Chapter 21

DENNIS PULLED INTO the parking lot at school and just looked at the building. It was the scene of so much negative and so much positive that had happened in his life that it made him dizzy. He still avoided the boys’ locker room, dressing and showering in the coaches’ locker room. And he wasn’t always sure he felt secure there. Nonetheless, right now there was more positive than the negative vibes put out by Si Goodman. He got out of the car and went to the cafeteria for lunch with his girlfriends.

“Coach Griffith wants to see you before Calculus class, Dennis,” Roberta said. “I think he wants to make a suggestion for workouts, but he might have some other news, too.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t say. Just try to get there as soon as possible after your government class.”

“Okay. I’m guessing he wants to pull the basketball players out of conditioning earlier and get practice started. I’ll have to confirm with Coach Graves,” Dennis said. “You girls are my first priority.”

“We love being your first priority,” Natalie said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“Well, I have to get through Coach Torvalds’ Government class first. Did you see him working out with the teams last week? I never expected that!” Dennis said. He promptly forgot all about Coach Griffith.

“Dennis, please. A minute with you?” Neil asked as Dennis sat for class. He jumped up, remembering the request to meet.

“Yes, sir. Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”

“No problem. Just a sec. Class, please hand your papers to the person next to you and check the answers against the sheet I have projected on the screen. I’ll be with you all in a minute.” He saw Leanne snatch the homework from Dennis’s notebook and set about correcting both his and Bob’s papers. He was sure Dennis’s wouldn’t need much. “Now. Two things. First, Ardith tells me you have some good dribbling drills in your repertoire. I swear some of these guys act like they’ve never touched a basketball before. I’m wondering if you could shorten the usual workout to forty-five minutes and spend fifteen minutes working with all three teams on dribbling skills. I’ll have the other five team managers make sure all the basketballs are in the gym so they can feed them out to the teams.”

That was almost what Dennis expected as far as shortening the routines. He wasn’t expecting the dribbling lessons, though.

“Sure. I can do that. I haven’t worked with the cheerleaders on dribbling, though. We’ve only done floor exercises.”

“That will be okay. Don’t know if the cheerleaders will want to learn to dribble anyway. But there’s one other thing. I discussed it with your mother in our conference Thursday.”

Dennis wasn’t even aware that his mother had a conference with Coach Griffith on Thursday. Yes, it was Parent-Teacher conference day, but that didn’t mean all parents and all teachers.

“We just got approval to offer this class as a college credit course. I have three of you I’d like to make that offer to. You’ll get credit both here at Bartley and five hours per semester of college credit at DMACC. I understand you’re already taking courses there and this could advance your program significantly. Interested?”

“Wow! Yes! Is there a significant amount more work I need to do?” Dennis asked.

“Some, but I don’t think it is beyond either you or Leanne. I met her earlier today. There’s a syllabus and description of the differences on our website. Just go to our usual assignments page and you’ll see the link,” Neil said. “Now I need to get back to the whole class.”

“Yes, sir.” Dennis was a little shocked at the proposal, but the idea of picking up an extra ten hours of credit for a course he was already taking anyway appealed to him. He glanced over at Leanne and she winked at him.

“We’re going to accelerate the workout a little today. Loosening up and aerobics will take twenty-five minutes and conditioning will go just twenty minutes,” Dennis explained to the cheerleaders. “I was kind of expecting this to happen, so the music cuts will work fine. Just follow my lead for what exercise we’re jumping to. Then I’m going to work with the basketball teams on dribbling for fifteen minutes.”

“You have exercises for that?” Fred asked.

“Drills. Apparently, some of the players can’t keep the ball off their feet.”

“How about if we take the non-team members, who aren’t headed straight to the weight room for wrestling, and lead them in some slower stretching and flexibility routines?” Sara asked. “I’ve been feeling like we should be doing that with them anyway but were too rushed to clear the gym.”

“I like that idea, Sara. Let’s plan on it. The gym will be noisy, though. Fifty basketballs bouncing at once really make a racket.”

