Chapter 3

It was nice of his big brother Pete to ask, but Cal wasn't that anxious to hang around with Pete's two jock friends. Especially, he would rather avoid that blowhard Brad, star of the basketball team since Dex Madison had graduated the June before. The joke was that Brad was such a prolific scorer because no one could stand to be close enough to guard him effectively. Cal would be a freshman in another month, while Pete and Brad would be the senior rulers of the school's athletic universe, Pete for football and wrestling.

Besides being almost a scratch golfer, Cal was a deadly basketball shooter, and that was why Pete wanted him to join the group assembled by the hoop on the large concrete pad that was the Banners' driveway. Pete did not like Brad much more than anyone else did, and he intended to use his little brother to count some coup on his rival.

In seventh grade, Cal had been able to participate in organized basketball in school for the first time. He very quickly became recognized as a phenomenal shooter but only an average overall player. While handling the ball, he often seemed indecisive and hesitant to act.

The sensei was a pragmatist, doing his best to make his students' martial arts skills relevant to their other interests. Cal had complained about his lack of skill in floor play on the court. "I like to be able to plan things out in my mind," he said. "I can think through a complete golf shot before I do it, but in a basketball game, everything is happening out of my control. I can't plan out my moves."

"Yes, you can plan out your moves," Mr. Yokata assured him. "The difference is that in golf, your move is short and simple. There is nothing to worry about but you, the club, and the ball. The swing takes only a short time."

"In basketball, your plan must take in all of the other players. You must also plan out a longer time." With that, the sensei threw a punch at Cal, which the boy automatically deflected with a practiced move. "Why did you do that?" Mr. Yokata asked.

"That is how you taught me to respond to that move," Cal responded. Without waiting, Mr. Yokata launched a straight kick at Cal, followed by a punch as Cal evaded the kick. Using the momentum from the punch, which Cal had deflected, the sensei unleashed a sweeping roundhouse kick. Once again, Cal used a practiced move to avoid the kick and start a counterattack.

When the little flurry ended, Mr. Yokata asked "How did you have time to plan all of the moves?"

"I didn't. Those were all responses that you taught me. They were automatic. I... Oh!"

"You need your basketball moves to be automatic responses, as well. You also need to plan out longer sequences of moves."

"But it is hard to plan when I have to react to everything moving around me," Cal complained.

"Let your mind plan while your body does automatic things, like running up the court, or dribbling," was the response.

Cal was put into a more advanced level of training, usually reserved for older students. He faced two, then three, then four other students or instructors who had been coached to make specific moves against him. Over and over the sequences were repeated. As soon as he was able to see one attack completely in his mind, a new attack was devised.

Good awareness of his surroundings had always been one of Cal's skills. The sensei was training him to maintain that awareness through complex activities and to learn to plan out his actions in a busy environment. Within a few months, Cal's floor play had improved to 'very good'.

The coaches considered him a throwback. On the court, he showed almost no emotion, except for encouraging his teammates after good plays. As he shot, he seemed unaware of anything but the basket, even if a defender was hurtling toward a certain collision with him.

One outstanding trait that Cal did share with his parents and his brother was his fierce competitiveness. Once he had decided a contest was worth being involved in, he was single-minded in his pursuit of victory. He had not been excited about the upcoming shootout with Brad, but once he saw that there was no way to avoid it, he was ready to go all out for the win.

The four-way game of H-O-R-S-E turned out exactly as Pete had hoped, with the same result in two more games. By that time, Brad was more than a little irritated, and allowed as how some money on the result would definitely change the outcome. Pete could not have set it up better himself.

Money was something that just was not terribly important to Cal. There had never been a shortage of it throughout his life, but neither did he have a lot of things that he wanted to acquire, other than his photo equipment. The upshot was that the money only affected Brad, and when he departed in a huff, he left behind what had been the contents of his wallet.

Pete was beaming, and the other friend was just as happy. Cal was not particularly happy about the way he was used, but thought it no use to mention his irritation to Pete. Besides, he had won, and it was always fun to puncture a blowhard.

Apparently, word of Brad's humiliation spread rapidly because the assistant basketball coach sought out Cal on the second day of school. To his invitation to try out for the team when the season started, Cal responded that he needed to concentrate on his golf.

Not many assistants would waste any more time on a 5'10" freshman after having been rebuffed, but he was a math teacher who had prized Rebecca as a student. He assumed that the whole family was gifted with better than average skills.

