She thanked him, turned back to the camera, and said, “Michael, back to you.”
“So, Mr. Barkann is in the studio tonight?” Jeff asked her after Shifty had said, “Perfect. Wrap it.”
“No, he’s actually at your school. My interviews will be intercut with his.”
“Wow. This will be a long piece, then, I guess.”
She nodded. “Oh yeah. This is an amazing story.”
Jeff knew she was right.
* * *
Jeff had texted Andi to congratulate her on the girls’ win and to report that the boys had pulled out another close one. She called him as soon as she got home so they could exchange details.
She was excited to hear he’d hit the game-winning shot, but discouraged when he reported that Arlow had attacked her when talking to the TV reporter.
“Did the reporter say anything when he said that?” she asked.
“Not a word,” he answered. “I think she just wanted to be done with him.”
“Any chance they might not run it?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “You know how TV is. I’ll check with my dad and let you know.”
Andi sighed, hung up, and remembered she’d forgotten her promise to talk to Stevie Thomas. He called soon after dinner, saying he had waited a while longer than they had planned, to give her time to eat.
It was hard not to like the guy.
After they had again agreed that Andi wouldn’t be quoted on anything, he asked her to walk through what had happened, leading to the petition.
“I talked to Jamie Bronson,” he said. “She said she was jealous of you when practice started because you’d become such a big star during soccer season, but realized once the season started that Coach Josephson was treating you badly and that the team needed you to play.”
Andi had never had that conversation with Jamie but was grateful to hear it.
“How nervous are you about dealing with angry teachers going forward?” Stevie asked.
“Very,” Andi answered honestly. “I hope their anger will pass, but who knows? It’s entirely possible that the more we win, the more upset they’ll become because it will prove us right.”
“Dunph says it’s hard to judge by one practice and one game, but he thinks you guys are good.”
“We’re certainly a lot better with him coaching us,” Andi said. “And you know what, you can quote me on that.”
She knew she was hardly going out on a limb saying it. Stevie laughed. “I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with that comment.”
Soon after she hung up with Stevie, Andi got a text from Jeff: Dad says Arlow stuff is airing. His boss said, “It’s part of the story. We can’t bury it.”
She watched the station’s ten o’clock news show with her parents. The lead story was a preview of the Flyers game the next afternoon against the Islanders. The second story was about a buzzer-beating high school game in the vaunted Philadelphia Catholic League.
“And when we come back,” anchor Dei Lynam said, “yet another remarkable story involving sixth graders at Merion Middle School.”
After the break, Lynam introduced the piece by saying simply, “In the fall, we reported on the exploits of young Andi Carillo after she was initially refused a spot on the boys’ soccer team at Merion Middle School. Eventually, she became a star. Now, young Ms. Carillo is part of the girls’ basketball team at Merion Middle, but—at least right now—she is not the star of the story. Michael Barkann begins our reporting from Merion Middle School.”
Lynam disappeared and a shot of Fran Dunphy standing in front of the bench and talking to Maria Medley appeared. Over it came Barkann’s voice.
“You are not hallucinating, folks, that is the great Fran Dunphy coaching the Merion Middle School sixth-grade girls’ team to a victory over King of Prussia this afternoon. Dunphy retired from Temple a year ago with five hundred and eighty victories, but now, he’s back coaching under very different circumstances.”
Dunphy came on camera next, talking about a casual dinner conversation with his old friend Tom Michaels and his son, Jeff, that had led to Jeff telling him the sixth-grade girls needed a coach or their season would be over.
“I’ve got some free time at this stage of my life,” he said. “How could I say no?”
Maria was next, talking about how amazing it was to be playing for Coach Dunphy. Barkann pointed out that the reason he was there was that no one on the faculty was willing to replace Coach Josephson after the team had petitioned for her ouster.
Maria hit it out of the park.
