Chapter 13

He put the JV players to shooting foul shots and had his varsity sit in the stands. He had been told that several people had applied for the JV job.

"OK, two things. Starting today we are playing some zone defense as well as our switching man-to-man. Understand? And we are pressing when we score, every time we score. We press, scramble, but it's kind of loose. Nobody gets behind us, center stays all the way back and guards our basket. The defense is two out front, one in the lane, that's Larry, and two in the back, two-one-two it's called."

In his mind lay the trapping 1-3-1 but that was much more complicated. He had Dwyer's book on it. He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the present; it was problem enough. They still looked unhappy, like they expected to lose.

Larry James, a junior, was six-six and now by far the tallest boy on the team, skinny but eager, he would be the middle man for sure. He was right-handed and, unfortunately, only right handed. He stepped on his own feet when he went left.

"That's one more thing." He raised his voice. "Joe," he yelled, "come here." The boy ran over. "This is Joe Shorts, and we are going to do an experiment. Joe is a hell of a shooter. Watch. Mike, go out and feed him. Joe, do the arc, all the way around like we talked about."

The boy nodded and started on the right sideline. He shot, swished it and moved to his left. The other player caught the ball and passed it out to him. He shot and moved to his left. Another swish.

Around the three-point line he went, a few feet at a time, on both sides of the line. Almost every shot went in, most cleanly, and Mike kept feeding him.

"Stop," yelled the teacher, when the boy reached the other sideline. "Shoot again." He did, smoothly, effortlessly. "OK, back up and shoot." He backed up a few feet. "Back some more. Shoot." He did and again it went in, barely touching the rim. "All the way back, to the sideline." That one went in too. "Come here." He had made nine of his twelve shots cleanly, one hit the rim and two bounced off.

Joe trotted over and sat where the teacher pointed, swallowing his smile. He and the teacher had talked about this show at lunchtime. "Now Joe here is a lousy player as well as a freshman, neither of those things are his fault, exactly. He knows that. He can't dribble worth a darn, doesn't know how to pass, is awful on defense, falls over his own feet. But I want to try him on the varsity for at least one game, maybe two, and I want you guys to help me teach hm how to play. Understand? Keep him out of trouble, He doesn't even know the rules, double-dribbles all the time."

"But he's a freshman. Is that legal?" one boy asked.

"I don't know. Suppose so. I'll find out," said the teacher. "Hadn't thought of that. But is it OK with you guys? That's what I want to know."

Most of them nodded and a few said "Sure."

"OK, I'll teach him how to use picks, and you feed him like crazy and set screens for him. He scores. We win."

Silence.

"He played in the JV game. I guess you didn't see that. Scored a lot of points, couple a'dozen. Never missed. They knocked him down, pushed him sideways, blocked some of his shots, bloodied his nose, tripped him, but he scored and scored and scored. We won. And the JV wouldn't know a good screen if they ran into one. You do."

So with Joe as a varsity player, he taught them the zone basics, used the JV to run an offense again them, and an hour later they ended practice with foul shots while the younger team hit the showers. By then Joe could throw half-decent bounce passes and knew proper positioning on defense and how to shuffle and not cross his feet. He still could not dribble well, constantly looking down at the floor.

"OK, over here, Mike makes two and we go home. He misses and it's up and back, and I want to see you touch the baseline."

Mike missed his first one, and they ran the length of the floor and back to where they started, puffing.

Jim, the other senior on the squad, missed his second foul shot, and they ran again.

"Joe, make two and we go home."

He swished them both and got cheers.