Exercise Is Fun, Change My Mind

November 11, 2019.

Before I knew it, it was Monday morning. Time for tryouts. From what I'd heard, South Miami High held their tryouts after school. Everyone, from Freshman to Senior, who wanted to play would show up try out. Then, after the tryouts, the coaches would decide where to place everyone, either JV or Varsity. A year ago, I might have been training hours on end to be placed on the varsity team. But I knew better now. I would be lucky if there was even a place for be on the junior varsity team.

Besides, I didn't want to leave my former teammates to play on varsity. The plan had been for all of us to play JV until we were all good enough to move up to varsity. That way we would stay together, like a team should. So I had my eyes fully focused on making the junior varsity team. I was ready to give it my all, no matter what happened.

I wasn't really nervous or anything, but I had a feeling that I probably should be. After last year, with a whole championship game heaved on the back of the "star player", nothing really stressed me out. If I could come through with all those people watching pretty much me alone, nothing else seemed too bad. And these were just tryouts. I tried to get myself back into the overconfident swagger that I had put on for my previous tryouts, I knew it wasn't the same. My playing wasn't the same. I wasn't the same. All of these thoughts were lost on me, though, as I flew through my daily routine and jogged to school.

The day went be pretty quickly, actually, all things considered. For the first time in probably the whole school year, I could talk openly with all my friends. I avoided and kept secrets from no one. It was refreshing.

"I told you coming clean would make you feel better," Austin said at lunch.

"Uh-huh," I replied. "And how can you tell I'm feeling better?"

"Dude, you're back to yourself again," Austin said.

"Back to myself?"

"Definitely," Max said.

Austin, Cam, Nathan, and Max all have the same lunch as me. Second lunch. I had been skipping lunch for tutoring in biology for awhile. Not that I cared much about being better at biology, but it had been easier than lunch with friends that didn't know I was planning on betraying my promise to them. I no longer had to worry about that, which was yet another relief this week was bringing.

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"Oh," Cam started, explaining to everyone else at the table. "So in biology, right, our teacher was giving us a lecture. Well, during the lecture, she asked us all what the fastest way to determine the sex of a chromosome," Cam paused to laugh a little. "And Blake here goes, 'Pull down his genes?'"

This got a faint reaction from Austin, Nathan, and Max, not at all what Cam had hoped for.

"Get it?" Cam asked. "Like genes, but like jeans?"

I nudged him in the shoulder to save him from more embarrassment. "I think they got it, man."

"Ah, well," Cam resigned. "You had to be there."

"We get what you're saying, though," said Austin. "In middle school, he used to make remarks like that in the middle of class all the time."

"I remember that," Nathan said. "Had the whole class rolling in laughter. Every time."

I didn't know what to say to any of this, but thankfully the bell came to the rescue. I threw my trash away and headed to fourth block, which came and went just as quickly as the rest of the day had. I felt alive in the classes, woke with anticipation. I hadn't slept through math class or biology or any of them today. It was the same feeling as when I used to have games that night. I was mentally preparing myself hours before the game so that my head would be clear during the game itself.

Before I knew it, I was standing in the school gym, milling about along with roughly a couple dozen kids. I felt right at home standing on the court. This gym was about the same as my middle school's gym, since all gyms are pretty much the same. My middle school's team color, green, was replaced by a warm orange color, one that matched the jerseys. When I would come here to watch the high school team play, I would try to imagine myself in the orange jersey, running across the orange-themed court. That dream wasn't too far off from becoming a reality—if I could make it past tryouts, of course. And I was going to try. I was going to give it all I had.

I noticed some of the taller kids throwing a ball around—probably seniors—but other than that, everyone was mainly just wandering around, waiting for it to start. Cam, Nathan, and Max found their way over to me.

"Crazy, huh?" Cam grinned at me. "That we would finally be here. We spent so long watching them play and talking about what we would do differently. Now we're here. We're about to be part of the team, man!"

"If we can make the team," I pointed out.

"Don't look at it like that," Max advised. "We'll do fine. All of us."

"Yeah, just wait until scrims," Nathan said. "We've got those in the bag."

I nodded and looked over at the older players, some of which I recognized from when my friends and I would come at watch games here. I recognized two twin brothers, Levi and Liam, both of which were juniors. I recognized Gavin, who was the senior point guard and someone I always looked up to. I recognized a few more faces, but couldn't place them with names. All of the sudden I felt really short. I had never been thought of that way before, but I had never been the tallest player in the league. Some of the older kids I was seeing now made me seem not so tall. But those were the types of players who would get on the team on build alone, not on skill. I suspected I could beat at least one or two of the taller ones in a one-on-one. At least, I could have in my prime. My "prime". This was getting sad—I really needed to get back to where I was.

