Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Hoover........08..13..22..13...56
Lindbergh...09..19..12..10...50

The Prologue

I suppose I could start with last year's disappointment, or I could even reach back four years to my first semifinal loss, but I'm not so sure that there's much point to that anymore. I just read the obituary I wrote following last year's loss, and the parallels are obvious, but there are enough differences for this game to stand alone.

Our journey to the game started strangely enough when the bus driver told us that instead of taking us straight to the neutral high school court as he was supposed to, he would instead be taking us along as he picked up our opponents. Can you imagine LSU and Florida sharing a charter to Indianapolis next weekend? Doubtful. And to make matters more interesting, he got us lost on the way to Hoover and then took several interesting turns as he navigated a questionable route from Hoover to Cabrillo High School. Our fifteen minute ride had turned into almost an hour. It wasn't too painful, though. The boys managed to talk amongst themselves without saying anything stupid to to the other team, and I spent the trip making small talk with the Hoover coach.

When we finally arrived at the gym we walked into the early moments of the third quarter of the first semifinal game, a tight match-up between Washington and Hughes, polar opposites that are only twenty blocks apart geographically, but worlds apart in all other ways. Although we had defeated Hughes easily in our third game of the season, controlling a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the eleven-point spread might have indicated, and Washington had rolled through their league with a perfect 5-0 record, I still expected Hughes to win this game easily.

Watching the two teams play, I was decidedly unimpressed. (Does this sound familiar?) The game was tense and closely fought, not decided until the final seconds, but when Hughes finally won, I was fairly certain that if we were lucky enough to get past Hoover, we’d be okay in the finals. I wasn’t overlooking Hoover, just thinking ahead a bit.

As Washington and Hughes cleared the floor and we started warming up for our game, I noticed the two referees who were getting ready to call our game, and I wasn’t pleased. I turned to Leslie and said, “Great, we’ve got these two knuckleheads.” One of them was the head of officials, a nice enough guy who’s several years past his prime, and the other was a guy who’s simply not very good. Neither has any business officiating a playoff game. Unfortunately, they would be a factor.

The Game

The game started slowly as both teams were a bit tentative in the opening quarter. Hoover surprized us by playing man-to-man defense, something we hadn’t seen from them either when we played them or when I watched them play their opening playoff game. We hadn’t worked on our man-to-man offense in at least two or three weeks, so we were tentative in our half-court set, but I thought we'd get more comfortable as the game wore on.

Our full court press began paying dividends in the second quarter. When we played Hoover the first time, our press was in its infancy, a much more rudimentary form of what we were now capable of. This time we were able to force several turnovers and score several easy baskets. We opened the period with a 14-0 run, giving us a 22-9 lead, and Hoover was showing no indication of being able to navigate our press well enough to survive. They closed the half well, however, and our lead had been cut to seven by the break.

Hoover opened the second half well and quickly sliced into our lead. We were having trouble scoring against their half court defense, and since we weren't scoring we weren't getting very many opportunities to press. Hoover outscored us by ten points in the third to establish a three-point advantage that seemed to stick for the rest of the game.

Throughout the fourth quarter we were never quite able to gain any momentum, and there were several reasons for this. First, Hoover was absolutely dominating the boards. We were the smallest team on the court in all but one of our games this year, but we were usually able to make up for this with superior athleticism. In our first game against Hoover, for example, we had owned the boards. On that occasion, however, Hoover was playing a zone, and we were able to exploit the gaps in their defense to get to the rim for offensive rebounds. On this night their man defense was making it easier for them to box us out, negating our athletic advantage.

The second problem was the officiating. I hesitate to blame officials for a loss, and if pressed I'd have to admit that the main reasons for this defeat were our poor rebounding and offensive execution, but travesty of the two officials cannot be ignored. There were two problems, really. In the first half we were doing what we normally do, taking the ball hard to the rim. We were getting fouled, and the officials were calling the fouls, but at least three times in the second quarter they inexplicably indicated that the foul was not on the shot, meaning we would get the ball out of bounds instead of sending the shooter to the free throw line. There was no doubt in my mind that these were bad calls, made perhaps because these two officials were both rather old and not in touch with how the game has changed. I wasn't looking for the type of continuation normally given in the NBA, but when a player is bumped as he's going up for a shot, he should go to the line without question. This didn't happen.