“Trust me, we didn’t take that step lightly,” she said. “We tried to understand that Coach Josephson was coaching for the first time. But her ego got in the way of trying to help us become a better team. She sat Andi Carillo on the bench when she was arguably our best player. She made a racially offensive comment in front of the whole team that I think all of us were offended by. We didn’t know what else to do.”
“Wow,” Andi’s dad said. “She looks eleven, sounds eleven, but talks like she’s about thirty.”
Andi agreed.
Soon after, Barkann said, “Let’s go now to Kelli Johnson, who is with the Merion sixth-grade boys’ team at King of Prussia Middle School.”
“Feels like they’re covering the Eagles,” Andi’s mom said.
Kelli Johnson came on camera for a moment, talking about Jeff’s role in Fran Dunphy’s hiring to coach the girls, and then his role in winning the game for Merion. The last few seconds of the game rolled on camera, and Andi got to see Jeff grabbing Danny Diskin’s tip back, making the winning shot, and being mobbed by his teammates. She felt very proud of him.
Then he was on camera talking about how he’d come up with the idea to ask Coach Dunphy to coach the girls.
When he finished, Kelli Johnson was back on camera, saying, “Dei, unfortunately, not everyone on the boys’ team supports the girls.” And there was Arlow, with a caption identifying him as BOYS’ CO-CAPTAIN, spewing about Andi into the camera.
Andi had briefed her parents about Arlow. Even so, her dad drew back as he finished and said, “Something’s wrong with that kid. Seriously wrong.”
Kelli Johnson had tossed back to Barkann, who shook his head and said, “I’ve dealt with Andi Carillo a good bit, Kelli, and I can honestly say she is anything but a whiner.”
That made Andi feel very good. Then Barkann added, “Dei, we requested interviews while we were here with former coach Amy Josephson and principal Arthur Block, and both turned us down. Back to you.”
* * *
Stevie Thomas’s story on the front page of Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer sports section included a sentence very high up that said, “Lawrence Gutman, an eighth-grade chemistry teacher who is the chairman of the Merion Middle School branch of the teachers’ union, said the union plans to seek an injunction Monday preventing Fran Dunphy from continuing to coach on the grounds that only union members should be allowed to directly supervise students.”
When Andi showed that to her parents, they looked at one another. “I’ve got a pretrial hearing Monday,” her mother said.
Her dad nodded. “I can do it. But we should check with Tom Michaels to make sure Dunphy hasn’t already got someone.”
They did that—through Jeff, who called Andi back to say that Coach Dunphy would be delighted to have Tony Carillo represent him and, by extension, the entire girls’ team.
“He wants to know when this will come to court and if he needs to be there,” Jeff told Andi.
Her dad nodded. “Tell him to give me a call. When you seek an injunction like this, they usually get you in front of a judge right away. It’ll probably be Tuesday, but it could be Monday afternoon. And yes, if he can make it, he should be there. Better he answer the judge’s questions than me.”
Fran Dunphy called a few minutes later. The two men talked for a while. After hanging up, Andi’s dad said that technically, the school board should be fighting the injunction on the
school’s behalf, but he wasn’t terribly confident about how enthusiastic that defense would be.
“They could even go so far as to say, ‘We will abide by anything you do, your honor,’ and leave it at that.”
“Which,” Jeannie Carillo added, “won’t help our case at all.”
“No, it won’t,” Tony Carillo said. “It will depend, ultimately, on which judge we get. If it’s a pro-union judge, we’re probably dead. If it’s not, it will still depend on how he or she feels about sixth graders for all intents and purposes overthrowing a coach who is doing the job for almost nothing.”
“Coach Dunphy’s doing it for one dollar,” Andi said.
“Good point,” her dad said. “I’ll use that.”
* * *
It was lunchtime the next day that they found out who the judge was and when the hearing would be held. The judge was Jacob Levin, who, according to Andi’s dad, was known as a very pro-union judge who had been supported by the local unions in Philadelphia throughout a long career on the bench. The hearing was at nine a.m. the next morning.
