yelled, and the starters trotted onto the court.

  I sat down between Kim-Ly and Taj, not exactly happy to be on the bench. I’d always been a starter before. But I tried not to think about that and clapped for my teammates. “Go, Action!” I yelled.

  And then, when Kate stepped into the circle at the center of the court for the tip-off, I gasped. So did Kim-Ly and Taj. Because the girl who stepped into the circle for the other team—wearing a bright purple Philadelphia Chargers jersey—was taller than Kate.

  The ref blew her whistle and tossed the ball in the air. Both girls jumped, but Kate jumped higher and her hand found the ball first. She tipped it to Adria, who took it straight up the court for a layup and two easy points.

  We all clapped and cheered, and the girls on the floor sprinted down the court to play defense.

  “Hands up!” Coach called. “Move your feet.”

  The Chargers point guard, a girl with long, tight braids and a big number eleven on her jersey, brought the ball up. She stopped at the three-point line, and before Maura or JJ could close out on her, she picked up the ball, shot, and drained a three-pointer. The Chargers parents clapped and cheered.

  “Uh-oh,” Kim-Ly said. “I hope she can’t do that again.”

  But she could. And did. Two more times in the first five minutes of the game. The Chargers parents kept clapping and cheering, but we’d all gone dead silent—all except Kate’s dad, who hollered, “For crying out loud, play some defense on her!”

  “Time-out!” Coach Duval called, and we huddled around him.

  “Okay, they’ve got a good shooter,” he said. “So what’re we going to do? Let her keep taking it to us? Fold up and go home? Or put a lid on her?”

  Nobody said anything for a moment because, honestly, I think we were all in shock. I mean, here we were in the first game of our first tournament, and not only did the other team have a giant bigger than our giant, they also had a point guard who could drain threes like they were nothing.

  “Well?” Coach said.

  “Put a lid on her,” Adria said.

  “All right, then. Everybody take a deep breath and calm down. Switch to man-to-man defense. Maura, pick up their point guard at half-court and stick on her like a tick. If she gets past you, JJ slides over and picks her up. Kate, don’t let their big get around you. All right, ‘Action’ on three. One, two, three.”

  “Action!” we all yelled, maybe not quite as loud as we had before, and the starters ran back onto the court.

  Maura brought the ball up and signaled for the other girls to run the offense, but they ran through the whole rotation without getting a single open look at the basket.

  “Be patient,” Coach yelled. “Keep running it.”

  On the second rotation, Kate popped open underneath, Adria zipped a pass to her, and Kate pivoted around the Chargers big and hooked up a shot. It tapped the backboard and dropped through the net.

  “All day long!” Mr. Nyquist’s voice boomed out. “All day long, Kate! Keep calling for the ball!”

  Our man-to-man defense started to work. With Maura right up in Number Eleven’s face, the girl got rattled and made some bad passes that led to turnovers. She was still fast, though, and she managed to get past Maura again. JJ slid over to pick her up, but it was a JJ kind of slide—she slammed into the girl and sent her flying.

  The ref blew her whistle and called a foul, and JJ’s mom yelled, “Come on, Ref. That wasn’t a foul. Let the girls play.”

  But a minute later, when Number Eleven got by Maura again, JJ “slid” into her so hard the girl hit the floor and skidded three feet.

  The Chargers coach leaped up. “Intentional foul! You can’t let that go, Ref! That was flagrant!”

  “Bull!” JJ’s mom hollered. “It wasn’t flagrant. Let the girls play!”

  “Subs!” Coach Duval yelled, loud
enough to be heard over all the other yelling. “Autumn, you’re in for JJ. Kim-Ly, go in for Maura. Nikki, in for Linnae. Check in at the scorer’s table.”

  The ref motioned us in, a whistle blew, play started.

  I didn’t.

  From the corners of my eyes, I saw teams streaking past on the courts on either side of ours, parents waving their arms and cheering, more teams warming up on the running track at the end of the court. Whistles blew on all ten courts, and I couldn’t tell which came from our game and which came from the others.

  So when the Chargers point guard passed the ball to the girl I was supposed to be guarding, I was still standing there, rooted to the floor, trying to figure out which shouts and whistles to pay attention to. Of course the Chargers girl blew past me, heading for the hoop. Kate stepped over to stop the girl’s layup, but whacked her arm and got called for a foul.