But things got worse. In the second half we continued driving the ball into the key only to discover that the officials had suddenly swallowed their whistles. Jesse was clearly fouled on several different drives to the basket, but the officials ignored the contact. Our point guard Markes, the smallest player on the floor, was knocked to the floor on three separate occasions after penetrating the lane in the second half, but no foul was ever called.

I always teach my players that they should expect officials to make an occasional mistake just as they expect that they will miss an occasional shot. Officiating is a part of the game, and it's usually best to look at the referees as variables beyond your control. All of that sounds good when you're standing in an empty gym on the evening before your first game, but when the adrenaline is pumping and your season is on the line, things look quite different. When an official makes a call that goes against you, a call that you know in your ultracompetitive heart to be wrong, the resulting emotion is difficult to explain. Clearly you've been wronged, but it's more than that. It's as if something has been physically taken from you and you know that you'll never get it back. When you're in that moment, there is no greater injustice imaginable.

And so it was on Monday night. At one point after yet another missed call, I called the ref over and mentioned that things were starting to seem a bit tilted in the other direction. I think he must've thought I was suggesting that he was screwing me on purpose, because his head almost exploded. He had become rather sensitive, having already made one trip to our bench to scold one of my assistants for standing up (only the head coach can be up) and another to the stands across the way to quiet our angry crowd. By the time I questioned the tilt of his calls, he was ready to burst into flames. I have several regrets from this night, and one of them is that I wish I had pushed him at this point and told him what I really thought -- that he was too old to be officiating a game of this magnitude. Even if he had given me the technical that I would surely have deserved, maybe it would've made a difference. Maybe he would've looked a bit more closely at what was going on underneath the rim, and maybe things would've turned out a bit differently. But I didn’t push him, and things kept going the way they were.

For most of the fourth quarter we trailed by about three points, and I kept waiting for us to force a turnover or two that would trigger a run to put us ahead, but it never came. Finally, with about two minutes left I decided to switch to man to man, but it was a move that smacked of desperation. We had played a 2-3 zone for every single minute of our season up until that point, so it wasn't surprizing that our man defense was less than effective. Hoover stretched their lead out to five and then seven points in the closing minute, and as the final seconds drained from the clock, reality began to set in.

In the days following last year's loss, I told people that I would never again have a team as good as that year's squad, but this year's team was probably better. I had hoped that this team would win the championship that last year's team had missed out on, and during the season I thought often about what it would be like to win a championship. I thought about the people who would come to watch us play in the finals on Saturday afternoon, people who normally weren't able to see us during the week. I thought about what it would be like to watch my boys celebrating on the court after winning, and I imagined what it would be like for them to come to school on Monday, champions returning from battle. All of that washed away in the space of about five minutes.

Before the final buzzer even sounded, as we were lined up to shoot an ironically pointless free throw down seven points with seven seconds to play, Jesse was already crying, and it was in that moment that I understood that this game wasn't really about me. Jesse is a great kid and probably the best player I've ever coached, but he was carrying a self-imposed burden this season. In last year's semifinal game he had been fouled with about a minute to play in a tie ballgame. He stepped to the line and missed both free throws. Our opponents burned much of the clock before hitting a short jumper to take a two-point lead with ten seconds to play. On the ensuing inbounds, the ball found its way into Jesse's hands and he missed an open ten-footer that would've tied the score at the buzzer.

So here we were in the same gym a year later playing a game that was supposed to erase the memory of that defeat, and we had lost again. When I looked at Jesse standing on the court with tears running down his face, I realized that I had really wanted this championship for him, not for me.

The Aftermath

When the game finally ended, the trauma began in earnest. Not surprizingly, the boys were devastated, and they weren't shy about expressing their devastation. Two or three players ripped off their jerseys and threw them down on the court, several boys kicked over chairs, and a handful actually left the gym. As I surveyed the wreckage that had become of my team, one thought came to me as clear as a bell: "What I do now will be more important than anything I've done all season long."

There are lessons to be learned in losing, and it was my job to teach them. The Hoover team was lined up and waiting to shake our hands, so I sent one of my assistants to round up the missing boys. He didn't return, and neither did Jesse and one other boy, which was disappointing. Not wanting to keep Hoover waiting any longer, our incomplete team shook hands, gave halfhearted congratulations, and wished good luck.

