Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
NOAH
I slam my car door with the same amount of force I’d need to shoot a basketball across the length of an entire court.
Even though I’ve been back home for a month, I have not adjusted.
I loved living in Chicago. Everything I’d grown accustomed to was there.
My favorite pizza, pub, and park to play ball at—along with the friends I used to eat, drink, and shoot hoops with.
I probably shouldn’t have left. But how in the world could I stay after being demoted from head coach to assistant coach at the high school I worked for?
Last year my team ranked third in the entire state.
Third! I did that, not some retired NBA player.
So what if he played for the Bulls and I didn’t?
I spent the last four years proving myself and all I got for my efforts was a demotion.
Beads of perspiration start to pop up across my hairline as I storm into Elk Lake High School, my alma mater and home of the mighty Crappies.
Even though we’re a big fishing town, I can’t imagine how the school founders thought Crappies was the best choice for a mascot.
We could have just as easily been called the Eagles or Bears.
Heck, I would have even preferred the Elk Lake Mourning Doves, but no, I’m the new coach of the Crappies. Someone had to have lost a bet.
“Mr. Riley!” Johnathan Cooke, the stout principal, who’s been here since I was a student, calls out. “How are you doing? It must be great to be back home!”
I respond the same way I have every day he’s said this to me. “It’s super, thanks. How are you?” I’m not a small talk kind of guy, but now that I’m back in Elk Lake, there doesn’t seem to be any way out of it. People here love to chit-chat.
Taking rapid steps across the gray laminate floor, my boss stops right in front of me before offering his standard lopsided grin. The one that looks like he’s been shot full of Novocain for a dental procedure. “You getting excited for our first big game?”
“We’ve still got a month,” I remind him. And thank goodness for that because we are not a good team. Not by a longshot.
“I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with our guys!” he gushes enthusiastically. “We didn’t even get to districts last year.”
“I’d love to promise you great things, Johnathan, but it took me four years to get my Chicago team to state. And to be honest, we don’t have the raw talent on the Crappies that I had there.”
He waves a hand in front of his face like he’s swatting away a swarm of bees. “We’d just like to be in the top eight hundred.”
There are only eight hundred and thirty-one high schools in the state, and I’m coaching a team with practically zero aspirations. How is this my life? My talents are lost here. But instead of telling my boss that, I go with, “I think I might be able to make that happen.”
Reaching out, he claps me on the shoulder. “Good! You just let me know what you need from me.” I don’t suppose he could fulfill my wish of some decent players, so I abstain from asking.
I force as much of a smile as I can without letting my mouth morph into the grimace it wants to make.
Then I walk in the direction of the gym where my team is meeting for early training.
Until my arrival, they had only ever practiced after school, so they weren’t thrilled when I added a morning scrimmage once a week.
“Hey, Coach,” Decan Flynn, one of my posts calls out. “How come we had to be here at seven and you get to stroll in at seven-oh-five?”
No one from my Chicago team would have dared to ask such an impertinent question, but these guys don’t know me yet. Instead of dignifying his question with an answer, I shout out, “Everybody over here!”
Once they’re huddled around, I tell them, “You’re going to need to make a decision.” I watch as they side-eye each other, clearly wondering what I have in store for them.
When I don’t explain right away, Kenny James, aka Mr. Tiny—seriously, the kid is only five foot four inches tall—asks, “What decision?”
“You’re going to need to figure out what you want out of this sport.” I glare at them challengingly.
A kid with more nerve than determination asks, “What are our choices?”
“When I played for the Crappies,” I tell them, sounding like my grandfather waxing poetic about walking to school uphill in the snow barefoot—both ways, “we were fifth in the state. Fifth. That took a lot of work.”
“What were we last year?” one of the new players asks.
“Eight hundred and thirtieth,” I tell him. “There was only one team worse than you guys.”
Several faces turn red, followed by most eyes drifting toward the floor. “My last team was third in the state of Illinois,” I remind them for what I’m sure is the hundredth time.
