Chapter 19

AS SOON AS THEY were out of the showers, Dennis and his girlfriends loaded into three cars and drove to Boone for the Bears’ first home basketball game. Brenda had played in two exhibition matches the week before, but they were both away and too far for the crew to travel with their schedule. The game started at 5:30 and Brenda was bouncing on the bench from the opening tip-off. They all assumed she might not get to play. She’d warned the crew about having only gotten a couple of minutes in the exhibition games.

The Bears stayed almost even with the Honeybees through the first quarter, trailing by only one point. And to her surprise, Brenda was brought in for the second quarter. The game suddenly changed. It was obvious that the Bears weren’t used to playing the fast break all the time, but when they spotted Brenda downcourt, they threw her the ball and she sank the shot. They did it again. And again. She ended up the high scorer at sixteen points, but that wasn’t enough to top the Honeybees who won 64-59.

The crew was all crazy excited as they made their way courtside to greet Brenda. When they got there, they found Ardith already hugging their girlfriend.

“My first college player!” Ardith exclaimed.

“I’ll make you proud, Coach,” Brenda said.

“I know you will.”

“They gave you number 0? Seriously?” Amy asked as she hugged her girlfriend.

“Somebody decided it would be cute to make my jersey number the same as my dress size,” Brenda laughed. “Will you guys stick around while I shower? I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”

The crew all enjoyed talking to Ardith for the interim while the arena cleared of people. They were all ready to leave when Brenda got back.

“Can you give me a ride?” she asked Dennis. “I’ve got my stuff for tomorrow and I’ll just leave my car here overnight.”

“That makes sense. I can pick you up in the morning and we’ll be here in plenty of time,” Dennis said.

“Pick me up? Out of your bed?” Brenda asked.

“Oh! You mean a ride to my home! Of course. You still want to sleep with this high school student?” he asked.

“I had to fight off two other players who volunteered to take my place,” Brenda laughed. “Did you see number 22? Donna Parks? She had a broken leg when we played our first game last year and was the team manager for Richland. She didn’t seem to be on tonight, but she’s been murder in practice. I love being on the same team.”

Brenda was talkative and not at all down about having lost the game. When they got home, she was still a bit hyper. She took that out in Dennis’s bedroom, being uncommonly aggressive when they got to bed. Dennis finally managed to wear her down after her fourth big O. She curled up beside him and went to sleep.

What Dennis had forgotten was that Wednesday and Thursday were early out days at Bartley and he was supposed to attend his classes at the high school instead of going to DMACC. He shrugged it off, decided to just tell them he forgot, and went to the wrong class. The DMACC classes were more interesting than the Bartley classes anyway.

He was under instruction from the joint coaches to work all three basketball teams hard for a full hour.

“For all of you who come to work out after school each day, the first half hour today will be our usual workout. You’re welcome to stick around for the second half hour, but it will be more vigorous. The coaches have decided their basketball teams need to be in much better condition than what they see. I’ll tell all you athletes playing basketball—and I see some of Coach Byers’ wrestlers here, too—I think the cheerleaders up here with me can outlast you!” Dennis shouted as they began loosening up. “Let’s hit it! One, two, three, four!” The cheerleaders moved into the well-practiced routine of getting people loosened up and their blood pumping. They hadn’t really done deep conditioning exercises since volleyball season had ended, so they were all a little worried about Dennis’s boast.

At the end of an hour, everyone in the gym was gasping for air and taking gulps from their water bottles. Nearly half of the ‘non-athlete’ participants had stayed through the second half. People sprawled on the bleachers.

“Is this basketball practice or Sunday at the beach?” Coach Griffith shouted. “Make your potty runs and report to your team managers for shooting drills in five minutes. Ready set go!” Everyone scattered. The wrestlers were the slowest to move, headed to the training room where mats were on the hardwood. Among the wrestlers was Corinne Klinefelter.

“Hey, Corinne,” Dennis said. “Are they letting you wrestle the boys? Give them experience of what it’s like to get pinned?”

“No. I’m pretty sure I could take most of the boys trying out, but Coach Byers called me up and invited me to be on the team. Rita, Jennifer, and Denise are all out for the girls’ team, too.”

“I didn’t know the girls had a team. It’s not on the IGHSAU website,” Dennis said.

“It’s not sponsored by IGHSAU,” Corinne said. “The IaHSAA sponsors it. The only girls’ sport they sponsor. How about that?”

“Let me know if you need any conditioning help. I’ll do what I can.”