  The ref signaled two free throws.

  “For crying out loud!” Mr. Nyquist’s voice exploded from the sidelines. “Wake up, Twenty-Three!”

  I think I stopped breathing.

  Adria grabbed my arm. “Nikki, focus!”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can! We’re all having trouble. It’s so loud and there’s so much stuff going on. You have to screen it out.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can!”

  The girl I was supposed to guard missed her first free throw.

  “I’ve got to line up to rebound,” Adria said. “The ball and the hoop, remember?” It was what her dad always said if we were struggling—just focus on the ball and the hoop.

  I rubbed my fingers along the sides of my shorts, scrunching the fabric with my fingers, silently chanting, “The ball and the hoop,” while the girl I was supposed to guard sank her second free throw. Adria grabbed the ball and stepped out of bounds, ready to pass the ball back in to Kim-Ly, but the Chargers coach yelled, “Press,” and the Chargers closed in. Autumn, Kim-Ly, and I cut back and forth, trying to shake our defenders, but we couldn’t get open.

  “Time-out,” Coach Duval called.

  We ran over and grouped around him.

  “Okay, we haven’t had time to work on a press break yet, so here’s what we’re going to do.” Coach picked up his clipboard and looked straight at me. “Nikki, that long pass you threw to Kate during tryouts—can you make that pass again?”

  I was still having trouble breathing, let alone talking, so when I didn’t say anything, Adria said, “She can make it.”

  “Yeah?” Coach looked at both of us now.

  “She can make it,” Adria said again, and I tried to nod.

  “Okay.” Coach drew out the play, telling each of us what to do. “Got it? Good. ‘Action’ on three. One, two, three.”

  “ACTION!”

  The other girls headed back onto the floor, but Coach clamped his hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I got really distracted.”

  “Yup,” he said. “It happens in a place like this. So now you know what it’s like. Forget about all that and just play ball.” He gave me a pat on the back that was more like a shove. “You got this, Lefty. Go get ’em.”

  I ran to the baseline. The ref blew her whistle and handed me the ball. I held it up, slapped it, and yelled, “Go!”

  The girl guarding me jumped up and down, waving her arms, yelling, “Ball, ball, ball,” right in my face, which usually annoyed the heck out of me, but actually helped me this time, because I had to work so hard to see around and over her I forgot about all the other stuff going on in the gym.

  Kim-Ly and Linnae cut toward the sidelines, drawing their defenders with them, Adria took three steps backward, then spun and ran straight toward me, her hands in the air, and Kate did the opposite, running toward me from half-court, taking a stutter-step, then sprinting toward the other end of the floor. I faked a pass to Autumn, then cocked my arm back and fired a pass, high and fast, straight toward the spot where Kate was headed. The ball bounced a few feet ahead of her; she caught it as it rose off the floor, and without even breaking stride, she jumped to lay the ball up and in.

  Adria grinned, pointing at me. From the sidelines, Maura shouted, “Dude!” And Kate trotted back down the court, clapping her hands.

  In every other game I’d ever played, the rest of the world would have dropped away, and I would have been there with just the ball and the hoop and my teammates, in the zone. But in this game, the whole world stayed right there. Loud and nerve-racking and wild.

  I tried to drive to the basket for a layup, but the Chargers big swatted the ball away. Then I forgot where I was supposed to be and missed a pass I should have caught. And then, when I was about to throw the ball in from the end line, my defender leaned up in my face and said, “Eeeewww, what’s wrong with your eyes?” I jerked and threw a bad pass, and a Charger grabbed the ball and took it straight to the hoop to score.

  Coach subbed me out.

  At halftime, we were behind by eight points, which, considering all the dumb stuff I did and considering that the Chargers center was a beast under the hoop, getting a ton of rebounds and blocking every shot that came near her, eight points behind was maybe not too bad.

  Things got better in the second half. Kate seemed to figure out the Chargers big and got around her for some close-in shots, Kim-Ly got out on a couple of fast breaks, Taj made a pretty baseline jumper, and Adria made four free throws in a row. And then, when I got back in the game, I came around a screen near the free throw line—the spot Mr. Lawson taught me to shoot from—caught a pass from Jasmine, jumped and shot, and the ball arced up away from me and swished through the net.