When I met up with the Hoover coach, the first thing he said to me was, "It's too bad we couldn't have had some good officials for this game." When our league's commissioner joined our conversation, I gave him my quick assessment of the game: "We got jobbed." He responded that those two referees probably shouldn't be officiating playoff games. (In the hours and days that followed, several people that I respect agreed with my assessment that we had been screwed. When I went to watch the finals on Saturday, people were still talking about it.)

And then I returned to my team. We gathered in a darkened gym that was adjacent to the main gym and I tried for a moment to collect my thoughts before delivering a different version of the same speech I had given in the same place last year. I remembered a regrettable motivational ploy I had used a few days earlier. I had showed up at practice with the plaque that last year's team had earned. It said, "Northern League Champions, Semifinalists." I had told that boys that I was proud of what that team had accomplished, but I ended with this clear statement: "I don't need another plaque like this one." At the time, it sounded like good stuff, the perfect tool to push them towards the finals, but as I stood before these sixteen boys, every single one of them crying, I wished that I could take those words back. That’s where I started.

I reminded them of the plaque speech, but then made it clear that while I was clearly disappointed that we hadn’t won, I was in no way disappointed in how we had played. I told them how much I loved them, how proud I was of what he had accomplished, said a few words about each boy, and all the while wondered if they were listening to anything I was saying.

I wrapped things up after five minutes or so, and I asked the boys to huddle up, hands raised together, for one final time. I told them to be proud of what we had accomplished, and asked one last thing. "This might be the last time we do this, so let's hear 'Eagles' on three -- but I don't want it to be quiet and weak. I want you to say it strong, like men. Now let's go... Eagles on three: one, two, three..." Their response was louder than it had been all season, and it buckled my knees.

With our season now officially over, we headed for our waiting bus. I stopped Jesse to talk with him, and he collapsed into my arms. Tears were still streaming down his face, his body shook with sobbing, and as I held him I started crying along with him. I did my best to comfort him, telling him how proud I was to have coached him, and how glad I was that he would still be sitting in my English class for the rest of the year.

Next I turned to Darren, a reserve guard who usually played but hadn’t on this night. Along with Jesse, he was the other boy who had disappeared when it was time to shake hands with Hoover, so I knew he was hurting. He was still crying, so I put my arm around his shoulders as we walked. I didn’t say anything of substance, certainly nothing I remember now, but whatever I said was apparently enough. Darren put his head on my shoulder, and together we walked to the bus.

All of the Hoover players had gotten rides home with their parents, but since only a few of our boys had family who had made the trip to the game, we returned home as a team. The bus ride home was somber, to say the least. The trip took about twenty minutes, and I didn’t hear a single word spoken the entire time.

I spent that ride and the rest of the night thinking about more than just the fouls that weren’t called, the shots that didn’t fall, and the decisions I didn’t make. I thought about the pain we were all feeling and tried to imagine if there was anything quite like this to be experienced outside of sports. Certainly even the most fortunate among us find their share of disappointment and tragedy in their lives, but the suddenness and finality of a loss like this is something completely different. In our case, twelve weeks of work was defined by how we performed over a thirty-two minute stretch of time on a Monday evening in front of our family and friends, and the disappointment that resulted from our loss hit me on several levels.

Aside from my personal disappointment, I was also overwhelmed with the feeling that I had failed. With each successive win during the regular season, more people began telling me that this was our year, and now I had failed to live up to those expectations. Certainly I had let down my players, but beyond that I had disappointed our entire school. When teachers who weren’t at the game would ask me the next day if we had won, they would naturally express disappointment, offering benign words of sympathy. In my fragile state, though, I would hear criticism in their words, see judgment in their eyes. Intellectually I knew that this was all imagined, but my intellect wouldn’t reassert itself for a few days.

Finally, I thought about my need to win. I remembered watching an interview with Bill Cowher soon after his Steelers won the Super Bowl last month. He spoke about how his disappointment had been so severe after losing the Super Bowl ten years earlier that he hadn’t allowed himself ever to think about what it would be like to win someday. I refused to believe that, thinking that any coach who considered himself to be at the top of his profession (as Cowher must have) would have to think constantly about winning a championship.

But then it occurred to me that like most things in life, coaching is more about the journey than the destination. UConn coach Geno Auriemma described it this way, “Coaching is about those moments when you get it right, whenever that may be. It might be in a game, or it might be in practice, when a kid looks at you and just gets it.” That moment for me came in that darkened gym after all our basketball was done for the season. The time I shared with Jesse and Darren, comforting them as if they were my sons, reminded me of what I was really there for, and it had nothing to do with winning championships.