“Given that you guys have a game tomorrow afternoon, he’s likely to rule right away,” Tony Carillo told his daughter. “And, just being honest, I’m not really optimistic. The school system just filed a brief saying they had no objection to the injunction.”
“In other words, they’re more or less agreeing with the union,” Andi said.
“No,” her dad said. “They’re completely agreeing with the union. We’re going into court tomorrow as big-time underdogs.”
Andi was reminded of the biggest upset in college basketball history: The University of Maryland–Baltimore County—a sixteenth seed—beating Virginia—a number-one seed—in the NCAA basketball tournament. Prior to that game, number-one seeds had a 135–0 record against number-sixteen seeds.
“Is this Virginia vs. UMBC?” she asked her dad.
He smiled. “Only if we’re lucky,” her dad said.
34
Fran Dunphy had always understood that dealing with the media came with the job when you were a college basketball coach. But he was never one of those coaches who craved attention the way some do.
Now, as he walked up the steps to the Philadelphia courthouse on Tuesday morning and saw the camera crews rolling, he could only shake his head and think, What in the world have I gotten myself into?
Jeff Michaels’s request, while a bit off the wall, had seemed a reasonable one. A bunch of kids needed help; he had the time and he had the experience to help. So, why not?
The answer was now right in front of him. He was in the middle of what was becoming a media maelstrom.
No good deed goes unpunished, he thought as he reached the top of the steps and several reporters—men and women he knew—asked him to stop and answer a few questions. “After we have a ruling,” he said. That was what Tony Carillo had told him to say.
The lawyer was waiting for Dunphy in the lobby, just beyond the metal detectors everyone had to clear to get into the building. They had never met, but Carillo recognized him and walked over and introduced himself.
“Tom Michaels tells me we’ve got an uphill fight,” Dunphy said.
Carillo nodded. “Yes—and no. Judge Levin has about ten grandchildren, so even though he’s a pro-union guy, I think he’ll take into account what ruling against us would do to twelve kids.”
They walked up the stairs to the third floor, where the courtroom was located. It was 8:55 a.m., and when they walked to the door, the security guard put up a hand and said, “No seats.” Then he recognized both men.
“Sorry, counselor,” he said. Turning to Dunphy he said, “Good luck in there, Coach. Lot of folks pulling for you.”
Dunphy shook his hand briefly, then followed Carillo inside.
The guard hadn’t been kidding. The courtroom was packed. It looked like the scene from Miracle on 34th Street when the judge had to rule on the existence of Santa Claus. This wasn’t nearly that important. It was about sixth-grade girls’ basketball.
Carillo stopped for a moment to say hello to the union’s lawyer. He introduced her as Carol Burmeister. She was, Dunphy guessed, about thirty-five. Dressed in a tailored suit, her dark hair cut stylishly, she had an easy smile.
“Big fan,” she said to him. “Went to Penn.”
As they walked away, Carillo said softly, “Don’t be fooled by her looks or her charm. She’s as smart and tough as anyone in this courthouse.”
“That’s certainly good news,” Dunphy answered.
Judge Levin came in a moment later and everyone stood. When they all took their seats, the judge said good morning to the two lawyers and then said, “Ms. Burmeister, you’re up.”
A bit informal, but all business.
Carol Burmeister was as good as advertised: She railed on the injustice of the girls signing a petition against their coach, who was being paid the grand total of $250 for the season and giving up her free time after school so they could have a team; she pointed out the dangerous precedent of letting someone “walk off the street” to supervise eleven- and twelve-year-olds, someone who had no middle-school teaching experience, adding, “with all due respect to Coach Dunphy.” She pointed out that this sort of thing would undermine the union, because schools at all levels—up to high school—might hire retired coaches looking for something to do and take away full-time and part-time jobs from “legitimate teachers.” She finished by saying that if the judge wished, she could very quickly produce Coach Josephson and both the women who had worked as her assistants to testify to the fact that a group of “budding adolescents” had badly overreacted to the discipline the coach had tried to bring to the team.
