I Warm The Bench

December 17, 2020.

It was game day, and I was in the zone. I sat sprawled on my own seat in the bus, listening to my Beats and absently scribbling answers down on a sheet for my math homework. Everyone on the bus was doing their own thing. Some were talking excitedly, some were doing homework, some listening to music, some concentrating. I was doing all three at once. My music was more of a background sound as my thoughts took the front seat in my mind. But I wasn't thinking about the math problems that I was answering in rapid fire mode. I was thinking about the game, or more accurately—my game.

I knew that I wouldn't be starting, and so I was trying to calculate how much time I would have to show the coach what I can do. The first game was against Southridge—the Spartans. I knew for a fact that South Miami and Southridge were major rivalry schools in Miami, but I had no idea how much people got into it. Apparently South Miami and Southridge had a history, because that was all I had heard about today in school. At lunch especially, every five minutes someone came up to someone on the basketball team and suggested that we beat Southridge (as if that option had never occurred to us). By the end of the day, even I was cheering on our team more than ever. The South Miami and Southridge rivalry was a big here as the UNC and Duke rivalry was back where I used to live, in North Carolina. Maybe they'd start a High School Gameday and host it in Miami.

"Alright everyone," Coach Hendrix stood up at the front of the bus and faced the team. "We're about five minutes out. Keep in mind that this is a new season, which means Southridge will bring something completely new with them, that we haven't seen before. We don't know exactly what they're bringing, but we're going to match it, whatever it is. Understand? I want each of you to bring your A-game and start out strong. Capiche?"

Everyone nodded that they understood.

"Where do we want the Spartans?!" the coach yelled suddenly, making Blake jump a little.

But the older kids knew what was going on. They all responded: "The ground!"

"How are we going to get them there?!" the coach prompted again.

"Winning!" the team responded.

"How are we going to win?!"

"Teamwork!"

"What teamwork?!"

"Cobra teamwork!"

"And what does that stand for?!"

"Champs Overcome Big Rude Awful Spartans!"

"And who are the champs?!"

"We are!"

"And what do champs do?!"

"Win!"

"What do the Cobras do?!"

"We win!"

Wesley leaned forward toward me. "Did they just make that up on the spot?"

I laughed. "Yeah, let's hope so."

The bus finished its 20 minute commute across Miami five minutes later, and we piled out and into a gym that I had never seen before in my life. I followed some of the others inside, who also didn't look like they knew where to go. Coach Myer didn't even look too sure. Only Coach Hendrix, Jackson, and a bunch of the Varsity players knew their way around. I wondered if I would be just as familiar by the time I was a senior.

We finally made our way to the locker room, where I changed out of my sweatshirt and sweatpants and into my jersey. I stuffed my other clothes into my already bulging bag, which was bulging for a good reason. In the bag there were three changes of clothes: the dress clothes that coach made us wear to school in honor of game day, the clothes I wore on the bus, and clothes for after the game was over. I had been doing a lot of changing clothes that day.

When I had put on my jersey, I looked in the mirror to admire myself. I wasn't one for staring at the mirror, in fact I hardly did at all, but I wanted to see myself in the jersey. I was finally wearing the orange Cobras jersey that I had imagined in my head, with my #2 number on both the jersey and the shorts. I had never thought jerseys to be that big of a deal, but this was definitely a big moment for me.

"Your hair is as gorgeous as always," Cam said, walking into the locker room. "Now come on, we're warming up."

The JV team played before the Varsity team, so the older kids went to sit together in the stands as we warmed up. We did standard shooting drills while Coach Hendrix and Coach Myers looked over the game plan and met with the refs and the other coach. Before long, it was time for the tipoff. I had to stop myself from instinctually going to the center of the court at the start of the game. I had forgotten for a moment that I wasn't a starter. So I sat down on the bench with the rest of the team as Jackson, Chance, Cam, Wesley, and Xavier took the floor. And the game began.

I watched from the sideline as our team started off strong. The same five starters were in for the first four minutes of the quarter, and they were popping off. The chemistry between Jackson and Chance was obviously strong. They had clearly played just as many, if not more, games together than my crew and I had. It was like they knew what each other was doing before they did it, which really threw off the other team. Cam had scored once or twice, and had gotten several rebounds. Wesley had gotten almost as many assists as Jackson and even had even gotten a steal. Xavier had blocked several shots and had gotten some really good looks in the paint. Tucker had subbed in for Wesley later in the quarter and had gotten an assist, but hadn't yet made a basket. Finn had subbed in for Cam and had gotten a nice three-pointer. Jackson and Chance stayed in for the whole eight minutes. At the end of the quarter, the score was 21-15, with us in the lead. Jackson had scored 6 points, Chance scored 7, Cam and Wesley each scored 2, Xavier scored 1, Finn scored 3, and Tucker didn't have any points.

"Okay boys, we started off strong, but it's not over yet," Coach Hendrix tossed towels to the players that had just come out as they sat down. "I'm going to be subbing more this quarter, but the five going in first are Nathan, Amir, Colton, Zane, and Diego. Get ready y'all."

