Basketball As An Assumption

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            Rising heat billowed from the collection of huddling men-children. Coach knelt in front of his five chosen players who leaned forward on red-padded folding chairs awaiting instruction, ignoring the heat and the blaring “Cotton-eyed Joe” and the juvenile multi-syllable chants of, “Overrated!” and “Season’s over!” 

            Braden Cowley was one of the five seated and stared down at the blond hardwood, a singular bead of sweat crawling to the tip of his nose. The game had come down to mere seconds, but mindfulness, applying all focus to remain in the moment, had never been his strong suit. Especially now, considering Amina. Because of her, he had to fight to locate the instinct to realize that no shot, no basket, no victory meant a missed opportunity.

            Maybe there was more to this, his life.

            In Braden’s prior existence, his pre-Amina world, that’s what March was all about—shining, in front of all those college coaches who held high school players’ futures in hands that were cold and never trembled. Braden once thought he had aspired to become a cog in the well-rounded basketball of perhaps not a blue blood like Duke or a North Carolina, but maybe a Loyola or a Penn. Someplace where he’d get the payoff for perfecting his jump shot, chiseled by thousands of attempts over the past decade-plus in dozens of gyms.

            Because of Amina, he had to fight to realize the implications of this moment. Coach told him and his folks that he had what it took to play at the next level, if he could make it in the classroom. Loyola and Penn didn’t recruit dummies, but they had to win on the court, too. They needed guys like Braden.

            Amina was calling him from somewhere, like a siren in the sweat and toil.

            “Salam alaikum,” she said, in her soft, lilting voice, replicating the exact Arabic words she had used upon meeting Braden Cowley for the first time in the produce department at Value-Save, where they were unlikely coworkers. Before he began talking to her.

            Salam alaikum. Peace be unto you.

            “Cowley!” coach hissed. “Are you listening to me? What play are we running?”

            Umm…

            Coach didn’t even wait for a reply, but mouthed the word “Unbelievable,” and held his hands in front of him, palms up, in actual protest as the cheers and jeers reached a fever pitch. 

            “Like I just said, we’re gonna run Kansas,” he snarled, as an assistant handed him a scratched dry-erase board that had the outline of a basketball court. With whiting knuckles, coach created red marker streaks, arrows that showed the path to the future by overcoming a 68-67 deficit in a super-sectional, the last stop before state.

            Braden suspected coach had a lot riding on what came next because he had made it subtly clear that the Barton School was not his long-term future. It was his language use that gave it away, words spoken in presumed jest at the end of practices, like, “I hope I remember you knuckleheads.” Nothing more than that, but that said a lot.

            Thus, Braden speculated coach envisioned his own future coaching at one of a hundred NCAA mid-majors, which would be a starting point. From there, who knew what was possible? Duke? UNC? The NBA? Coach had his eyes on a prize much more substantial than mere high school basketball, and his players would get him there.

            Thus, surviving and advancing was for coach a career prerequisite.

            Amina realized this, because Braden had revealed it to her.

            Braden had only taken the job at Value-Save because pops told him he had to pull his weight around here, meaning the ragged brick ranch house in which they dwelled in a middle-class subdivision behind a Walgreens and a Circle-K. Mom and pops had sacrificed a lot to get him to the Barton School to play for coach, who had sworn “on a stack of Bibles” (his words) that Braden would play college hoops under his watch. Someplace prestigious. How about one of the Ivys?

            “Your coach is the one who wants to go to the Ivy League,” Amina had said, looking up from a box of tomatoes and meeting his eyes with her deep chocolate-drop pupils. Braden hadn’t meant to stare, but those eyes shimmered, and she may have thought the same of his baby blues, because she quickly returned to her box.

            “If we win Saturday, he’s saying the coaches of the schools I’ll want to go to will be in the bleachers downstate, checking me out,” he had said. “That’s a showcase opportunity. We gotta win that game. I’ve gotta play well.”

            She said nothing, but turned her head left, then right, either to work a kink out of her neck or adjust her black hijab.

            “Is that what you want?” she finally replied. “There’s no guarantee you’ll play in college. You might warm the bench.”

            Could there have been a little angst, or even anger, at her words? A flash, maybe.

            “What are you saying, I’m not good enough?”

            Now Amina turned and placed her palms on her hips.

            “No. I’m just saying, there’s more to you than basketball.”

            “How do you know?”

            “I believe you’re a thinker. I believe you know exactly what your coach is up to, and that’s out for his number one first and foremost.”

            She paused, then added, “My question is this: Why do you play basketball?”

            Nobody had ever asked him this. For so long, basketball was just an assumption. 

            “Because how I shoot is going to get me where I want to go.”

            “You have far more to offer life than a jump shot.”

            Now he smiled.

            “But you have to admit, it’s a hell of jump shot.”

            “I’ve seen you play. You need to get a little more arc on your release.”

            She’s seen me play? he thought. She went to T.S. Eliot High, the local public school, not the private Barton School. Up until then, their relationship had existed solely within the confines of Value-Save. Could it have wandered elsewhere?

            “Don’t be so surprised,” she said as if in reply. “I’m a basketball fan. I’m a nut for the Bulls and the Illini.”

            Then: “I like watching you play. You flow with the ball. But don’t let anyone use you for their own gain, either your current coach or a future one.”

            At that moment, Braden could now see himself and Amina out somewhere, maybe a dinner and a movie. How about bowling? Did she bowl?

            But now, Braden wondered where Amina was at that penultimate moment of his life to that point. Could she be in the house? 

            “Cowley, when you get the ball in the high post, you’re going to drive and dish to Garner who’ll lay it up,” coach said. “Badda bing, badda boom, and we get the hell out of here and I start prepping for state.”

            The call, the play, was the right one. Braden received the ball on the inbound pass, and dribbled five steps toward the free throw line while two defenders looked to trap him.

            Garner was fighting his way toward the left baseline, and if he could just beat his man, the basket would be clear, because the opposing post had shaded toward the free throw line. The key would be getting him the ball.

            Braden Cowley raised the ball high above his head.

            “No foul!” came a shriek from the opposing coach.

            That was obvious. It would be a stupid move to foul a ninety-percent-plus free throw shooter like Braden. But before the defenders could determine what Braden would do next, he leapt with his toes, the ball departing his palm and fingers, arm perfectly arched.

            The buzzer screeched.

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             Later, Braden only recalled falling onto his backside as the ball sailed unmolested through the hoop. There was pandemonium, jarring enough to remind him to stand so he wouldn’t be trampled by his own classmates. Wouldn’t that be a hoot. Missing state because he got hurt celebrating an improbable super-sectional win.

            He tried twice, and failed, to stand until he sensed an arm looping through his at the bottom of a near-dogpile. Amina used what appeared to be superhuman strength—the power of adrenalin, he wondered?—to get him to his feet. Even when he achieved this, she didn’t remove her arm.

            Everyone else was screaming and jumping and just then, he considered how bowling might be part of his immediate future. 

            Coach burst into view with a severe look, tie askew, sweat marks under his arms.

            “Cowley! You didn’t run the play! What the…”

            Amina loosened her pull on Braden’s arm and took two baby steps back, to allow him to confront the would-be architect of his future.

            Braden already knew what he was going to say.

            “Salam alaikum, coach,” he mouthed.