Swagger (12 page)

I
'M NO QUITTER. I WANTED
that scholarship, and I needed playing time to get it. That night I lay in bed, staring at the shadows dancing across the ceiling, trying to figure out how to make Knecht give me those minutes. There was only one sure way: Knecht had to see that I could make Levi into an all-star and that Levi could turn the team into a statewide force.

How to make him see it, though? With any other coach, I could have hit Levi during practice with some backdoor lobs ending in thunder jams. But Knecht wouldn't be impressed by powerful dunks—he'd be angry.

Still, there was a version of that play that Knecht would like. I pictured it in my mind. Levi would cut to the basket; I'd feed him a high lob. Instead of dunking, he'd kiss a soft shot off the glass and through the twine. Knecht would rise up out of his folding chair. “That's basketball,” he'd shout. If Levi and I could pull off that play in practice, Knecht would have to give me more minutes in the game.

As we were shooting around that afternoon, I drew Levi aside and explained what I wanted to try. “At least once,” I said, “and hopefully a couple of times.”

“What if I'm not open?”

“I'll put the ball above the rim where only you can get it, just like we practiced at Green Lake with Hartwell. You can do it. Just don't dunk it, okay?”

I was eager for the scrimmage to begin, but Knecht was Knecht, which meant we did drill after boring drill. As time passed, my excitement ebbed. If we didn't scrimmage, how could I show Knecht what I had?

I wasn't the only one frustrated. Hartwell was using Nick and DeShawn to explain defensive rotations when Knecht stopped him with a tweet on his whistle. “Forget about rotating,” Knecht snapped, getting up from his chair and heading onto the court. “They need to work on man-to-man defense, straight up.”

Hartwell squeezed the basketball so hard his fingers went white. Then he turned on Coach Knecht. “Coach, you wanted the team to work on fundamentals. Rotating to the ball is fundamental.”

“Mr. Hartwell, man-to-man is fundamental. The rest of it comes only after the man-to-man has been mastered.”

As he was speaking, Knecht had moved toward Hartwell until there was no more than a few feet between them. Hartwell, eight inches taller and seventy pounds heavier, towered over the old man, but it was Hartwell who backed down. “You heard your coach,” he said, turning back to us. “Back to work on your man-to-man defense.”

Ten minutes before the end of practice, Knecht finally let us scrimmage. Hartwell refereed, with Knecht still sitting in his folding chair along the sideline at center court. Hartwell mixed up first- and second-stringers to make the teams even, and, as usual, he put Levi on my team.

We'd played a few minutes when I caught Levi's eye. He nodded ever so slightly to let me know he was ready. We worked the ball around the perimeter. DeShawn popped out; I faked a pass to him at the exact moment Levi broke to the hoop. I made an absolutely perfect pass. Levi snatched the ball and, in the same motion, softly kissed the lay-up off the glass and through. When he came down, Levi's excited eyes caught mine. We'd pulled it off perfectly. Then Levi's eyes clouded. Something was wrong. But what? I wheeled around to look at Knecht. I'd expected him to be out of his chair, smiling and giving us a fist pump, but the old guy had his head down and was writing notes on his clipboard.

He hadn't been watching.

 

That day Levi skipped his tutoring session with Hartwell and instead came to my house to study for a health quiz. We didn't talk about what had happened at practice. What was there to say? Levi spread out his stack of notes on my dining room table, and I helped him whittle them down. When we finished, I asked how Hartwell was as a tutor.

Levi sat straight up. “He knows everything, Jonas. He's the smartest person I've ever met.” He paused. “He comes to my father's services now. Every Sunday for the last three weeks he's been there. You're surprised, aren't you? That first time, I figured he was being polite. But it's more than that. Coach Hartwell is looking for God, and when you look for God, God finds you.”

T
HE NEXT TEN DAYS WERE
one long nightmare. We played three games and won two, but for me they were all losses. Knecht used me strictly as a role player, someone to give Brindle a chance to catch his breath. If I was lucky, I'd get six minutes of playing time over the course of an entire game. Once I played only three minutes, all in the first half. Coach Richter at Monitor College had our schedule. After every game, he'd shoot me an e-mail.
What was the final score? How many assists did I have? Turnovers? Points? Rebounds?

