Game Changers--A Benchwarmers Novel

by John Feinstein

  Jeff was a dunk-contest junkie, which he knew made him one of the last people alive who actually still cared about it.

  “They were grown—no joke intended—men,” Andi said. “This kid is how old? Eleven, maybe twelve?”

  Danny nodded. “It was pretty amazing. If he had played us one-on-five, Haverford still might have won.”

  “Almost makes you wish we wouldn’t be up at their place playing when they come back here to play in February,” Eleanor said.

  “Maybe we can make you a video,” Danny said, sounding just a tiny bit jealous.

  “Maybe you can,” Eleanor said, picking up on the tone and clearly enjoying it.

  Jeff decided to change the subject.

  “So, what’s the deal with the new assistant coach?” he asked the girls.

  Maria shrugged. “She’s fine. She’s a nice person. But I don’t think she knows much about basketball.”

  Andi nodded. “Yeah, we’re two for two now. Maybe Coach Josephson can loan her one of her coaching books.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Eleanor said. “I don’t think she wants her to know enough that she might challenge her decisions.”

  “You mean the way Coach Axelson did, right?” Danny said.

  They all nodded. “She knew basketball and she was a nice person,” Andi said. “Which meant that it was impossible for her to work with Coach Josephson.”

  “Why do you think she’s so … difficult?” Danny said, after searching for a word.

  “She’s not difficult,” Eleanor said. “She’s awful. She’s clearly got a racist streak and she’s got some kind of problem with Andi that I don’t understand.”

  “Well, we get a break from her after Friday,” Andi said. “Maybe she’ll come back after the holidays filled with holiday spirit.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” Jeff said. “Bah humbug for all.”

  Everyone laughed. The five-minute bell rang. “Speaking of bah humbug…,” Andi said as they all stood to clear their trays and head to class.

  * * *

  Holiday break was on Coach Josephson’s mind at practice that afternoon.

  “We’ve got two more practices this week, then we go to Ardmore, and then we don’t see each other for two weeks,” she said. Then, to Andi’s surprise, she smiled. “I’m sure you are all looking forward to not seeing me for fourteen straight days.”

  She paused a moment, just in case she caught someone nodding their head—or so Andi suspected because she was looking right at her.

  “If we can win Friday at Ardmore, we’re two-and-oh in the conference going into break. We don’t want to lose the momentum from yesterday. If you guys can get gym time if only to shoot a little bit during break, that would be great. We aren’t allowed to hold official practice at all while school’s out.”

  Andi’s family made an annual post-Christmas trip to Williamsburg. Her brothers would both be home and would make the trip. She wasn’t worried about gym time.

  Practice was no different than it had been all year. The starters remained the same and so did the second team. Andi and Lisa were subbed in as the scrimmage moved along. Andi knew she had been the team’s best player in the Haverford game. She’d seen the final stats as kept by Tina Murphy, who was the team’s manager. They may not have been 100 percent accurate, but they were probably pretty close.

  She’d scored fifteen points—making five of six shots, including all four of her threes—and had four assists, four rebounds, and four steals, all in a little more than half the game.

  And yet she was still playing behind girls she could beat in a game of one-on-one using just her left hand. She was seriously getting tired of it.

  Two days to break, she told herself. Not the time to start something with the coach.

  When practice ended, Coach Josephson told them she was happy with what she was seeing from the team. Andi had several thoughts on that comment but kept them to herself. She was turning to head for the locker room when she heard the coach’s voice.

  “Carillo, before you shower, come to my office for a minute, please,” she said.

  Two words crossed Andi’s mind as she followed her coach across the court: Bah! Humbug!

  23

  Coach Josephson pointed at the chair opposite her desk after Andi followed her into the small office. She reached into a refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water, and asked Andi if she wanted one. Andi nodded and said, “Yes, thank you.”

  They sat down opposite one another. Coach Josephson took a long sip from her water bottle and said, “So, Miss Carillo, I understand you and I have a problem.”

  Andi wasn’t going to be drawn in by a general statement that might lead her down a path where she didn’t want to go. In fact, she was fairly certain she didn’t want to go down any path right now.

  “Problem, Coach?” she asked.

  “I’m told you aren’t happy with your playing time,” the coach said.

  That one was easy to handle.

  “Coach, I think I’m like anyone else on this team—or any team. I want to play. I think I can contribute more if I play more.”

  Coach Josephson took another swig of water. “In other words you think you should play more.”

  Andi shrugged. “Sure I do. I think Lisa should play more, too.”

  “So, you think at eleven you know more about basketball than I do.”

  For the first time a hint of hostility crept into her voice. It was a trap question.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “In saying you think that you and Lisa should play more and, by extension, others should play less, aren’t you saying you know more basketball than I do?”

  “Coach, would you want a player on your team who didn’t want to play more, contribute more?”

  Andi liked that answer. She thought it would—should—put the coach on the defensive. She was wrong.

