Road Trip (10 page)

When I wasn't on the court, I had kept one eye on the game and the other on Coach. I knew he was trying to be more low-key and relaxed, but
trying
and
doing
were two very different things.

A couple of times, when somebody on the team made a mistake, he yelled out something — once it was at me. But most of the time he reacted to a bad play by doing a little dance and turning his back to the court — sort of like if it was too painful to even watch.

As well, he'd said a couple of things to the ref, and although he wasn't tossed, or even warned, I knew he was pushing where he probably shouldn't go. Maybe you could get the next call by yelling out something, or maybe you just got the ref mad at you and your team. Then you were in trouble. I'd seen refs take something a coach yelled and make sure that that team didn't get one call their way for the rest of the game.

All in all, he'd done pretty well. Then again, it wasn't that difficult to be easygoing when your team had been up from the first whistle and had never looked back.

“Nick, Kia, get ready for a change,” Coach said.

“Sure,” I said as I got to my feet and started to pull off my warm-up shirt. Normally I would have been excited to get back on — who likes being on
the bench? — but I today I would have been happy to just stay off.

I'd played about the same number of minutes as I usually did, but I felt like my legs didn't quite have the same amount of “go” in them. I'd never played for a team that ran a full press and man to man for an entire game. Heck, I'd never even
heard
of a team doing that. It had obviously worn down the other team, but it had also had an effect on us as well. We could get through this game, but we still had three more to play today.

Kia and I went and kneeled down by the scorer's table, ready for Coach to call for subs.

“We've done pretty good,” Kia said.

“Not bad. How you feeling?”

“Okay… tired,” Kia answered.

“Me too. I was wondering if we're going to have anything left for the next game, or the one after that, or the last game.”

“I was wondering about that too. Do you think there'll be any gas left in our tanks for the last game?”

“I guess we'll see,” I said. “Either way, at least we didn't lose all our games.”

“What do you mean lose them all?”

I paused. If I were talking to anybody except Kia, I wouldn't have gone any further.

“These teams are the best,” I said. “Weren't you
at least a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to compete with them?”

Kia didn't answer.

“Weren't you?” I asked again.

She shrugged. “A little, but what I
was
thinking isn't as important as what I
am
thinking now.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“That maybe we're not as good as all the teams in this tournament, but we're sure better than at least one other team.”

“A lot better,” I agreed.

“So you know what that makes me think?” she asked.

“I know,” I said. “Maybe we're better than more than one other team. Maybe more than a lot of teams.”

Kia smiled. “Maybe better than all the other teams.”

“You mean in our pool?” I asked.

“Maybe in the whole tournament. What do you think?” she asked.

“I think that we're going to find out soon enough.”

I practically stumbled into the room, pushed and propelled by everybody else shoving in behind me. I felt exhausted, drained, beat… and happy. We'd pulled off four straight wins and made it through to the next round! I flopped down on the bed.

“No time for showers!” my father called out. “We're meeting downstairs in fifteen minutes for a late supper. Just get changed.”

Tristan, David, Jamie and Mark went into the other room while Kia grabbed her bag.

“Getting changed doesn't mean wearing a dress, right?” she asked.

My father laughed. “No dress… unless you want to wear one.”

“Not likely,” she scoffed, and took her bag into the bathroom and closed the door.

My father flopped down on the bed beside me. “You played well. You all played well.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I was a little worried during that last game, though,” my father said.

“It was close,” I agreed.

“I wasn't worried about the score,” he said. “I thought Len was going to get tossed.”

I was more than a little worried about that as well. With each passing game he'd become more vocal. He'd argued a couple of calls and the ref had come over and given him a warning.

“He's trying to control himself, but I think it's getting harder as the games get more serious,” my father said.

“I thought all the games were serious.”

“They are, but each one gets more serious. You've reached the quarterfinals. You win that
one and you reach the semis. Win that one and you're in the finals. It doesn't get more serious than that.”

“What would happen if he had gotten tossed?” I asked.

“I'm listed on the roster as the assistant coach, so I guess I'd take over.”

“You?”

“Don't sound so shocked. It's not like I don't know a thing or two about basketball.”

“I know, it's just you haven't coached me for years, since I played house league.”

“It has been a while, but the game's basically the same whether it's house league, rep ball, college or even the NBA. You just — ”

“Guys, come quick!” David yelled as he raced into the room.

My father and I both jumped off the bed.

“What's wrong?” my father questioned.

“Nothing! Nothing's wrong! We're on TV!”

We both skidded into the room in time to see Coach being interviewed by that reporter.

“Get the other guys!” Jamie yelled, and Tristan flew out of the room. A few seconds later I heard him pounding on the door and yelling for them.

“Turn it up!” Kia yelled as she ran into the room as well. She was followed in almost immediately by Tristan, and then the rest of the team barreled in, pushing and shoving and yelling.

“Be quiet!” my father yelled, and the noise dropped off, although everybody continued to jockey for position in front of the TV.

“There is probably no youth tournament in the entire country that is as prestigious as the annual Mumford International Invitational Tournament. To be here a team has to be special,” the reporter said, staring directly into the camera.