The Moral of the Story

When the team gathered together in my room for a short meeting the day after the game I told them about how I had awoken that morning at about 5:30, and for the shortest time, probably less than a second, everything was all right -- and then the previous night had come back in rush. I asked if any of them had ever had that experience, and every hand went up. Almost in unison, they said, “Today.”

I talked to them some more about how proud I was of everything we had accomplished together, encouraged them to continue working hard, and promised that I would be there to celebrate when they won a championship in high school. Finally, I told them about what I had said to last year’s team at our season-ending banquet. “Last year I told my team that I didn’t think I’d ever have a team as good as they were, and that I’d never love a group of players as much as I loved them. Well, I was wrong on both counts.”

A few days later I would sit in the stands and watch the championship game, a contest between two teams we had beaten in the regular season, and there was some comfort in knowing that we were at least as good as they were. We might not have won our final game, but we had certainly proved that we were a championship caliber team, and that was something to be proud of. After Hughes won, handling a Hoover team that hadn’t played nearly as well as they had in beating us, I noticed that one of my players, Raynard, was also in the stands. I asked him a simple question.

“Do you remember how easily we beat Hughes?”
“Yeah.”

And then we both shook our heads, knowing that it easily could’ve been us celebrating at center court. Somehow, though, it was all okay.

Tonto's Horse

The benefit of running the table during our admittedly short regular season, aside from the Northern League Championship, is that we get a first round bye in the playoffs. While it's nice knowing that we get an automatic trip to the semi-finals, it's even nicer being able to scout the competition.

You might be wondering -- isn't this middle school basketball? Well, yes, but all that really means is that there are no shoe contracts for the players or three-piece suits for the coaches. We're still doing our best to win, so if I can get an edge by watching the two teams we might face on Monday night, please be sure that I will. Every single time.

And that's how it was that I found myself in a middle school gym with my three children last Wednesday night, stuck in a crowd of camera-toting parents, supportive teachers, and distracted eighth graders.

The game was between Hoover, a team we had beaten 62-51 in Week 2, and Stanford, the second place team in the Southern League. With nothing to go on but the scores and standings that were e-mailed each week, I knew absolutely nothing about the teams in the other league, but recently I had begun to suspect our league was much stronger. I'm not sure what this suspicion was based upon, but by the end of the night it would prove to be correct.

It's not the easiest thing in the world to gather up a five-year-old, a four-year-old, and an eight-month-old and convince them to go to a basketball game (there was bribery involved), so the first quarter was half over by the time we arrived. The game was decided fairly quickly thereafter; Hoover was much, much better, and they ended up winning by about twenty points or so. I was secretly (and immaturely) rooting for Stanford, just because I wanted to gain some measure of revenge for our semi-final loss last year by beating them this year. But as Leslie reminded me later, the fact that they're done playing and we're not means that we have beaten them.

So how exactly do you scout a middle school basketball team? Basically you're looking for two things: quirky defense and star players. Hoover runs a 2-3 zone, same as we do, and likes to run their offense through the high post, so at least there will be no surprizes. But just because they're not spectacular, it doesn't mean they aren't any good. Although we beat them by eleven when we met, they actually held a lead midway through the fourth quarter. Hopefully my boys will remember that...

There was one thing that troubled me about the first round. Hughes, the second place team in our league, beat Rogers, the third place Southern League team. That was expected, but the final score was not. 83-19. I know the Hughes coach very well, and have always had a great deal of respect for him, but it's diminished slowly over the course of this season. When he called me the night before our teams played a few weeks ago to question me about a player he thought might be ineligible (Raynard), I let it slide. When we dominated his team, beating them 68-57, and he called the commissioner to ask if our league had an age limit, clearly a reference to 15-year-old Jesse, I started to wonder. Beating a team by sixty-four points is strike three. There can never be an excuse for that.

And so now, like or not, the playoffs are upon us. At this time tomorrow I'll either be reliving a nightmare or getting ready to coach in a game I've only experienced from the outside looking in. One thing's for sure, though. I don't think I'll be a very good teacher tomorrow.

