Chapter 1

ARDITH GRAVES had finished her fourth and final session of girls’ PE for the day and was headed for two sections of Latin, after she choked down her sandwich and coffee in the faculty lounge. She had a lot on her mind that day. It was only the second week of school, but things were gelling in two of her PE classes. She liked the fact her classes weren’t overcrowded. In fact, none of the classes at Hugh Bartley Senior High in Bartley, Iowa was crowded. In a four-year school with only about 200 students, you didn’t get much overcrowding. Through a number of state and federal grants, the school had stayed reasonably current with the times and well-staffed.

“Jim, can I ask you a question or two?” she asked when she approached the table where her counterpart, Jim Byers, was sitting.

“Sure, Ardith. I’m all ears.”

“How are the prospects for the boys’ basketball team this year?” she asked, seemingly out of the blue.

“Well, we’ll field a team. There’s never a shortage of boys who want to play. Off-hand I’d say we might do better than our two and twenty season last year. But even among the Triple A schools, we aren’t a powerhouse. If we had twenty fewer students in our school, we’d stand a chance in Double A. Only a chance, though. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve got girls who can play ball,” she said. She just dropped that one on the table and let it lay there. Jim pulled back in his seat and stared at her before he started shaking his head.

“No. No, we’ve got too many boys who want the positions on the team. I can’t even imagine the blowback I’d get if I gave positions away to girls. No. You can’t even seriously think the girls could play against the boys’ teams on our schedule. No.” Jim ran out of ways to say no and fell silent.

“I thought as much. The girls would bear the brunt of things with ill will from the community and I don’t want that. But Title IX has been ignored in this school for ten years. That’s the last time there was a girls’ team. What would you think about us starting a girls’ team up again? I checked the IGHSAU website and we could still get registered with a team and get a schedule for this winter. I tell you, Jim, I have some players.”

“The Armor sisters,” Jim said, nodding.

“Right. But they’ve managed to talk another three girls into playing with them. They always split the twins between their two three on three teams but Natalie switches each day. Jim, these girls are good. It would be a shame to waste their talent when an opportunity is right around the corner.” Ardith sat back and let Jim mull that over a while.

“You weren’t here when their older sisters were. Our women’s gym instructor wasn’t really an athlete and didn’t go to bat for them. They just played pickup games and wasted their time here. But two years ago, after they graduated, they went to State and walked on with no formal playing experience. I expect they’ll be the starting forwards this season. Strange isn’t it? That family had two sets of female twins and then followed the second set with a solo.”

“How are we going to fund it?” Ardith asked. “I have so much work to do to get us registered and a schedule pulled together. Then I’ll need to hold tryouts, get equipment, coordinate practice schedules with you and the boys, and put together a winning team. I’m only one person! I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will.” Now Ardith was getting excited. If Jim supported her, it was good to go. After all, he was the boys’ coach and athletic director.

“Wait. Wait. Easy now. We haven’t got it approved by the school board yet. We’ll need to approach it with care. You hit the first obstacle head on. I’m not giving up departmental funding to start a new team, so we need to come up with money somewhere. Let’s give that some thought. You need to handle getting the contacts made and approval for a season. Then get competitors on a schedule. Remember, you can’t have games at the same time as the boys. That shouldn’t be a problem because all the other schools have the same restriction.”

“Okay. You know I’ve never done this before, Jim. I hope you’ll spend a little time with me to get me on the right path,” Ardith said.

“I will, but you need a team manager. As soon as your team is approved, you need to focus on coaching. I know you played college ball, so I’m not worried about you being able to do that. But a team manager can handle all the detail work. Believe me, you’ve only scratched the surface of the things that need to be done. Someone has to organize scorers and officials, make sure balls are properly inflated and ready for practice or games, and even have water ready for the players when they come off the court. Towels in the locker room. Laundry done. That kid’s job is almost as big as yours.”

“Where am I going to find a girl like that?” Ardith asked.