What did I send him? After four games, these were my grand totals for the season: Six points. Three assists. Two rebounds. Two turnovers. I'd had better numbers by halftime of games at Redwood High. The other kid Richter was considering had to be doing more.

Right in the middle of that stretch, Hartwell pulled me aside in the hallway of school. “Jonas, if you need to talk, I'm ready to listen. You could come see me during my planning period or after school. If you want, you could come to my apartment and watch a movie or study there. Just don't hold it all inside.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I said, but I did hold it all inside. What else could I do? There was nothing Hartwell could do for me. If I complained to my parents, it would make them feel guilty about the move to Seattle. And I couldn't say anything to Levi. As far as he was concerned, Coach Knecht was just a little bit below God.

On the Saturday morning after our fourth game, Celia and I had arranged to meet at Zoka to study for a chemistry test. Having Butler's files had changed everything for me. I didn't get As on my chemistry tests—that would have been too suspicious. But I was getting Bs, and the class wasn't sucking up every spare minute of my life.

I didn't want to waste time, so for each section I told Celia exactly what to study and what to skip. We'd been studying for about twenty minutes when she pointed to a passage on denatured alcohol. “How come you're so sure we don't need to know this? I think it's important.”

For an instant I was rattled, but then a lie came to me. “I looked at study guides on the Internet.”

“But Butler might be different.”

“He won't be,” I insisted. “He hasn't been different yet.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “So you've been looking at study guides all along?”

I felt my face redden. “Not all along. Only for the last few quizzes.”

She stared at me for a moment longer, but then her eyes returned to the text.

We studied for another hour. All that time, she seemed to feel my deception in the air around her. When we finally called it good, she stood and gave me a tired smile. “See you at school, and thanks.” I nodded and then she was gone. I headed home a few minutes later, my head pounding.

I
'D BEEN HEARING ABOUT THE
Garfield Bulldogs, our next opponent, all season long. Garfield was undefeated, which was nothing new for them. Year after year, Garfield has won the KingCo District title. Most years they either take the state title or come close. As I watched Garfield go through their pregame drills, I could see that their quickness was a notch above any other team we'd faced.

Just before tip-off, a voice from the stands called out my name. I looked up and saw my dad waving to me. My mouth dropped open—it was the first game he'd attended all year. He must have heard from someone at work that Garfield basketball was special.

For a second I was excited, but then my gut rolled over. At home, I'd pretended I was getting decent playing time. Now he'd learn the truth. When the opening horn sounded, I sank into myself, pulled a towel over my head, and watched Brindle run the team.

Knecht's game plan was to frustrate Garfield by slowing everything down. I'll give him credit—all through the first quarter, his strategy worked. Our pass-and-cut offense forced the Garfield guys to use their energy playing defense. When they finally did get the ball, they raced down the court and fired up quick shots. Sometimes the shot went down; more often the ball clanged off the rim. When that happened, Levi would clear the rebound, pass the ball to Brindle, and Brindle would walk the ball up the court, taking his sweet time to set the offense, and then run the pass and cut, pass and cut, keeping Garfield out of sync. Their fans began booing us. “Play basketball!” a guy behind us kept shouting. I looked down the bench and could see the hint of a smile on Knecht's wrinkled lips.

With one minute left in the first quarter, I stepped onto the court for the first time. I ran the team as if I were Brindle, taking time off the clock, not forcing anything. When the horn sounded ending the quarter, we had played perfect
Knecht
basketball, but our lead was only 10–7.

In the huddle, Knecht was excited. “Eight minutes down, twenty-four to go,” he rasped. “We keep playing like this and we'll beat these guys.”

Knecht kept me on the court for the start of the second quarter. Twice I thought I had Levi on a lob pass for a lay-up, but I didn't risk it. Instead, I protected the ball as if it were a newborn baby.