The compressed exercise routines went fairly well and the whole group was surprised when the non-team students were split from the basketball teams and the team managers rolled ball racks onto the gym floor to pass them to the players. The racket of balls bouncing began almost immediately and Dennis blew his whistle to get everyone’s attention.

“We’re going to do some dribbling exercises before you break for your practice courts. I want you all to focus on the ball and the rhythm I set. Dribble with your right hand only,” Dennis called. He began dribbling and waited for everyone to come into some semblance of rhythm with him. He kept the rhythm slow and easy, something that is hard for new players to master. The tendency among new players was to pound the ball harder when they are learning to dribble. There were still a few out of rhythm when he called, “Switch to the left hand. I want to see all eyes up here as you control the ball. Focus on where the ball is all the time.”

The switch to most players’ off hand was met with several balls getting loose and players scrambling to retrieve them—sometimes knocking someone else’s ball loose in the process. Dennis maintained patience with them and saw more and more eyes focusing on him.

“Switch hands back and forth. Right, left, right, left. Keep your eyes up but your focus on knowing where the ball is.” Next, he had them advance forward while dribbling. Then they backed up. All the time, with his constant beat and rhythm. “We’ve only got a few minutes here before the coaches are going to take you for practice. They just wanted to make sure you could dribble the ball before you start learning plays.”

“What makes you such a hotshot dribbler?” Bryce Miller asked. “I think I’ve got more experience on the basketball court than you do.” The senior guard was probably one of the most experienced players on the team next to Rick Probst. Dennis estimated Bryce was an inch taller and might have a little reach on him, but he’d never shown evidence of being a great player in the team’s 3 and 19 season last year.

Whistles blew as if the coaches were expecting this. Maybe they were.

“It seems like every single sport needs a demonstration from their trainer as to why he’s the trainer,” Coach Griffith said. Coach Andy and Coach Graves stepped up beside Dennis to confer.

“Are you up to a one-on-one demonstration?” Ardith asked.

“What do you all have in mind?” Dennis asked.

“You face Bryce and see if he can stop you from dribbling around him to score. Straight one-on-one rules, just to five baskets,” Andy said.

“I guess I’m okay with one-on-one. It’s when there are people I can’t see coming from the sides that I get knocked silly,” Dennis said.

“I saw you work with the girls last year when you were short a player and your sixth sense seemed to be pretty sharp,” Andy laughed.

“May the force be with you,” Ardith agreed. She glanced over at Neil and nodded.

“Now, since you need a demonstration as to why we have Dennis teach basic skills, Bryce, come out here and face off against Dennis. You’ve all had some instruction on one-on-one rules. Bryce, you will feed the ball to Dennis and Dennis will try to dribble around you for a score. If you block his shot or steal the ball, you take it to half court and try to dribble around him. We’ll play this to five baskets. Everyone else to the sidelines and watch both of these players for what they do wrong and what they do right. There will be a test!” Neil shouted.

Dennis took his place at half court and Bryce faced him with a sneer.

“Right. Bring it,” Bryce said as he passed the ball to Dennis from ten feet away. As Dennis expected, he followed the pass, charging hard. Dennis didn’t bother to catch the ball, but sent it straight into a dribble between Bryce’s legs. He picked the ball up on the other side and drove to the basket for an easy layup. He jogged back to half court, letting one of the team managers chase down the ball and pass it back to Bryce. The guard was more wary this time and threw the ball more slowly so he could get in position to move with Dennis.

Dennis started dribbling to his right and Bryce defended well, slapping ineffectively at the ball. During the exercises, Dennis had focused the team on smooth even dribbling in a constant rhythm. That was nothing like how he dribbled against his opponent. The rhythm was so irregular that Bryce could never tell when the ball would leave Dennis’s hand. This time, Dennis drove to the left, passing the ball behind his back and switching directions on a dime to drive to the other side. Bryce stayed between him and the basket, but Dennis stopped short and lofted the ball over his opponent’s head for an easy basket.