All Hands on Deck

Hamilton....08..10..11..01...30
Lindbergh..22..11..07..08...46

This was a game we knew we would win long before the opening tip. Hamilton came into the game at 0-4, and they had lost their previous game by about forty points, so I was sure we would be facing a broken team. I had a hunch what might be going on. Of all the schools on our schedule, Hamilton is the closest to us, both geographically and demographically. Only two years ago they won the city championship, but fortunes can change quickly in middle school basketball. We don't build programs; we have try-outs, do a little coaching, and the chips fall where they may.

It's nice when you win, but it sucks when you lose. When you're dealing with our particular student populations, it can be difficult to keep a losing team together. Parents begin to question every aspect of the team, players bicker about playing time, and students at your own school will constantly -- constantly -- remind you how sorry you are. It can be overwhelming even from an adult's point of view, and it can be debilitating to a thirteen-year-old boy. The easy way out? You quit.

And that's what happened to Hamilton. When I finally spoke to their coach on Wednesday night at about 5:15 (adding insult to insult, their bus had broken down, delaying their arrival at our gym by about forty minutes), he confirmed that he had had only six players in uniform the previous week and that he had had to recruit a few extra guys for our game just so he had some bodies on the bench. Not surprizingly, those extra bodies weren't very good.

I started four of my five regulars (Jesse sat out the first quarter for disciplinary reasons) and we pressed for about three minutes before it became clear that Hamilton was hopelessly outclassed. After we reached a comfortable lead of about fifteen points I began substituting liberally. Our typical rotation goes only about eight deep, which means that the bottom eight guys don't get much playing time at all, and I've felt bad about it. Our main goal has to be to win games, but I know from experience that it's difficult to show up for practice every day, preparing only to watch the game from the end of the bench.

My goal in this game, then was to get everyone significant time on the floor. I kept at least one starter in the game most of the time, just so things didn't get too sloppy, and I made a concerted effort to get everyone some points, so we all had fun. There were really just two moments that stood out. The first involved Deion, who likes to be called D-Nyce. (And that's only the second-best nickname on the team.) Deion reached out and made a steal early in the third quarter, but injured his finger in the process. When he came to the bench and showed me his finger, it looked like the letter z -- severely dislocated. As the game continued behind him, I asked him for his finger so I could fix it for him. His eyes just about jumped out of his skull, but he allowed me to snap his finger back into place and was asking to get back in the game a few minutes later.

The next moment came soon after. Midway through the fourth quarter I noticed that my three children were starting to get more than a little wiggly, and Leslie looked to be at her wit's end. I reached up into the stands and took our eight-month-old Baby Kate and paced the sidelines with her on my hip for the rest of the game. It was a wonderful end to a great regular season.

You Live by the Sword, You Die by the Sword

Marshall (1-3).....19-00-18-20--57
Lindbergh (4-0)...17-10-20-20--67

If last week was the most enjoyable game I've ever coached, this week's game was definitely the strangest game I've ever been a part of. I expected a bit of a letdown, since we had already beaten the top three teams in our league, but that's not exactly what happened. We were athletically superior to (and even taller than) this team, so we won fairly easily -- but it was interesting along the way.

The Marshall Plan was simple -- shoot three-pointers like crazy. When the shots were falling (they hit five in the first quarter, and a total of twelve for the game) they were difficult to shake, but when they weren't, the game swung in our direction pretty quickly. If you take a look at the boxscore above, you'll see what I mean. They played us evenly in the first, third, and fourth quarters, but the final margin was essentially determined when they didn't score a single point in the second, something I didn't realize until I saw the scorebook.

We stuck with our usual 2-3 zone throughout, even though I was tempted mightily to switch to man-to-man. It occurred to me on the morning after the game that I probably should've tried flipping our zone to a 3-2, just to make it easier to get out on the shooters. As it turned out, it didn't really matter.

There was an interesting guest in the stands on this night. A few minutes before tip-off I noticed Coach Massey, the local high school coach walk into the gym. He's been the head coach for at least twenty years or so, and I when I first started coaching I spent a lot of time observing his practices, learning drills and talking to him about subtle things like motivation. He used to come to our games every once in a while, the way high school coaches all over the land watch the players that will soon be playing for them, but I somehow convinced myself in those days that he was coming to watch me, not my players. Back then I harbored hopes of one day coaching in high school, and I wondered if maybe Massey was thinking the same thing. I can't imagine that he was, but when he and I attended a coaching clinic hosted by then Long Beach State coach Seth Greenberg and happened to walk in at the same time, Coach Greenberg said hello to Coach Massey, then turned to me and said, "This must be another Massey disciple." He had it about right.

