The Pathos, The Agons, The Fastbreak

By Christian Hummel | Wednesday, February 3, 1999

These are my qualifications for coaching a basketball team: I've watched the movie Hoosiers repeatedly, I occasionally follow college hoops, and, most importantly, I'm used to sitting on the bench. So when the opportunity arose to coach middle schoolers for Hanover Recreation, I jumped at the chance to demonstrate my considerable knowledge and expertise.

The first thing a coach in a recreational league has to do is buy a whistle. Without the whistle you are just another person who thinks he knows something about the game. The whistle is a fifty-cent coach's license. With that whistle you are suddenly transformed into an expert, into an authority figure. As soon as I bought my first whistle I spent an hour perfecting my blowing technique. Mind you, if you have a whistle and can't blow it properly it's useless.

Following the all-important whistle purchase comes tryouts. Tryouts are generally tough on the athletes. Completely out of the blue they are expected to be able to hit a three, nail a bounce pass, and otherwise run around looking like a basketball player. For me tryouts meant that I actually had to run a drill for the first-time in my life. Naturally I deferred to the older, experienced coaches at first, but soon I realized that I was carrying my whistle. That meant I had to use it.

'TWEEEETTT!!!'

At that sound fifty heads looked at me. I had their attention.

'No! You can't expect to hit a lay-up doing that!' I then proceeded to make an ass of myself trying to explain to some poor kid why his former coach, his older brother, and even his father was wrong in telling him to hold the ball in whatever way he was told. 'In the future, try going to the basket like this...'

'But coach, I can't even see the hoop doing that! Plus, the referee will call me for traveling!'

'Don't worry, if it worked for last year's Florida State High School championship team, it will work for you,' I explained, digging myself deeper into the fraud I had found myself in. Too late now though, I was a coach.

Eventually the other coaches and I held our 'draft' in which we picked our respective teams. The head coach for the age division got to pick the twelve he guys he wanted to form a special tournament team. Beyond the fact that anyone who had any hopes of playing high school basketball just got removed from consideration, the draft is an equitable process in which coaches honestly share their knowledge with each other and help to form balanced, fair teams.

Yeah, right.

The first few practices were difficult. All I could remember from my freshmen year of high school when I played on the junior varsity squad was running a lot. So I ran them. The way I figured, if they are spending their time running, then I don't actually have to teach them any skills or, god-forbid, any plays.

'Come on guys, make a hundred lay-ups in a row, and then I'll let you scrimmage,' I encouraged.

'Coach, when are we going to work on shooting?' one of my charges asked.

'Next week. You guys need to get the fundamentals down first,' I replied.

As the practices went on, it was clear to the trained eye that I had plenty of talent on my team. Sure, they were a little rough around the edges, but what team isn't at first? I had two obvious point guards, a few guys who could post-up well, and the rest worked really hard and weren't afraid to try. Unfortunately all they wanted to do was shoot three-pointers.

'Hey, why did you shoot that? You were barely on your half of the court,' I asked after seeing my twentieth air-ball of the practice.

'I like to shoot threes coach,' the player in question replied.

'But, you haven't made one in two weeks!'

'Coach, come on, I have been getting closer.' I wasn't going to win the battle with this approach.

'Look, you shoot another three and I will bench you the rest of the season,' I said with my most coach-like sounding voice. Unfortunately, the player knew that everyone had to play at least a quarter of each game so he just continued to take the shots.

The first game of the season went well enough. In fact, it perhaps went too well. After driving to some small gym in the middle of nowhere, accompanied by some fraternity friends, I assembled my team and put them through a quick warm-up in preparation for the big game.

I had spent hours the day before sketching out plays in a notebook, mentally deciding who should get the call to start. Should I concentrate on getting some guys in to rebound or should I get a defensive specialist? What about scoring, would my top guys come finish in the clutch? What if we get into foul trouble early?

By comparison, the practices are easy; the parents aren't there to see you screwing up and yelling at their kids. But the parents would be at the game. Perhaps even some grandparents. If they were anything like my father they were going to want to see a victory. I wanted to see a win.

I can't remember if we won the opening tip or not. There I was in my jacket and tie, trying to look like Pat Riley or Phil Jackson, pacing the coach's box shouting instructions, substituting players in and out, and working the referees. Whether it was my brilliant strategizing or the fact that we couldn't miss that day, we won.

In fact we won big. I forgot that this was middle school basketball and I let the score run up to the point that we won by forty points. Nine middle schoolers scored fifty-plus points in twenty-four minutes of basketball. It was as if the old-incarnation of the Bulls had come to town and put on a clinic for the local youth. I didn't feel guilty at all.

But, the gods of basketball were unamused.

The next game was at another tiny gym in the middle of nowhere. As my team warmed up, I noticed that the other team had a tall kid on it. This kid was beyond tall- he was a pituatary giant. He was probably six-feet tall, which for seventh graders is rather large. I knew we were in trouble.

The game went back and forth until the last thirty seconds and then we snapped. My point guard got called for two offensive fouls. I swear, the refs were out to get us. Despite the best of planning, we couldn't get a final shot off and we lost by one. Things went down-hill from there. The last three games all ended in defeats.

Basketball is a game of momentum. If you can start with momentum, you can win. If you finish the game with momentum, you can win. My boys can't seem to do either. Nonetheless, I must say I've been impressed with the progress some of my boys have made.

One has been transformed from a big softy into a good rebounder. Another now at least knows what direction to run. The real pressure lies with the fact that for most of these guys, this will be the last organized basketball they will play. All I can do is make sure that they have a good time, and maybe, just maybe, pick up another couple of victories.

The Pathos, The Agons, The Fastbreak

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