  The Action parents clapped and cheered, and Coach called directions, and we were all feeling good.

  With a minute to go, we were down by one and we had the ball. We ran all the way through our pass-and-cut pattern without anybody getting an open look, but finally I popped open near the free throw line again, and Kim-Ly fired a short, sharp pass. I caught the ball and turned, and here came the Chargers giant girl right at me. I pump-faked to throw her off, then jumped and shot, and the ball flew up… hit square in the middle of the big girl’s hand and smashed straight back down to the floor.

  The buzzer blared, ending the game. And that’s when I saw Kate, wide open under the basket, with the Chargers center drawn off her to stop me.

  Oh boy.

  Kate was right there. Right there under the basket with no one on her. And I hadn’t seen her, hadn’t even looked for her, hadn’t passed her the ball.

  And we lost.

  Somewhere behind me a voice roared, “Oh, for crying out loud!”

  Was it possible to sink through the floor and disappear? Because that’s what I wanted to do.

  We lined up and slapped hands and said “Good game” with the Chargers, then we grabbed our gym bags and followed Coach Duval to the bleachers.

  “So, we did some things well. We did some things not so well,” he said. “Bigs, we have to be more aggressive on rebounds. Guards, we need to do a better job taking care of the ball. And, everybody, we need to work harder on defense. But we stayed aggressive, we fought back hard, and for the most part we kept our heads in the game. All good. Lots of great things to build on.”

  He checked his watch. “Our next game is at one o’clock, so we have a couple of hours to get something to eat and get some rest. Okay, hands in, ‘Action’ on three. One, two, three.”

  “ACTION!”

  Parents stepped over and said stuff like, “Not too bad for the first game” or “We’ll get the next one” or “Nice job, Coach,” except JJ’s mom, who said, “We would’ve won if the refs called a fair game.”

  Adria leaned over and said, “I’m going to the snack bar with my dad. You coming?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said. “I want to put on dry socks so I don’t get blisters.” And sit there and feel bad all by myself.

  I mean, you know, I’d been playing team sports since I was s
even years old. Which meant I’d played long enough to know that nobody ever won or lost a game all by herself.

  But still. Not making that last shot. And worse than that, not seeing Kate wide open under the basket. Plus all the other dumb stuff I did.

  I unlaced my shoes.

  Down on the floor in front of me, Kate’s dad stood next to the recruiter guy with the white hair and green shirt. Kate jumped down from the bleachers to join them. I was paying more attention to my shoes than to them, but we were far enough from the noise on the courts that I couldn’t help hearing their voices.

  “Hey, thanks for watching Kate play,” Mr. Nyquist said.

  “No problem,” the other man said. “Always like to see the young kids. See who’s coming up.”

  “So?” Mr. Nyquist said.

  “So, yeah, Kate, you played a nice game,” the recruiter guy said. “Good fundamentals. You run the floor well. You don’t want to let your coach keep you playing center all the time, though. You look at the rosters of the top college programs, girls your size play wing and forward. You need to be six five, six six to play center at the big schools. Think you’re still growing?”

  Mr. Nyquist and Kate answered at exactly the same time. Mr. Nyquist said, “She’s definitely still growing,” and Kate said, “Oh god, I hope not!”

  The other man laughed. “Too tall for all the boys, huh? Well, don’t worry. They’ll grow. Hey, listen, I gotta watch another game. Keep up the hard work, Kate.”

  “Before you go,” Mr. Nyquist said, “you have any tips? Things Kate should work on?”

  “Well, sure,” the other man said. “The main thing is, you want to start developing a perimeter shot so college coaches will see you can play on the wing. But here’s the deal, Kate. Small girls have to be something really special to get noticed. Girls your size with good skills, good attitude, coachable, you’ll get plenty of attention.” He chuckled. “You know what they say: You can teach a girl to dribble, but you can’t teach her to be tall.”

  By that time, I’d taken off my shoes, changed my socks, dropped my shoes into my gym bag, and shoved my feet into my slide-on sandals. I stood up.