I've long since given up thoughts of coaching high school basketball, but I was still interested in what he might have to say after watching our team play. He told us that he didn't think he had ever seen such an unselfish team at this level, and commented on a few of our players, then asked me if we had been beaten yet. When I told him we hadn't, he dropped the bomb: "You probably won't be." My immediate response: "Don't say that -- that's what we thought last year."

The playoffs are still a few weeks ago, but here's what we know. Last night's win was important since it allowed us to clinch our league championship for the second straight year. That gives us a first round bye in the playoffs and a ticket straight to the semi-finals where we'll play a second- or third-place team from either our league or the other. Here are the standings:

Lindbergh.....4-0
Hoover.........3-1
Hughes........3-1
Bancroft.......1-3
Marshall.......1-3
Hamilton......0-4

The Best Team in Our League

Hughes......12..12..13..20...57
Lindbergh..10..16..23..19...68

As I sat at the coaches meeting last month and looked at our schedule for the first time, I figured that our season would be defined by this game against Hughes. I wasn't completely sure how good our team would be, and I had no idea how much talent Hughes would have, but I was fairly certain that our game with them would be a good one. I was right.

There were two things I wanted to focus on during Tuesday night's practice, our last chance to get ready for Hughes. First, we needed to go over our press a little bit. We run a 2-2-1 press, which places our guards up near the free throw line, forwards at half court, and center back deep as a safety. When we ran it against Bancroft in our first game, it was successful because of our huge advantage in athleticism, not because we knew what we were doing. When we played a better team in our second game, Hoover was able to easily navigate the press by finding the gaps and seems left unprotected. As a result we tired quickly and abandoned the press early in the second half.

I never considered scrapping the press altogether; it just needed to be fixed. I believe strongly (and John Wooden agrees) that defense should be played from baseline to baseline, mainly because it makes the game more fun to watch and more fun to play. The problem, though, is that you need a stable of athletes to implement this style of play, and I haven't always had that. This year's team is insanely athletic, so it would be a crime not to press -- we'd just have to learn to do it right.

My second point of emphasis Tuesday afternoon had to do with our offense. I know the Hughes coach fairly well, well enough to know that his favorite defense is a 1-3-1 zone, common at the high school level, but extremely rare for middle school. We spent about forty-five minutes installing an offense to counter that zone. Practice went well, so I was hoping for good things on Wednesday.

The game started out slowly for us. Using a 2-3 zone on defense, Hughes jumped out to an early 12-6 lead. Our press looked a bit spotty, and my assistant suggested scrapping it, but I chose to keep the faith. Almost immediately, the press began paying divendends in the form of turnovers and easy buckets. We trailed by a basket at the end of the first quarter and quickly jumped out to a ten-point advantage midway through the second. Just when it looked like we were ready to run away and hide, Hughes took a timeout and switched into the 1-3-1 we had been waiting for. (They actually played four different defenses during the game, clearly the mark of a well-coached team.)

Not surprizingly, their version of the 1-3-1 was an awful lot better than the makeshift one we put together in the previous night's practice, so it took a while for us to adjust. Eventually, though, we were able to get the ball into the corners, either to Jesse or Raynard, or to the high post where Derek or Koko could distribute the ball. By halftime our two-point defecit had turned into a two-point lead, but it felt like we had lost an opportunity take control of the game.

At halftime I stressed that we had played well the entire half and that I expected the press to be even more devastating in the second half. I was right. The 2-2-1 is a passive press in the sense that the defense waits for errant passes rather than actively trying to steal the ball. As the game goes on, the press usually becomes more effective simply because of the mental and physical strain it exacts upon the offense, and so it was tonight. We won the third quarter by ten points, and were it not for a flurry of Hughes three-pointers midway through the fourth, the final margin would've been close to twenty points.

There was one play from the game that sticks out, and it happened early in the fourth. Jesse took a defensive rebound and held the ball for a few seconds before heading up court. As he neared the timeline, he kept his dribble alive as he turned around 180°, preparing to pass the ball back to Markes. For some reason he paused ever so slightly, and as his momentum tilted his body to the right he looked for all the world like Jerry West's silhouette on the NBA logo. As a defender lunged towards him, Jesse changed his mind about passing to Markes, choosing instead to complete his three-sixty, leaving the defender in his wake. He then dribbled hard past the top of the key, crossed up another defender at the freethrow line, and finally knifed into the rim where he scored while being fouled. It was absolutely ridiculous, so good that I jokingly rubbed by eyes on the sideline in disbelief. So good that we had to spend part of the next timeout talking about it. So good that students were still talking about it the next day.