Fweet!

A whistle blew and I grinned. I couldn't help myself, that sound was music to my ears. A man I knew to be the head coach stepped forward and everyone fell back along the baseline, forming a clumsy looking horizontal line.

"Okay, welcome to the 2019 and 2020 men's basketball season tryouts," the head coach said. "My name is Eric Hendrix and, for those of you that don't already know, I'll explain how this works. Here at South Miami High, we're known for having a decently-strong basketball team. We're planning on expanding that reputation this season. But as you might guess, some of the players that have carried the team the past couple of years will soon be moving on to new chapters, and we'll need players to take their place."

The older players looked sideways, examining new faces they saw. They looked out around the team as if they were a parent, trying to chose which child would receive their belongings.

"Behind me is the assistant coach, Coach Myers," the head coach continued, gesturing to a man standing to his side. "We will both be expecting your upmost respect. Our goal is to teach you, and therefore, you must be teachable. Today is merely tryouts, but I plan to go about it like it's a real-deal practice, and I expect you to treat it as such. Remember, no one is guaranteed a place on the team. I don't want to see any fooling around. Your overconfidence could cause you your spot on this year's team. Now, as always, I'm going to be dividing the players that make the team into three categories. Junior varsity, varsity, and a little bit of both. Varsity will be the best of the best on the team and will hardly consist of any of the younger players here. But younger players, I need you to prove yourselves to me, and I might just put you in for a varsity game and see how you fare. I expect the best out of all of you today, hear?"

There were nods among the crowd, along with some loud cries.

"I said, hear?!" Coach Hendrix roared, making me flinch a little. Everyone else seemed to have the same reaction.

"Yessir!" everyone shouted at once.

"Alright!" Hendrix yelled. "We're going to start this off the same way we're going to start everything off. Suicides, go!"

Everyone groaned and starting off running down the court.

"How many?" someone asked.

"Until I say stop," the coach replied.

I didn't mind suicides. I actually enjoyed them, regardless of the fact that they were made to destroy the human body. The idea was you would run from the baseline of the court to the free throw line, smack the free throw line, and then go back to the baseline, smacking that line too. Then you'd go further and further down the court until you go baseline all the way down to the other baseline, smack it, and come back. Then repeat. It felt like exactly what it sounded like. Torture. But it depended on how you'd look at it. I had done suicides too many times to count, and it still took its toll on me. But the pain made me stronger, so I embraced it.

A couple minutes of running later, the coach blew his whistle, an indication that we could stop. I finished the lap I was on and headed back to the baseline. I put a hand on the gym wall and panted. I noticed that only me and two other younger-looking kids were standing. Everyone else was sprawled on the floor.

"What do you think you're doing!"

I closed my eyes. Without even looking, I knew what had happened. Someone had stopped in the middle of the court when the coach had blown his whistle. I turned to look. Four kids—freshmen, I'm assuming—were sitting down in the middle of the court, looking innocent and wondering what they did wrong. I took some time to feel bad for them. I knew what came next.

"We just... stopped," one of the freshmen said softly.

"First lesson!" the coach shouted. "When the whistle blows, always finish what you're doing. I will have nobody, ever, giving up on my court without getting the job done. If you miss a shot, shoot it until the thing goes in. If you're running suicides, finish them before resting. Always finish what you start! You four, give me three more suicides."

I winced. Imagining running two more suicides even made me hurt, and I was probably among the fittest on the court, at least in my age group. I watched as the four freshmen painfully ran another three suicides. I made a mental note to give them some pointers about basketball practice if they did make the team.

In the middle of his second suicide, one of the chubbier freshman fell on his knees to the floor, clutching his stomach.

"What are you doing?" the coach asked. "Get back up and run!"

Instead of getting back up, the kid rolled over flat on the court. Sweat was dripping from his forehead.

"I said, get up and run!" the coach yelled again. But the kid wasn't moving. "I will wait here until you get back up and run your two more suicides."

I could tell that Coach Hendrix was really going to wait until the kid did his suicides. I felt bad for the kid. I understood what the coach was doing, pressuring the freshman into doing his best, but I still felt bad for the guy.

"Get up and run!" the coach yelled again.

"Hey, coach!" I heard myself call out.

Coach Hendrix looked over at me.

"Let me do it," I said. "I'll run the suicides for him."