Chapter 4: Frustrations

For the second time, I went to school on a Monday morning expecting to hear my name being whispered behind my back and getting some strange looks. I was sure that most of the girls on the bus, even if they hadn’t personally witnessed what went on, must have heard about all the hijinks, and knowing how rapid rumors spread around high school, half of the student body must have heard about it. But, again, nothing - no giggling comments, no funny looks; it was as if our return trip Friday night had been normal, nothing to see here, folks. That’s when I finally figured something out. At least as far as the volleyball team was concerned, there was an unwritten, unspoken-of rule - what happens on the bus stays on the bus. Good to know.

The next few days were busy but nothing out of the ordinary; then it was like a curse suddenly descended on the team. First, Jennie Scarletti, our sophomore libero, twisted her ankle at practice. At first, everyone thought she had broken it, based on how loudly she screamed, but it turned out just to be a bad sprain. It was serious enough that she was expected to miss the rest of the regular season, and maybe any playoff matches also. That put more pressure on Milly, as our only remaining player with the tools to play that difficult position against good opponents.

The second disaster was when Tina Monroe suddenly quit the team. Carol asked her why, and found out that she was pregnant. She wasn’t a key player, but with Jennie already out of action, our 14-player roster was suddenly down to 12. The four players Carol had to cut before the season started were really missed.

The third piece of evidence that we were cursed was that, for the first time that season, we lost a match. Losing was one thing, but what made it worse was that the team that beat us was maybe the weakest in our district. To put it mildly, Carol lost her shit. After the match, as the girls headed for the locker room, she stopped them and said, “Nobody leave. I have a few things to say.”

I did my usual waiting in the hall routine for what seemed like a long time. I thought they were getting bawled out, but when I pressed my ear against the door, I didn’t hear anything. When the door finally opened, Carla motioned to me and said, “Coach says you should come in.”

I wasn’t used to being in the locker room while the players were still there, and it felt weird. Everyone still had their uniforms on; sitting or standing around, heads hung low, no one talking. A couple of players were even crying. For some reason, it reminded me of a quote from a famous football coach. When a reporter asked him after an awful game what he thought of his team’s execution, his classic reply was “I’m in favor of it.”

After a few more moments of torturous quiet, Carol came into the room. She stood on a bench, staring at every player, one by one, then finally said, “Do any of you know what the word ‘hubris’ means?”

She looked around the room, waiting for a response, only to be met with crypt-like silence. Finally, she looked at me and said, “Alex, you’re probably the most intelligent person here. Why don’t you tell these girls what it means?”

I was surprised that she asked me. Had I done something wrong? Then I realized she probably wanted to include me in my role as assistant coach. I cleared my throat and said, “It comes from an ancient Greek word, and what it means is a feeling of excessive pride and arrogance. In other words, overconfidence.”

“Exactly, Alex, thank you,” Carol said. “So what I saw tonight was a team deeply overconfident. Little or no hustle, bad decisions, some of you even giggling when you made a bad play. If you were an average team, a bunch of girls who just wanted a letter for their jacket, I wouldn’t mind. But that’s not what you are. As I told you at the beginning of the season, we have the potential to go all the way this year, but when your heads get bigger than your butts, this is what happens. Our season might go off the rails from this point on, or we can pick ourselves up and commit to never playing this poorly again. Each of you has to decide for yourself. It’s up to you.”

She turned and headed back to her office, then stopped and added, “I’m not your mother, so away from school I don’t have the authority to tell you what to do, but I would recommend none of you going to the party at Jenna Miller’s house tonight. Yeah, I heard about it. Instead, I recommend that you go home, consider which path you want to take from now on, and get a good night’s sleep. Special practice at eight tomorrow morning. Alex, come with me.” A Saturday morning practice was unheard of, and there were a lot of groans and complaints in the locker room as I followed Carol into her office.

She motioned for me to sit on the well-worn couch and closed the door. She started pacing back and forth behind her desk without saying anything. The more she paced, the more nervous I grew. Finally she stopped and said, “Alex, was I too hard on them?”

There was no way I was going to do anything but support her decision, so I told her, “Sometimes coaches have to use a hammer and not a feather. They’re not used to you yelling at them. You shocked them. I think they got the message.”

“I hope you’re right. After losing Jennie and Tina, I’m worried that we’re losing our edge. But,” she sighed, “maybe I’m overreacting. It’s just one game, and everybody has bad days.”

I tried to make her feel better with a small joke. “Run ‘em until they drop tomorrow, then take ‘em to lunch.”

She laughed. “I don’t think I can afford that. Maybe instead of a hard workout, tomorrow I’ll just have them sit on the floor in the gym and stay quiet for an hour, with no talking. I know from giving students detention they’ll hate that.”

“Quiet meditation, not bad, Coach. And making them get up early on Saturday might be punishment enough.”

Carol was at least smiling more now. I thought the worst was over, but it was just the eye of the hurricane. The rest of the storm was just arriving. She sat down on the edge of her desk, her knees inches from mine, like she had done on that amazing night a few weeks earlier. “Alex, the reason I asked you to come in here with me is that I’ve heard some disturbing reports about how the team behaved on our trip back from Palm Bay. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

What a conundrum. Should I play dumb and lie to her? If I told her the truth, just how far should I go? My uncertainty saved me the trouble of making a decision, because before I could say anything, she continued, “Don’t bother trying to bullshit me. I’ve heard enough to know all about it. I just wanted to hear your side of the story. Apparently, my attempt to draw your attention away from the girls didn’t work. I shouldn’t be surprised that Carla was involved, but I thought you were smarter than that. I don’t blame you, though. I’ve been around teenage boys long enough to know their brains shut off when their dicks get hard.”