“Eight hundred thirtieth?” Decan asks in shock. “I thought we were better than that.”
“You were not,” I assure him.
“Not to be a jerk, Coach, but why did you come back to Elk Lake? You could get a much better job than this,” Alfonse DeMarco says. His dad, Tony DeMarco, was in my class when I went to school here. He and his girlfriend got pregnant with Alfonse their junior year.
As much as I’m second-guessing my return to Elk Lake, I don’t want these kids to know that.
They deserve to have a coach who wants to guide them.
That’s why I respond, “I went to school here. I ran up and down this same court and showered in the same locker room that you guys do. I even had some of the same teachers. I came home to offer you the opportunity to be the best team you can be. But you have to put in the work.”
I feel a sense of impending doom as I stare at my audience.
None of them seem the least bit fired up by my challenge.
That’s when I hear a voice from the bleachers demand, “Why don’t we have a girls’ team, Mr. Riley?
I know of at least six other girls besides me who want to play basketball more than any of these boneheads. ”
Looking up, I watch as a tall, curly-haired brunette starts to make her way down to the court. “And you are?” I ask her.
“That’s my sister, Leah,” Decan grumbles. “Never mind her, she’s just a freshman.”
When Leah reaches the team, I realize she’s taller than I originally thought. She must be at least five ten, which is the same height as her brother.
“I don’t know why there isn’t a girls’ team,” I tell her. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Cooke about that?”
“I did,” she tells me. “He said there isn’t the money for another coach. That’s why I figured I’d ask you to coach us.”
“That would be something for the school board to decide,” I tell her.
“But would you be willing to do it?” she wants to know.
She looks so fiercely determined, I don’t have the heart to tell her there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to take on the commitment of another team—or two.
Heck, I’m pretty sure the girls would want a JV team as well as varsity.
As it is, both my JV and varsity teams are so bad, I have them practice at the same time to give them both the extra training.
I turn and look at the fourteen players on the joint boys’ teams before suggesting, “Why don’t you join us in practice today and show me what you’ve got?”
Leah’s face lights up like I just offered her Caitlin Clark’s position on the WNBA. Before she can respond, her brother declares, “She can’t! She’s a girl! This is the boys’ team!”
“You afraid of a little competition, Decan?” I ask him. If Leah is half as good as she is sassy, I might just get behind her dream for a girls’ team.
“You’re no competition for me, Leah,” Decan spits. “But you’re not a boy, so you can’t practice with us.”
Leah turns pleading eyes in my direction.
With a shrug, I tell the guys, “I’m willing to let girls train with us.
And if they turn out to be better than any of you, I might even let them play in the boys’ games.
” I figure if that doesn’t inspire them to work harder, nothing will.
Boys at this age hate being shown up by girls.
At least they used to when I was a kid, and there’s been no indication that evolution has kicked in to elevate our species.
The gym fills with a chorus of angry protests while Leah sits down on the bench to put on her court shoes. With any luck, this young girl and her like-minded friends might just be what the Elk Lake Crappies need to achieve bigger things than they’ve dared to dream about in recent years.
Once Leah is ready, I pick two teams of five. Purposely pitting sister against brother, I announce, “Leah, Decan, you’re both on the tip-off. Let’s do this!”
During the next half-hour the boys work harder than I’ve seen.
Even so, Leah still puts several of them in their place.
She scores fourteen points for her team, which would be tough enough to do as a post, but is especially hard because she had to steal all the balls she got. Her team certainly didn’t pass to her.
At eight o’clock, I clap my hands loudly and call out, “This afternoon’s practice is at four.” Turning to Leah, I add, “Let your friends know. I look forward to seeing what they can do.”
For the first time since coming back to Elk Lake, a feeling of excitement starts to brew in the pit of my stomach.
I’ve gone from not having much confidence that my team even wants to be here to being eager to see some healthy competition play out.
Who knows, with the addition of some girls who know how to play, we might even see the top hundred this year.
Maybe coming home won’t be the horror show I thought it would be. Now, if I can just figure out how to have a social life, too …