Cal did enjoy basketball, but his life was pretty full with golf, martial arts, and photography. There was, however, one important consideration that made him sign up. He knew it would please his parents immensely to see him play a major sport. Pete, at 6'3" and 225, was in line for a linebacker scholarship at a major university. Martin and Elaine wanted to take just as much pride in their youngest, and his making the basketball team would make that very easy. Despite living on a course, they just could not work up the same enthusiasm for golf. Perhaps it was the lack of a cheering crowd.

Cal agreed to try out when the basketball season started. He resigned himself to being very busy for the four months of the high school season. He even considered not going out for the golf team. He had plenty of chances to play and he thought the competition he regularly got from adult club members would be better than on the school team. At least for the first two months of school he could just concentrate on schoolwork and his regular activities.

Best laid plans.

Cal had taken Mr. Yokata's advice about building up his legs and feet very seriously. At fourteen, with his vigorous exercise routine, his arms and torso were developing very nicely. His legs, however, were exceptionally strong and tough. He knew that he would never carry the upper body musculature of his big brother, so he never let up on the leg work.

Back in the sixth grade, Cal had rigged up a kicking dummy in the basement. The problem was that he kicked so hard that the noise carried through the whole house. Since he was up very early for his workouts, the family had to put a stop to that. In some ways, though, that was good. He was able to construct a better dummy on a large, sturdy tree. There was no chance of destroying it, and the noise was not objectionable inside the house.

One morning after the football team eked out a close win, Pete was awakened early by a painful stinger suffered in the game. He heard the pounding noise and looked out to see Cal whaling on his kicking dummy. He was awed by the astonishing speed of Cal's leg and the force with which he struck.

The team was very good, and had a good chance to win their conference. In the first game, though, they had been hurt by giving up good field position on kick offs. There was no one who could get the ball high and deep to help the kickoff team pin the opponent deep.

Pete skipped lunch and talked to the coach. After school, he convinced Cal to come to the practice field with him. Cal was a little confused until Pete handed him a pair of shoes and Pete and an assistant coach took several balls to the adjacent baseball field. Holding a ball, Pete told Cal to see how far he could kick it.

Twenty minutes later the assistant practically dragged the head coach to the baseball field to see how Cal could kick. As it turned out, everyone dropped what they were doing to witness the demonstration.

Cal had played soccer until Khalid died. Just as with his golf stroke, his kicking stroke was incredibly consistent, in addition to his unbelievable distance. Soon, everyone was begging him to join the team.

Being a fan of most sports, Cal enjoyed football, and especially liked watching Pete play. However, given his slight build, he never considered playing himself. He had grown to 5' 10" but had not yet reached 140 pounds. The idea of being a kickoff specialist and spending most of the game on the bench was not at all interesting to him. It just did not appeal to his competitive instinct.

As Cal listened to the coach, it was Pete who talked him into it. Winning was important to Pete's scholarship chances, and Cal was willing to support his brother. By the time he went home, he was outfitted with a uniform and permission forms for his parents and his doctor to sign. Pete was almost giddy with joy over discovering his little brother's unsuspected talent.

When the next game started on Friday night, Cal found himself kicking off on the first play of the game. It was a warm, still night and the ball carried beyond the end line where the opposition could not even catch it. The team scored five times and every one of Cal's kickoffs ended up in a touchback.

The whole Banner family plus Aunt Laura and the neighbors Teri Walts and her daughter Tessa were overjoyed at Cal's success. Just the pride shown by his parents was enough to overcome his original reluctance to play. He knew it was often hard for them to understand him. Having the extra bond brought on by joining the team was worth the time spent practicing.

There were only two other freshmen on the varsity. Between being younger than most players and being the kickoff specialist, Cal was pretty much on his own within the team. Yet, the relative seclusion did not bother him. He was in far better shape than most team members because of his early morning workouts. He worked endlessly at his kicks, ending up with over fifty at every practice.

Football did indeed take up a lot of Cal's days. However, because lots of running was involved, along with weight work, it replaced some of the conditioning he did in his morning workouts. On days with practice, he began getting up later.

That only lasted a couple of weeks, though, as he had begun to enjoy his very early times. He went back to the same wake-up times but started leaving some studying to fill the extra time. It was always dangerous to estimate how long an assignment would take, but there was usually some work that was due later than the current day, and that worked perfectly.

Cal could not have said that he genuinely liked playing football, largely because of his rather isolated team status. He did like being on the team with his brother, though, and because the team was very good, he enjoyed winning. He also felt good about the joy it brought his friends and family to watch him play.

