Airball

Chapter 12 - I Warm The Bench

December 17, 2020.

It was game day, and I was in the zone. I sat sprawled on my own seat in the bus, listening to my Beats and absently scribbling answers down on a sheet for my math homework. Everyone on the bus was doing their own thing. Some were talking excitedly, some were doing homework, some listening to music, some concentrating. I was doing all three at once. My music was more of a background sound as my thoughts took the front seat in my mind. But I wasn't thinking about the math problems that I was answering in rapid fire mode. I was thinking about the game, or more accurately—my game.

I knew that I wouldn't be starting, and so I was trying to calculate how much time I would have to show the coach what I can do. The first game was against Southridge—the Spartans. I knew for a fact that South Miami and Southridge were major rivalry schools in Miami, but I had no idea how much people got into it. Apparently South Miami and Southridge had a history, because that was all I had heard about today in school. At lunch especially, every five minutes someone came up to someone on the basketball team and suggested that we beat Southridge (as if that option had never occurred to us). By the end of the day, even I was cheering on our team more than ever. The South Miami and Southridge rivalry was a big here as the UNC and Duke rivalry was back where I used to live, in North Carolina. Maybe they'd start a High School Gameday and host it in Miami.

"Alright everyone," Coach Hendrix stood up at the front of the bus and faced the team. "We're about five minutes out. Keep in mind that this is a new season, which means Southridge will bring something completely new with them, that we haven't seen before. We don't know exactly what they're bringing, but we're going to match it, whatever it is. Understand? I want each of you to bring your A-game and start out strong. Capiche?"

Everyone nodded that they understood.

"Where do we want the Spartans?!" the coach yelled suddenly, making Blake jump a little.

But the older kids knew what was going on. They all responded: "The ground!"

"How are we going to get them there?!" the coach prompted again.

"Winning!" the team responded.

"How are we going to win?!"

"Teamwork!"

"What teamwork?!"

"Cobra teamwork!"

"And what does that stand for?!"

"Champs Overcome Big Rude Awful Spartans!"

"And who are the champs?!"

"We are!"

"And what do champs do?!"

"Win!"

"What do the Cobras do?!"

"We win!"

Wesley leaned forward toward me. "Did they just make that up on the spot?"

I laughed. "Yeah, let's hope so."

The bus finished its 20 minute commute across Miami five minutes later, and we piled out and into a gym that I had never seen before in my life. I followed some of the others inside, who also didn't look like they knew where to go. Coach Myer didn't even look too sure. Only Coach Hendrix, Jackson, and a bunch of the Varsity players knew their way around. I wondered if I would be just as familiar by the time I was a senior.

We finally made our way to the locker room, where I changed out of my sweatshirt and sweatpants and into my jersey. I stuffed my other clothes into my already bulging bag, which was bulging for a good reason. In the bag there were three changes of clothes: the dress clothes that coach made us wear to school in honor of game day, the clothes I wore on the bus, and clothes for after the game was over. I had been doing a lot of changing clothes that day.