  “I want players on my team who don’t question my authority,” she said—real anger now in her voice. “I want players on my team who don’t run to the media when they don’t get exactly what they want. I want players on my team who don’t go whining to the entire school when they aren’t getting what they want.”

  She was on the edge of her chair now, glaring at Andi with nothing less than pure dislike in her eyes.

  “Coach, I haven’t gone to the media. That camera crew showed up for the first game just to do an update on me after what happened in soccer season…”

  “Uh-huh. And how did you end up talking to them during soccer season? By whining that Hal Johnston wasn’t being fair to you and then whining you weren’t playing enough even after he was gracious enough to put you on the team.”

  Andi had been taking a sip of water at that moment. When Coach Josephson used the word gracious, she actually spit up a little water.

  “Coach, he was ordered by the principal to put me on the team,” she said. “It was hardly an act of grace.”

  “Uh-huh. So, this time when you make the team, but you aren’t playing enough—in your opinion—you went running to your old pal Coach Crist for help.”

  “I did not!”

  Andi was shouting. Not a good idea, and she knew it right away. “Sorry,” she said. “But that’s just not true. I haven’t even talked to my parents about my playing time.”

  “If you didn’t go to Coach Crist, then who did?” she said. “I don’t think he talked to Mary Ann Hanks about you being treated unfairly without someone bringing it up to him. Do you?”

  Suddenly, Andi knew exactly who had talked to Coach Crist.

  “I can tell you for a fact it wasn’t me,” Andi said. “I’ve barely spoken to Coach Crist since the end of soccer season. I’ve hardly even seen him except going on and off the floor at practice.”

  “History says you run to the grown-ups when you don’t get your way.”

  Andi sighed. “I asked for help once when I was being unfairly denied the chance to play soccer.”

  “Playing field hockey with
the rest of the girls would have been beneath you?”

  “No. I’ve never played field hockey. I’ve played soccer. And I’m good at it. I proved that.”

  “And you think you’ve proved you deserve more playing time on my basketball team, right?”

  Andi paused a split second and then said, “Yes, I do. And I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.”

  Coach Josephson stood up.

  “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”

  She turned her back on Andi to reach into the refrigerator again. Andi turned and walked out.

  * * *

  “Jeffrey Daniel Michaels!”

  Jeff froze at the sound of Andi’s voice cutting through the din of pre-first period in the locker area of the second-floor hallway the next morning. There were exactly two people in the world who called him by his full name—his mother and his father. And they only did so when he was in trouble.

  He wasn’t exactly sure how Andi knew his middle name, but based on her use of it and her tone, he was fairly certain he was in trouble. She was walking down the hallway in his direction, her long strides covering the ground between her and where he stood in front of his locker with almost frightening quickness.

  He suspected the smart thing to do was run. But that would only delay the inevitable—whatever it was.

  “Good morning,” he said, giving her a bright-as-the-sun smile as she pulled to a stop in front of him.

  “Good morning, nothing,” she said. “You went to Coach Crist about my problems with Coach Josephson.”

  Something in Jeff’s gut told him denial would be futile.

  “That’s not exactly true,” he said. “I mentioned to him that the entire girls’ team was having trouble with Coach Josephson. He would have known anyway when Coach Axelson quit.”

  It occurred to him when he brought that up that perhaps he could have claimed he’d done nothing, and it was probably Coach Axelson quitting that had tipped Coach Crist off that something was up. But he’d never been very good at lying. This moment was another example.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, arms folded across her chest. “And where do you think he thought your information came from? Did you not single me out as one of the players who was unhappy?”

  “I might have, yeah.”

  “And did you really think it wouldn’t come back on me sooner or later if he said anything to anyone?”

  “Did he go to Coach Josephson? I told him not to do that—honest.”

  She almost smiled. “No, he didn’t go to Coach Josephson, he went to Coach Hanks and then she went to Coach Josephson.”

  Now, it was Jeff’s turn to smile. “That was probably pretty smart of him, huh? Wouldn’t Josephson sort of have to listen to Hanks?”

  “She listened all right. She listened just enough to call me into her office yesterday and chew me out for being a whiner.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t deserve that.”

  It really was unfair. Andi was anything but a whiner. It had been his idea back in the fall to take her story public to force the school to give her a fair chance to play soccer. She had told him not to do anything about the current situation and he hadn’t listened. Now, he’d gotten her in trouble.

  “You’re right, I don’t deserve that,” she said. Her voice was a lot softer now. A number of people had been staring at them when she first stalked up to his locker. “But I know you were trying to help. You made a mistake. It happens.”

  “I really am sorry. How can I make it up to you?”

  “Have Coach Josephson kidnapped by Santa’s elves? Or think up something a lot smarter than your first idea.”

  The five-minute bell rang.

  “Saved by the bell,” she said. “The good news is, you have all of break to come up with a brilliant idea.”

  “What do you think will happen tomorrow?”

  Andi shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get there.”

  * * *

  They got to Ardmore at three fifteen on Friday. Thirty minutes later, when they came back to the locker room after pregame warm-ups, Andi found out.