As was his way, once he had decided to play, he was determined to improve. Mr. Yokata gave him some tips and specific drills to increase his leg extension. At practice, he spent more time working on extra points and field goals, although the senior place kicker was very accurate within his distance and not in danger of losing his job to Cal. Punting was much like a goalie's kick in soccer, except that Cal did not kick straight away. The senior place kicker also did the punting, and the coach would not consider giving that job to Cal. Cal was thinking of next year.

Kickoffs and punts are very nervous times for the coach of the kicking team. Too often, it is like playing ten men against eleven. The kicker is often not a strong defender and tackler. Having a specialist as the last line of defense is not a comfortable feeling for the coach. As slim as he was, Cal did not impress the coaches as a good bet for a safety, and that was one reason to keep the senior doing punts, because he was also a defensive back. Kickoffs were a different matter, since Cal allowed only three runbacks in his first four games.

The team was five and oh going into the crucial Homecoming game against their major conference rival. It was a very windy day and the opponent chose the wind in the first and fourth quarters. With four minutes to play, Cal's team was down ten points when Greg Overland, a sophomore backup running back, broke free for a seventy yard score to bring them within three.

The deficit was largely due to two punt runbacks by the opposition's very fast, very shifty return man. The coach was faced with a real dilemma, as the same runner was back for the kickoff. With the stiff wind directly in his face, it was doubtful that Cal could kick much beyond the twenty.

The coach's first thought was to put in a strong tackler instead of Cal and let him kick it short. That, however, would almost guarantee a starting position near midfield. If Cal kicked it low and short, the ball would probably be handed back to the dangerous runner. After a little argument between coaches on the sideline, it was decided to ignore the wind and play it straight up. Cal decided on his own to keep it lower, something he had been practicing.

The kick reached the twelve or fifteen and was wobbling back and forth in the wind. The runner bobbled it momentarily, and that threw the 'gunners' off stride as the return man darted sideways to pick it up. By time he was in full stride, he was already past five of Cal's teammates.

Pete was a regular member of the kickoff team. With his defensive prowess, the coach wanted him on the field for every possible play. He was on the far side from where the return wedge was set up. Even though he reacted quickly, he was well behind as he reversed direction and angled across the field with all of his considerable speed.

During special team practice, Cal had been drilled over and over on his responsibility. He was to wait at midfield until he saw where the runback was going. Then, his primary job was to steer the runner to where his teammates could make the tackle. Only as a last resort was he to try a tackle himself. The coaches probably assumed that if he had to make a tackle, they would be looking for another kicker the next day.

As he always did, Cal had watched the previous runbacks. Because of Mr. Yokata's training, he had become good at catching the little body signals that indicated a change in direction or other move. Although Cal was primarily interested in his martial arts for defensive purposes, Mr. Yokata preached over and over that the best defense was to attack the attacker. Always make the opponent do the reacting.

As was his responsibility, Cal hung in the center of the field, waiting to make a move until it was clear where the runner was headed. As the returner pounded up the sideline to his left, Cal sprinted that way. Closing fast with the runner, who was now in the clear and tasting a touchdown, Cal had no time to do his normal planning.

He had a quick impression of Pete, approaching him at an angle with no hope of overtaking the runner, unless something made him break stride. It was all up to Cal - the game and the conference title would be lost for sure if the runner got by him.

Almost instantaneously, Cal planned his action. He looked as if he was on an unchangeable course to impact the runner at the sideline and knock him out of bounds. Watching very carefully, Cal took his gamble. When he sensed the runner flexing his leg to veer toward the center of the field and slide past him, Cal straightened his head and shoulders just slightly as if he was turning himself to react to the runner.

Using the instincts of all good running backs, the runner saw Cal flinch and turned his planned change of direction into a small fake, continuing up the sideline. But Cal's own feint had not changed his momentum at all and he drove into the ball carrier with all the force in his strong legs.

Realizing that he had been out-juked, the runner made a last desperate attempt to veer inside past Cal. In doing so, he changed the secure position in which he had cradled the ball. When Cal hit him, the runner flew out of bounds, and the ball went its own way, up into the air, but also out of bounds.

The impact straightened Cal up, just inches inbounds. He saw the ball falling toward the ground a few feet out of bounds, with an opposing coach reaching for it. Leaping toward the ball with all of his leg strength, Cal was able to grab it away from the waiting coach and flip it back over his head, hoping desperately that it would land inbounds and Pete could reach it.

In fact, Pete did reach it, and pulled off a runback that firmly cemented him as one of the top college prospects in the country. The kick returner had outdistanced all of his teammates, which meant that Pete had all eleven opponents between himself and the end zone. On top of that, he had just sprinted downfield under the kickoff and then back up and across the field to try to head off the runner.