I frowned a little when I didn't hear my name called, but I figured I'd be subbed in some time. But the second quarter came and went, and it didn't seem like the coach had any intentions of getting me into the game. The second quarter finished, with a score of 37-46, with our team now trailing. Nathan scored 3 points, Amir, Colton, Zane, and Max scored 2, Finn scored 4, and Diego scored 1.

"Alright, let's get back into it," the coach said. "This quarter I want Jackson, Chance, Levi, Wesley, and Zane on the floor."

Did the coach forget about me? I was tempted to go and talk to him, but I didn't want to sound like I was begging. No, he didn't forget about me. He'd put me in, he was just waiting for the right time. But the third quarter passed. Jackson scored 4, Chance 7, Levi and Cam 1, Zane, Xavier, Tucker, and Amir each 2, and Wesley 3. The score was 61-58, with us in the lead again.

Coach came over to the side clapping this time. "Great job everyone, nice hustle. Let's finished strong, hear? I want Nathan, Chance, Wesley, Zane, and Diego out there."

My heart sunk. What if he wasn't going to put me in?

"Hey, coach," I said as the selected players ran onto the court, "am I going in?"

"Hmm?" Coach Hendrix turned toward me. "Oh, yes of course. I play all my players if possible."

I nodded, but thought to myself, "...then why haven't I played yet?"

But there was no use complaining further. So I continued to watch the game from the bench. It wasn't until six minutes in, when Wesley rolled his ankle, that I got my time to shine. The whistle blew and Wesley stumbled over to the side of the court, where someone looked at the ankle.

"Looks like it's your time, Blake," Coach Hendrix said.

I nodded and ran over to the manager's table so they could record my number, then took Wesley's spot on the court. The fourth quarter had been low-scoring, and the score was 61-60. Or maybe the other quarters had just been high-scoring. All I knew was that Jackson and Chance were leading the team by far in points.

Chance shot two free throws for the foul against Wesley and made them both. The Spartans had the ball and wasted no time dribbling it down the court as quickly as possible. We were playing man-to-man defense at the moment, and my man was a kid with a double chin, a determined expression, and sweat drenching every part of his body. He was number 13. I stayed on him, but he didn't get much action as the ball was stolen from another player by Chance, who grabbed it and made for a fastbreak down the court. I ran with him and called for the ball when a defender blocked his path, but either he didn't see me or he didn't want to pass to me, because he attempted to take on the defender. He dribbled around the defender by faking him out, which worked as the defender spun around. But Chance had miscalculated a little, because he hit the side of the defender and the force pushed him out of bounds. Chance exaggerated his fall for the pity of the refs, but the refs didn't call anything. So the Spartans took the ball with 1:39 left on the clock.

The opposing point guard dribbled down, faked out Nathan, and went up for a jump shot. The shot missed, but the whistle was blown. A shooting foul. The point guard shot two free throw shots. He missed the first, but made the second. The score was 63-61.

The coach yelled something at Nathan, who nodded before receiving the inbound from Chance. Nathan and Chance ran up the court. I ran toward the basket, then pulled back, dropping my defender for a second. Nathan noticed this immediately, and passed me the ball. As the ball was coming toward me, though, something happened. I unintentionally hesitated and I fumbled the ball when it reached me, dropping it out of my hands. I recovered the ball, but by then number 13 was back on top of me. So I had no choice, my look was gone. I passed it back to Nathan, or at least I tried to. The ball was intercepted once more by the opposing point guard, who tore down the court. And unlike Chance, he passed it to his teammate beside him and they had scored another two points before anyone could do anything about it. It was 63-63, with 1:14 left in the game. Coach Hendrix called a timeout, but didn't switch anyone out. He told us to run down the clock as much as possible and shoot calculated shots, among some other stuff. And then we were back in the game.

I inbounded the ball to Nathan at half court and he dribbled it for a little, not making any moves yet. He tossed it to me a couple times, and I tossed it back. Once the time left in the game was at 20 seconds he passed it to Chance. Chance went up for the shot, but couldn't get a clear look and reluctantly threw it back to Nathan, who passed it on over to me. I was about to send it to Diego when I saw the clock at 15. I knew that if I wasted any more time, we'd lose the game if we missed the shot. I shot the ball from the three-point line where I was standing, but the shot didn't quite go where I wanted it to. In fact, it didn't go very far at all. Number 13 had jumped up when I did, knowing I didn't have much choice but to shoot then, and had gotten his full hand on the ball, knocking it out of my hand. He passed it to the point guard and I followed them back down the court as fast as I could. Everyone on the court followed them down, but number 13 scored the layup before anyone could catch up to them. It was 63-65 with... 8 seconds on the clock.

The coach had no more timeouts left, so I inbounded the ball to Nathan who tried passing it to Chance as soon as he was open. But the pass was intercepted by the opposing shooting guard and Southridge dribbled back up the court slowly. But I didn't attempt to follow. Nathan, Chance, Zane, and Diego, and I walked toward our bench as the buzzer sounded. We had lost the game.