“I doubt you will,” Jim said thoughtfully. “Consider having a boy to do your grunt work.”

“A boy as manager for a girls’ team? He’d be on the make all the time.”

“Not the boy I’m thinking of. He’s a nice kid. Unfortunately, he’s small and wears thick glasses. He tried to manage the JV team last year, but he got bullied a lot by the players. Rogers didn’t let me know about it and let it get out of hand. The thing is, he was good at it but was driven off by a bunch of assholes. Excuse my language. When I found out about it, I put in a request to terminate Rogers and I’m watching Andy, his replacement as JV coach, like a hawk.”

“Would he even consider coming back as a manager? Even for a girls’ team? I can well imagine that girls could be as unmerciful as the boys were. I’d have to watch them all,” Ardith said. Jim laughed.

“Dennis Enders would probably pay to manage your team, just so he could be near Natalie Armor.”

“That sounds like trouble.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’d ever have trouble with Denny. One of the things I like about him is how respectful he is of others. He has a sister with Down Syndrome and he takes care of her as if he were the big brother. She’s three years older than him but he protects her and makes sure she has what’s needed to be successful. I know his mom depends on him. He knows he’s no great catch for a girl and I know he’s got a crush on Natalie, but I don’t think he’d ever even approach her. For one thing, she’s six or eight inches taller than he is.”

“Sounds like a possibility, then. I don’t have him in one of my classes. I’ll have to look him up. I’ve got a planning period between the two Latin classes this afternoon.”

“Now that’s something that has puzzled me,” Jim said. “How did an athlete like you end up teaching Latin. Or even being able to teach Latin?”

“Oh, Jim. I played basketball, but I majored in the classics. And believe me, I’ve heard every dumb jock comment men could throw my way, each of which I answered with an appropriate Latin phrase.”

“What phrase?”

“Descedite pedicabo!” she responded.

“Okay. What does it mean?”

“Roughly, ‘Fuck off’.”

Jim looked at her and both started laughing.

“I had no idea Latin had such a phrase,” he said.

“It’s a bastardization, but it works.”

“Okay. It’s time to bless the little ones with our knowledge. Here I go to Algebra I and II, while you go impart the wisdom of the classics.”

The two coaches left the faculty lounge with ideas brewing in Ardith’s head along with visions of a girls’ championship basketball team.

Ardith didn’t waste any time heading to the school office during her planning period and asking about Dennis’s schedule. During her off period, of course, he was in Geometry. She wrote a note requesting that Dennis come to the coach’s office after school to discuss an important matter with Coach Graves. The note was carried by a runner to Mr. Felton’s Geometry classroom and was delivered. Ardith returned to her classroom and began listing out the various responsibilities she would want her team manager to take on.

In Ardith’s mind, the team, the schedule, the board approval, the equipment, and the State Championship were already a done deal. She conveniently ignored the fact that she had not even spoken of it to the young women to see if they would or even could be involved.

“Coach Graves? I got a note asking me to report here after school. Is this right?” Dennis asked from her doorway. It was the first chance she had to actually lay eyes on the boy. It was easy to see why he was subject to bullying. He was stereotypically a nerd. He couldn’t have topped five-two and a hundred pounds. His hair was untamed and looked like he’d cut it himself. And the thick glasses made his eyes look huge.

“Please come in and have a seat, Dennis,” she said as she quickly scrawled another note to herself to warn the team about bullying. “You were recommended to me by Coach Byers. I understand you have some skill in managing a team.”

“I’m sorry, Coach. I’m not interested in going back to the team. It was okay at first, but the stuff just got to be too much for me. I won’t put myself in that situation again. You might have noticed that I’m not big and strong. It’s hard to defend myself against guys who want to shove me in a locker or ... do things to me,” he said. Ardith came alert. This might have gone even further than Jim knew. She wasn’t sure how she could get to the bottom of the comment about doing things to him. What things?