The win meant that we were now 3-0, we had established ourselves as the best team in our league, and we could start thinking about the playoffs. In short, it was a big, big win. I interviewed the author (and one-time coach) Charley Rosen several months ago, and spoke about the rush of playing or coaching in a big game:

You’re still buzzing, your mind is buzzing, your emotions are buzzing. You can’t just turn a switch and flip it off. It feels good, it’s a rush. Man, it’s a rush! Even coaching in a game like that is an incredible rush, you’re right there, in the here and now -- it’s tremendous. You can’t come down, and you don’t want to come down...

He's got it absolutely right. If your team plays at the height of its capabilities, executes a game plan to perfection, and wins an important game in dominant fashion, it doesn't really matter whether you're playing on the court at Madison Square Garden or in a sweaty middle school gym. It's a huge rush to coach and win a game like that, a game that truly matters. (If you've read the interview you know that he went on to speculate that players turned to cocaine in an effort to duplicate this competitive high. Don't worry, though. I came home and celebrated with a tall glass of apple juice.) Anyway, with my wife a couple rows behind our bench and my students, colleagues, and former players sprinkled throughout the crowd, all watching my team play its best game so far, one thing was clear. This was possibly the most enjoyable game I had ever coached. At least until next week.

Current Standings

Lindbergh....3-0
Hughes........2-1
Hoover.........2-1
Bancroft.......1-2
Marshall.......1-2
Hamilton......0-3

Putting Out Fires

We play Hughes Middle School on Wednesday night in what is definitely our biggest game so far. Part of the difficulty of coaching middle school basketball is the vast uncertainty connected with every aspect of the job. Here's what I've had to manage during the past week:

• One of my players, Lemont, was involved in a fight last Thursday. I don't think the fight actually happened, but it seems that he was a part of a group that was rushing off campus after school to challenge another group to a fight. (Obviously, Lamont should've been at practice at the time.) Although no punches were thrown, there is concern because of racial undertones which colored the confrontation. Lamont and his group are black, and their combatants were Latino. There's been a fair amount of tension between these two subcultures on our campus this year, so there's always a worry that things could flare up again. As for Lamont, I haven't spoken to him since last week, nor have I had time to speak to the administrator who handled the situation. I'll have to see what I can find out tomorrow, but one thing I already know is that Lamont won't be playing.

• I received a phone call on Monday night from the Hughes coach. He was calling, essentially, to ask if I was cheating. Apparently one of his boys knows Raynard, and knows that he's not the best student in the world. He told his coach that he didn't feel there was any way that Raynard could have qualified academically to play. (Our district policy states that all student-ahtletes must maintain a 2.0 GPA.) It first I didn't really think anything of this call, but eventually I came realize that there really is no difference between accusing a person of lying and asking if he is. Anyway, I assured the coach that everything was okay.

• Michael, a boy who is in my English class and on the team, has taken a turn towards oblivion. Michael was also in my class in the sixth grade, so I know him well. He's a challenging student in the classroom, one who talks constantly and enjoys any type of attention. In the gym, he's a big kid, but unpolished. Last Thursday, however, he shut down completely. He sat in my class for two hours and did absolutely nothing, and he refused to talk to me about what was bothering him. In fact, he denied that anything was wrong. He had another bad day today, and I'm leaning towards kicking him off the team just because I'm not interested in spending three-and-a half hours with him every day. We'll see what happens.

All of which brings us to Wednesday's game. We had a good practice on Tuesday, implementing a new offense to go against the 1-3-1 zone that I expect to see from Hughes, and working on our full-court press. Both of these looked pretty good, so I'm feeling pretty good about things. A win tomorrow puts us in first place alone and essentially clinches the league title, which would be nice. Also, I have never beaten Hughes in a game that really matters. They are almost always terribly talented, and their coach is probably the best in our league, so a win tomorrow would mean a lot to me as well. Hopefully everything will go well.

Week 2 Standings

Northern League Standings

Hughes...... 2-0
Lindbergh.. 2-0
Bancroft..... 1-1
Hoover....... 1-1
Hamilton.... 0-2
Marshall..... 0-2