Garfield had tightened up their defense on Cash, figuring he was our only offensive weapon. On our first possession, they double-teamed him as soon as he touched the ball. He immediately kicked the ball back to me. I was wide open for a three-pointer. I should have fired it up without thinking, but I was thinking—
Miss this and you're out of the game
—and so I missed, badly. A Garfield guy pounced on the rebound, and they were off on a fast break that ended with a rim-rattling dunk. The crowd roared; Knecht called time-out; and my butt was back on the bench.

The dunk gave Garfield momentum. On our next possession, they trapped Cash along the baseline, forcing a turnover. Again they pushed the ball, except this time Levi was back to defend. The Garfield guard veered off, and then passed to a shooter behind the three-point line. It was exactly the kind of shot Knecht wouldn't let us take, and when it ripped through the net, Garfield had its first lead of the game.

I thought that once Garfield took the lead, they'd swamp us. But Levi kept us in the game by fighting for every rebound and scoring the few points we managed by muscling up offensive rebounds. Still, he couldn't beat Garfield by himself, and at halftime we were down five.

In the locker room Knecht was more animated than I'd ever seen him. “We have to play our game,” he urged, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “Discipline, ball movement—do the little things and you'll win.” His voice was hoarse, and his face was a reddish purple.

Guys picked up on his intensity, and in the third quarter, we twice closed the lead to three, but both times a Garfield player hit a three-pointer in transition to push the lead out to six. Then, just before the end of the third quarter, Brindle made two silly turnovers that led to easy lay-ups, kicking Garfield's lead to ten at the close of the third quarter.

During the break between quarters, Knecht growled for me to check-in for Brindle. I hustled to the scorer's table, reported to the guy there, and turned around just in time to see Knecht crumple like a rag doll. Levi caught him on his way down and managed to ease him onto the bleacher seat. There was a collective gasp from the crowd, and then the gym went silent.

A black guy about my dad's age came flying down from the Garfield side. “I'm a doctor! I'm a doctor!” he shouted, and people cleared out for him.

The gym stayed hushed as the doctor bent over Knecht. Knecht looked glassy-eyed, but then he slowly came out of it. “I'm fine,” he whispered. “It's just too damn hot in here.”

Knecht tried to stand, but the doctor put his hand on Knecht's shoulder, forcing him to stay seated. “Rest a moment, Coach. Then we'll go to the locker room. Once you catch your breath, you can come back out.”

Knecht nodded, took a few deep breaths, and then rose to his feet. The doctor tried to help him to the locker room, but Knecht shook free. Everybody stood and clapped, including the Garfield players and coaches, as he left on his own power.

The horn sounded. “One minute,” one of the refs said to Hartwell. Hartwell nodded, and then called us to him.

“I want you to run every chance you get.” He looked at me. “You hear me, Jonas. Push the ball. It's our only chance.”

I looked around at the other guys. They had been staring at Hartwell; now their faces were turned to me.

G
ARFIELD'S COACHES, THINKING THE GAME
was salted away, had their second string on the court. On their first possession of the fourth quarter, a guy who looked like an eighth-grader tossed up a wild shot from the corner. Cash snagged the rebound, hit me in stride, and I was off. Because we'd walked the ball up-court the entire game, Garfield wasn't expecting a fast break. DeShawn filled the lane to my right; Levi was streaking toward the hoop on my left. DeShawn had more separation, but I put the ball above the rim on Levi's side. He caught it and slammed it through, something he wouldn't have done if Knecht was on the bench. The backboard rocked, and the Garfield players looked stunned.

On Garfield's next possession, Nick tipped a pass loose and I pounced on it. Again I raced the ball up-court, this time faking to Levi and taking it to the rack myself. I felt the contact, heard the whistle, but still had enough strength to kiss the ball off the glass. It hung on the rim for an instant before dropping through. After I made the free throw, Garfield's ten-point lead had been slashed in half.

Garfield's coach called time-out so that he could bring back his starters, but their heads weren't entirely in the game. I had to keep our energy high, keep the momentum on our side, and not let anyone lose control. One bad pass, one stupid foul, one forced shot, and Garfield would come roaring back. That's how good they were.