Pete's lungs may have known all about his sprint and their oxygen shortage, but his competitor's brain refused to acknowledge a problem. He was able to dash inside the opponents' forty before he encountered any defense. The first potential tackler was a defensive back, built for speed rather than power, and Pete simply ran over him. As he was right on the sideline, it looked like the next two defenders had him pinned and would get him out of bounds.

Pulling off a spin move that was worthy of any scatback, Pete left one would-be tackler grasping air on the out-of-bounds stripe. The other was knocked backward by a stiff-arm. That was just the start of the man-against-boys exhibition.

Now angling across the field towards the opposite corner pylon, Pete turned on a burst of speed that his lungs should not have been able to support. Most of the opponents had been in the wedge along the sideline that Pete had just left, and had stayed there when they thought that was his route. Several dashed madly across the field inside the ten, hoping to cut off his obvious route to the far corner.

Pete's teammates had been turned into spectators. The good thing about that was that no one attempted any illegal blocks. Once he passed them on his way toward the goal line, two of the faster men came out of their shock enough to sprint after him.

Seeing a group of three would-be tacklers spread before him at about the eight, Pete came to a dead stop just out of their reach. Turning his back to them, he made an elaborate fake of a pitch-out to a teammate pounding along behind him. Then, he tucked the ball back in and spun back to his right, heading toward the other corner of the goal line. One of the three would-be tacklers got a hold of him as he spun past, but was only able to hang on.

Realizing that he would be unlikely to reach the corner with the boy hanging on his back, Pete turned straight for the goal line, wanting to get every yard possible before he was downed. Another boy hit him from the left side, actually aiding his change of direction, and a third stood directly in his path at the four.

The clip that played over and over on the local sports shows that evening showed Pete plowing across the goal line with a tackler on each shoulder and one draped around his neck, feet dragging between Pete's churning legs. He never did end up on the ground.

After Cal snatched the ball from the coach's waiting grasp and flipped it back to Pete, he crashed heavily into the man, sending three people to the ground. The enraged coach then lost it, scrambling to his feet and delivering three kicks to Cal. Even the lighter kicker's pads made the gesture of frustration laughable.

In an all-too-rare occurrence of good fortune, a referee had been watching the impact of Cal's tackle, the recovery, and the aftermath very carefully. To him, the coach's outburst was not at all laughable, and he threw his flag. That initiated a wild argument, the opposition arguing that when Cal contacted the coach he was contacting foul territory and the play was dead. That would have kept the ball in the opponents' hands.

The referee argued that the coach had interfered and if not for the personal foul, interference would have been called. That still begged the question of the turnover, but after a conference, the referees let the play stand. Later review of an amateur film showed that Cal had already flipped the ball back before colliding with the coach. That did not prevent the play from becoming a major point of contention between the already-bitter rivals.

Cal had scrambled to his feet while the coach was still kicking at him, but he stopped dead before crossing the sideline onto the playing field. He remembered being irritated with himself because he could not remember if it was legal for him to re-enter play. At about that time, the home crowd erupted as Pete bulled across the goal line. Cal's usually reserved demeanor during a game was totally forgotten as he charged toward the celebration he knew would ensue.

For his part, Pete threw his arms into the air in celebration, throwing the still-clinging defenders off as if they were kittens. Then he turned around looking for his little brother. Seeing Cal heading his way, he ran to meet him at about the ten. He spun Cal around in the air a couple of times, and the two trotted to the bench with their arms around each other.

The personal foul penalty was applied on the kickoff. With that advantage and the adrenalin boost of defeat turned into potential victory, Cal was able to reach the end zone into the wind. The ace returner had not yet recovered enough to take the kickoff, and it was downed for a touchback.

Pete's heroics for the night were not over yet, though. On the very first play, an attempted pass, he broke through to the quarterback and sent the boy's helmet flying one way while the ball went the other. After Pete's teammate recovered, the ball was kept on the ground to run out the clock.

The opponents were so demoralized at that point that Greg Overland was able to score again. This time, the regular place kicker insisted that the coach let Cal kick the point, since the game was in the bag. Cal made it.

It was Homecoming. It was high school football at its best, and the fans were as ecstatic as the team. At the final gun, several teammates were about to hoist Pete onto their shoulders. The only problem was that he had already put Cal on his own shoulders and was running onto the field. Cal found it a little embarrassing to have his small size emphasized in that way. However, the thrill of participating in such a joyous occasion with his big brother more than made up for it.