“You know that little volleyball team manager, Thoms? She’s become the team manager for the wrestlers and she’s a slave driver. I mean they. While Coach has wrestlers on the mats, the rest are supposed to work weights. They walk around with a clipboard and mark down our weights and reps and sets. I mean a real tyrant!” Corinne said. Dennis was pleased she was using Thoms’ preferred pronouns even when not addressing them directly.

“That’s great. I’ll get with them as soon as I can and figure out if they need any help cracking the whip.”

Everyone was back on the court and Lana had a rack of basketballs under the basket.

“Line up outside the three-point line. Layups. We’ll start with right side shooting and left side rebounding. Feed the balls back to Lana. Don’t collide under the basket. This isn’t blocking practice,” Dennis called.

As he fed basketballs to the shooters, the rebounders fed them back to Lana. Ardith stood in the foul circle and observed, making notes about each player. When everyone had shot a couple of times from each side, she had Dennis switch them to dribbling practice. Finally, they went back to free throw shooting. In an hour, everyone was dripping sweat and ready for a shower.

The other thing Dennis forgot was that since they were out of practice by 4:15, they’d decided to video a workout session at Tori’s farm. He met Olivia, her boyfriend Jayden, and the cheerleaders, and they headed out to the farm. Jayden, who was the assistant manager of the JV team, had agreed to help Olivia with the recording. Of course, the girlfriends were all out to help as well.

“You know, this is really hard after the workout you put us all through this afternoon,” Fred complained.

“And we need to go into town and get another set of workout clothes,” Claudia said. “We definitely can’t wear what we were wearing for the after-school session when we tape right after. It’s all pitted out. Are we going to tape another long session?”

“No,” Dennis said. “My objective this week is to get half a dozen fifteen-minute routines in the can. These will be the basic intro routines for people just getting started. I want to have a different form for each of the levels a person might go through. They’ll differ by length and intensity.”

In just forty-five minutes, they managed to get a fifteen-minute routine recorded. They stopped to watch the replay on Olivia’s computer and commented about what they needed to do to improve the quality.

“Definitely need background drapes,” Rae said. “Although, I think having a progression that shows how you are moving from an equipment shed to a studio will be good and add credibility to your work as truly being self-started.”

“That’s a good idea,” Dennis said.

“We’re going to need showers after each session. If we do two in a day, we’ll need to shower and change clothes between,” Roz said.

“We’ve got that covered,” Tori laughed. “We have a changing stall and a shower stall.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We often come out here after a hot and sweaty time in the field or playing. We just strip and leave our clothes in this stall and shower in this one.”

“All together?” Sara asked.

“Um ... Yeah,” Debbie said. “It kind of works better that way because it’s a handheld shower and you need someone to point it.”

“But with Fred? And Dennis?” Sara said speculatively.

“Well, it’s up to you all. I’ll gladly take Dennis in the house and clean him up myself,” Tori said. “And Fred—well, he’s one of the girls, right?”

“Honey, I would still hold the water for you,” Fred drawled with a swish.

They all got a laugh out of that and Sara gave him a kiss on the cheek, like she would do with any of the girls.

“You’re so sweet. Olivia, how’s the sound? I keep thinking it sounds kind of hollow when we’re doing the routine.”

“You’re right,” Olivia answered. “I’m going to look into getting a mike on Dennis. If we can find some music I can use, that will go a long way toward filling the hollowness.”

The group broke up and headed to their homes, promising to see each other on Thursday. They chose not to shower in the barn that night.

Thursday afternoon, the conditioning exercises were just as strenuous as they’d been on Wednesday and a few players were second guessing whether they should stick it out with the sport. They all followed through, though, and the coaches rewarded them with their first scrimmages. Dennis called the students who weren’t on any teams together to give them some encouragement.

“You all don’t need to feel obligated to do the full hour that we put the teams through,” he said to the couple dozen who were there just to get fit. “We’re being extra hard on them to get them in the right head space for practice. But you’re here for a different reason. I’m not trying to kill you.”

“I wouldn’t mind much, except that I can’t keep up,” Ray Dietz said. Dennis knew Ray as the grandson of Wilmer Dietz who had made him a good deal on his car. He wanted the freshman boy to stick with it.

“You really don’t have to keep up this week. Well, I guess the week is over since there’s no school tomorrow. Next week, I’m going to split the group and you’ll get your own group of cheerleaders to lead you on a workout that is just a little less fast-paced. And as practice progresses over the next two weeks, you’ll see the conditioning exercises getting shorter for the teams so they can spend more time practicing skills and plays. Before long, you’ll be doing harder workouts than the teams are.”