Levin leaned forward in his chair and pointed at Tony Carillo. “Mr. Carillo, your turn.”
The good news was that Tony Carillo had anticipated Burmeister’s arguments. He pointed out that there was probably nothing more cliquish than a group of, “to quote Ms. Burmeister, ‘budding adolescents,’ and yet all twelve girls—including the starters and the team captain, had felt the situation dire enough to sign the petition—knowing there could be serious consequences.
“It wasn’t as if Coach Dunphy was waiting in the wings, Judge,” he said. “The first thing that happened was that the school principal shut down the season. Since then, I’m told almost all the girls have been subjected to—at best—ice-cold treatment from other teachers in the school.”
At that point, Carol Burmeister objected.
“Hearsay,” she said.
“Sustained,” the judge said.
Tony Carillo nodded at Burmeister, then continued.
“There’s no precedent being set here, Your Honor. This is a one-time thing, eight games. Coach Dunphy has no interest in coaching these girls beyond that. He was asked by a friend to rescue these girls from losing their season. Your ruling could be restricted to this case as a one-time-only thing.”
“Mr. Carillo, I don’t need you to tell me what my ruling can and can’t do,” Levin said sternly.
“Of course not, Your Honor. Thank you.” If the judge’s admonition shook Tony Carillo, he didn’t show it.
“The bottom line here is the union will not be hurt by Coach Dunphy coaching these girls for seven more games, but the girls will be hurt if their season is cancelled because the union is trying to make a point about kids speaking their minds.”
“Objection.”
Judge Levin looked at Burmeister. “Overruled. Counsel has the right to express an opinion … Mr. Carillo, would Coach Dunphy object to coming up to the witness stand so I can ask him a few questions?”
Tony looked at Dunphy. “Happy to,” Dunphy said, standing up and walking to the witness stand. The judge reached down to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said. “I’m a Princeton grad, but I forgive you.”
Everyone laughed at that.
“Sir, you aren’t under oath,” Levin said once Dunphy had taken a seat. “This isn’t a formal hearing
that way. But I’d appreciate honest answers to my questions.”
“Guaranteed,” Dunphy answered, looking the judge in the eye.
* * *
For the next ten minutes, Judge Levin walked Dunphy through everything that had happened since the previous Wednesday night, when he’d gone to dinner with Tom and Jeff Michaels at the Capital Grille.
“If I rule in your favor, you promise not to come back and coach at Penn again?” he said to more laughter.
“I promise that regardless, Your Honor. But you’d probably be better off with me coaching again than with Steve Donahue there.”
More laughter. Dunphy wondered if the judge’s jokes meant anything. The judge thanked him, and he returned to sit next to Carillo.
Judge Levin said nothing for a moment, then leaned forward again. “Both sides have made compelling cases,” he said. “I understand why the union would be upset about this and see potential danger in it down the line. I also understand why Coach Dunphy would want to help a group of kids who just want to play basketball.
“I think I need to hear from the parties directly involved before I rule. Ms. Burmeister, how soon can you get Ms. Josephson in here?”
“Well, Your Honor, she’s a teacher and it’s a school day…”
“I understand that. But she must have a lunch hour and surely someone can cover for her for a class or two if need be.”
Burmeister nodded her assent.
“Mr. Carillo, how about getting at least one player here?”
“Lunch is at eleven thirty, Your Honor. I’m sure I can have someone here by noon, latest,” Tony Carillo said.
“Good. We’ll recess until noon.”
* * *
Andi saw the text as soon as she pulled her phone from her backpack while walking out of her fourth-period class. Her first thought was that the judge had already made a ruling—which probably wasn’t good.
She was wrong. Meet me in usual spot outside right now. Already signed you out. Will explain.
Game Changers--A Benchwarmers Novel Page 21