“That's us, we're special!” Tristan agreed loudly.

“But of all the special teams, one may stand out more than any of the others,” she continued.

“That's right, she's seen us play!” Al added.

“Look, there I am! I'm on TV!” L.B. yelled.

“Where are you? I don't see you!” I questioned.

“Are you blind? I'm right there in the background, behind… okay, I'm gone now,” he said as he ran out of the picture behind the reporter.

“And what are the things that make this team special?” the reporter asked. “Let's begin with their coach, Len Barkley, one of the most successful college players of all time.”

The screen changed to a shot of Coach being interviewed by the reporter, and then some footage of him on the sidelines during one of our games today.

“There's everybody!” David screamed.

It was a shot of all of us surrounding Coach
during a time-out. The screen then changed back to a shot of just the reporter holding a microphone.

“And those who remember Len Barkley from his playing days must surely remember the accident that ended his career and stopped him from pursuing greatness in the NBA.”

I had a terrible feeling that I knew what was going to come next. Grainy black-and-white images of basketball players wearing funny-looking old-fashioned uniforms and strange haircuts flashed across the screen, and then a ball flew loose and – I couldn't bear to look. I turned to L.B. and watched as he cringed at the sight of his father getting hurt.

“A career ended because of one frightening injury – an injury that still makes me want to look away,” the reporter said. It was nice to know I wasn't the only one.

“But here we are years later, watching as Len Barkley the player has become
Coach
Barkley to a team of kids entered in the tournament. And, if his four straight wins today are any indication, he has that same magic as a coach that he had as a player.”

“That's us, we're the magic!” Tristan shouted out.

“Instrumental in his success thus far is Coach Barkley's secret weapon,” she said.

“We have a secret weapon?” I questioned.

“And that secret weapon is named Kia,” she continued.

“Kia?” a bunch of people all repeated at once as the TV was filled with the image of Kia, wearing her fancy dress and high-heeled sandals, standing up on the stage.

“Looking at this pretty young girl,” the reporter said, “you would never suspect that she is not only a basketball player, but is leading her team to victory!”

The screen image changed to show Kia, in her uniform, on the court. It showed her taking a layup during the warm-ups. Then it rapidly changed to her covering a man — I think it was our second game — and then taking a shot, and then making a pass.

“Whether it's taking charge on defense, feeding a teammate or making the buckets herself, young Kia is showing the boys the way the game should be played as she leads her team to victory after victory. We'll continue to follow Kia and her team as they continue their quest for gold. This is Elyse Parris reporting from the Mumford International Invitational Basketball Tournament!”

The screen image changed back to two guys sitting behind a desk, and one of them had started to say something about the weather when Coach reached over and clicked the TV off. I hadn't even
realized he was in the room.

“Kia isn't our leader,” Tristan protested. “I got more court time today than she did!”

“And I got the most rebounds for sure!” Jordan added.

“And I got twenty-three assists in the games so nobody — ”

“All of you stop!” Coach bellowed, and the room fell silent. “Everybody sit down.”

There were only two chairs and they were taken. A couple of guys sat on the end of one of the beds.

“Now!” Coach yelled. “Everybody sit down now!”

I practically dropped to the floor. Coach scowled and started pacing around the room.

“
I
got the most points.
I
got the most rebounds.
I
got the most court time. There's no place for any of this talk. There isn't, and never will be, an ‘
I
' in ‘
team
.'”

“But there is an ‘I' in Kia,” L.B. said under his breath.

Coach shot him a dirty look.

“This is exactly what I thought would happen,” Coach said. “Some reporter making a story up and it distracts us from our goal. Does anybody here think Kia went looking for this story?”

“She didn't even want to be interviewed,” I said, defending my best friend.

“Exactly!” Coach said. “Kia is a leader on this team, just like every one of you is a leader. There are going to be games we can't win without her and games we're going to lose because of her. Just like with everybody else. We're a team and we're going to be acting like a team. Does everybody understand?”

Everybody voiced agreement or nodded their heads.

“Good. We played as a team and now we're going to get dressed and eat supper as a team.” He paused. “And after that… we're going to have some fun as a team.”

The whole video arcade was packed with kids. It looked like half the teams in the tournament were in here. It was hard to get close enough to even see a game being played, so actually playing one was a long shot. My father and Coach sat out on a bench in the lobby right in front of the arcade. They'd come in for a couple of minutes and complained about the heat and crowd and noise. This was one time I really didn't disagree. The noise from all the games was incredible. Even worse was the heat. The combination of all those video machines and the bodies packed together like little sardines made it so hot I was sweating more than I did during the games.

We'd run into some of the kids from teams that
we'd played that day. It was so crowded that it was impossible not to bump into people. A few had nodded their heads and a couple had even talked to us — mainly about the news report. It seemed like there were a whole lot of people who'd caught it on TV. A couple of times I'd heard somebody say something about our “secret weapon” as we passed by.

Kia had stayed right by me since we left the room. I was used to her being close — after all, she was my best friend. What I wasn't used to was her not saying much of anything. She nodded her head or mumbled a few words when I asked her something, but she really wasn't talking. That was so un-Kialike.