  She certainly wasn’t surprised when the names of the same five starters were on the whiteboard. “We’ll sub pretty much as we’ve subbed previously,” Coach Josephson said. “I think we found something close to the right combination on Tuesday.”

  The thought crossed Andi’s mind that any combination would have worked on Tuesday.

  They did their pregame cheer and headed in the direction of the court, which was up a short flight of stairs from the locker room.

  “Carillo, hang back a minute,” Coach Josephson said. She looked at Coach Tuller, who was standing next to her. “Bonnie, go on up and keep an eye on warm-ups, okay?”

  Coach Tuller nodded and followed Eleanor, the last player out the door, out of the locker room.

  “I’ve given some thought to the conversation we had yesterday,” she said. “I agree with you on one thing: a competitor should want to play. But my problem with you isn’t wanting to play. If you had a problem with playing time, you should have come to me. I’m the coach. Not Joan Axelson, not Jason Crist, not Mary Ann Hanks, and certainly not the media.”

  “Coach, I never went to—”

  Coach Josephson interrupted. “Maybe we can start off on square one after the holidays. For the moment, it’s clear you questioned my authority to others and that’s unacceptable.”

  “Coach, I didn’t question your authority to anyone—”

  She cut her off again. “You’re a basketball fan, right? Do you think Bob Knight would tolerate this sort of thing from one of his players?”

  Oh, God, Andi thought, she must have read another book. She’d just compared herself to Bob Knight, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time.

  “So, I’m going to do what Bob Knight would do in this situation. I’m not throwing you off the team because he never did anything that might hurt the rest of the team to punish one player. You won’t play today, but after the Christmas break, you’ll get one last chance.”

  “You think my not playing today won’t hurt the team?” Andi asked.

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” the coach said.

  Andi didn’t have an answer for that one. Which was probably a good thing.

  * * *

  The last day before winter break was the boys’ turn to lose again, and the girls’ turn to get embarrassed.

  Coach Josephson never told the other players that Andi wouldn’t be playing, but it was apparent to all of them by Andi’s body language when she finally joined warm-ups that something had happened in the locker room and it wasn’t good.

  It was Eleanor who asked first, as she was rebounding a layup for Andi.

  “Not playing today” was all Andi said. She could see her friend’s shoulders sag. Andi had told everyone about the Wednesday meeting, and they had all figured there would be some sort of reprisal, but when nothing seemed different during Thursday’s practice, they had all hoped the Josephson temper-tantrum bullet had been dodged.

  Wishful thinking.

  With Andi riding the end of the bench, Merion never made a game of it. As usual, the starters put them in a hole almost right away, the team trailing 13–7 after one quarter. Coach Josephson changed things up a little in the second quarter, adding Lisa to the second five, but it didn’t help much. It was 25–15 at halftime. Early in the third quarter, Maria picked up her third foul diving for a loose ball and had to come out.

  “What kind of dumb play was that?” Coach Josephson said as Maria came to the bench.

  Maria gave her a sharp look. “Dumb? I was going for a loose ball. We need all the help we can get out there, especially without our best shooter in the game.”

  Coach Josephson put her hands on her hips. “So now you want to coach the team, too? Tell you what, go sit with your friend and watch. We’ll be fine without you.”

  Maria glared for a secon
d, then walked down and sat next to Andi.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Andi whispered. “We weren’t going to win with you in foul trouble anyway.”

  “I didn’t even foul the kid,” Maria said.

  She was right about that. Two players going for a loose ball, each with a hand on it. The ref should have no-called it but hadn’t.

  With Maria out, whether because of foul trouble or coach’s ego, the game got out of hand quickly. Every time Eleanor touched the ball, she was double-teamed, and every time she pitched to an open teammate, the open teammate missed. It was often the kind of shot Andi made with consistency.

  The final score was 51–32.

  “We’ve got a lot of work to do after the Christmas break,” Coach Josephson said to the team. “And some of you need to do a lot of thinking about whether you want to be part of this team. There’s an old saying, ‘You’re either for us or against us.’ Some of you girls need to figure out which one you are.”

  “You read that in a book, Coach?”

  Andi turned at the sound of the voice. It was Jamie Bronson.

  The silence that followed was more shock than anything else.

  Coach Josephson stared at her team captain for a split second. “Like I said, for us or against us,” she said. “You all need to think about that.”

  Then she turned and walked out.

  They were 1–3. Happy holidays. Or, bah humbug, depending on your point of view.

  24

  “The problem is, we’ve got some good players, but no great ones. And Coach Crist still keeps insisting on playing Arlow at the point.”

  It was the first Monday of winter recess—two days before Christmas and, not surprisingly, the mall was packed with shoppers.

  Jeff and Andi were sitting in the food court, sharing another Andy’s pizza. The idea of getting together had been hers. She still had some shopping to do, liked the idea of company—especially knowing how crowded it was going to be—and loved the idea of sharing another really good pizza.