Airball

Chapter 13 - More Time, More Practice, More Perfect

December 18, 2019.

Losing the first game of the season was a big pill to swallow for the junior varsity team. But strangely enough, the JV team seemed to be the only people down about it. Everywhere we went in the school, people were congratulating the basketball team for their big win. It took me half of the next day before realizing that they were talking about the varsity team, who had won their game. Clips I had seen on YouTube and on people's phones were all about the varsity game, and nobody seemed to be talking about the JV game at all. I supposed that I should be grateful. I hadn't exactly performed well that game. And I didn't need to see it on YouTube to be reminded of the terrible plays I'd made. I could see why the coach didn't want me running point. That would've been a disaster.

"Blake!" Cam yelled at me, dragging me away from my thoughts. "You're in!"

I stood up and joined the scrimmage game in the place of Cam. It was Jackson, Chance, Wesley, Zane, and Xavier against Nathan, Finn, myself, Max, and Diego, along with the other playes who would rotate in every now and then. The team matchup wasn't at all fair, and we lost every game we played with those teams, the other team mercilessly destroying us. And mercyless of all of them was Chance. I had known the guy was a jerk, but now? I couldn't stand him. He insisted on defending me every play and every single time I got my hands on the ball he would lean forward and say, "This is for losing us the game", before stealing the ball or blocking my shot or accidentally knocking into me. It was more than annoying, but what could I say? He's the best friend of the coach's son, but even if he wasn't, he was right. I had run it through my head, and between my intercepted pass and blocked shot, I had lost the game for my team.

But there was no way that I was going to let that happen again. That game was on me, but I was determined that none of the others would be. If the coach even ever let me play again, I was going to win a game for the team. But that required work. I had known that before, I just hadn't known how much work was involved. I did now. I needed to train 25 hours a day, or whatever was closest to that amount. And I planned to. So when Cam asked me if I wanted to go to the Shake Shack after practice, I declined. And as everyone left the gym one by one, I was the only one remaining.

I continued to work on my game, running through as many solo drills as I could think of and even making some up as I went. About 30 minutes had passed when I heard someone.

"Hey, Blake!"

I turned to see Coach Myers at the other end of the court, walking toward me.

"It is Blake, right?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"Practice ended half an hour ago, if I'm not mistaken," he said, finally reaching me.

"You're not," I said. "I just wanted to get some extra time in before checking out."

The assistant coach nodded. "Well you do know there's a reason that practice is only two hours, right?"

"Homework?" I guessed.

"Yeah, that's one of them," he agreed. "You got any?"

I shrugged. "Just biology."

"I never liked biology either, but you do have to pass it to stay on the team," Coach Myers reminded me.

"Yes sir, but unless I start failing my biology classmates like I failed my basketball teammates last night, I think I know where I should be putting my time and effort into."

Coach Myers shook his head. "You didn't fail your teammates."

"Well, I'm the reason we lost. Surely you've figured that already."