Patri raised a tentative hand.
“Coach, I’ve been wondering all season, who is this guy Chuckie Chase?”
The remark was greeted first with silence, then awe, then cries of “Patri?” by way of disbelief, then “Patri!” by way of affection. Had Patri really assumed Chuckie Chase was a person, someone she apparently missed meeting because of her junior year in Chicago? The lightness of the moment helped cut some of the anxiety.
Coach Moyer signaled to Trish Lea, the coach of the junior varsity and his assistant in the postseason: Would she say a word or two?
A likable, serious young woman studying at the university, she frequently voiced the opinion that she wished her own high school basketball team had been more like the Hurricanes. She admired the way the Hurricanes had been coached: Coach Moyer kept the girls progressing mentally and physically. It was not as if the final game were a cliff he was asking them to climb; it was a ladder. She admired the way he got the girls to discipline themselves. Sometimes after practice they’d head over to the U Mass football stadium, all of them, not just Kathleen, and they’d run up and down the stairs all on their own. Jen and Jonesbones liked to do sit-ups before they went to bed because they liked drifting off with a sore stomach. The trouble was the Haverhill girls had in all likelihood been doing the same since September.
She cleared her throat and even looked a touch fearful herself as she explained what it had been like back when she played in the Merrimack League against the mighty Hillies from Haverhill in their brown and yellow uniform with the short shorts. What she had to say was not what anyone wanted to hear at the moment, but the team listened attentively anyway.
“First of all, they’re big. I don’t know what they eat up there. They’re confident. When you go out on that floor, they’ll rattle you. They’re known for their aggressive ball, nothing dirty but just short of it. They have two players, Amy Veilleux, six feet, one inch, and Shawna Murphy, who is six feet tall. Everyone calls them the Twin Towers.”
The Hurricanes stared at Trish: Oh, no. Two of them that tall? Their one loss this season in Agawam had been against the only team in their league that had any real height.
“Haverhill,” said Trish, “can be slightly ruthless. In order to beat them, you have to outplay them. You have to outrun them. Their trick is to get the ball from the guard to the center, to feed the ball inside. You have to position yourself to defend them. If their big guy is at the basket, you have to stop the pass, and then that destroys the whole play.”
Haverhill had beat Hamp in the previous season for the state title. The Hillies had preprinted WE’RE #1 T-shirts, which they’d pulled out of their gym bags and donned at the end of the game.
Coach Moyer’s face was grave and tight-lipped.
“Expect,” he said, “to play a little football.”
And then, it was time for the last tap drill of the season, the last tap drill ever as high school players for Jen and Jamila and Kristin and Kathleen and Kim and Patri. All the players lined up in formation, and the first to get the ball in the basket shouted “Tap!” Then, “Drill!” Then, “Hoop!” Then, “Phi!” The bounce of the ball blended with the words, and echoes ricocheted beneath the cavernous ceiling, a final call to arms: Tap, drill, Hoop, Phi, tap, drill, Hoop, Phi, tap, drill, Hoop, Phi.
Later that night, Rita made this entry in her journal:
Wonderful evening. After a very satisfying practice, we all went to Jamila’s. Why is this so great? First, the food was magnificent, pasta, garlic bread, salad, cake, yum. We watched a thing on the victories of the Chicago Bulls—very inspiring. J’s brother played the piano and sang for us—beauteous team moment. But the best—Jenny. She sat next to me at dinner and was really chummy and funny and then during the movie it was really sweet. She was sitting on the couch, I was on the floor in front of her so I was kind of protected, supported.
“Mom, we’re going to be late.”
It was Diane Stanton’s teenage son, Chris, the captain of the boys’ team, calling out, eager to get to school.
“Just a minute more. I’m printing out.”
On the morning of Wednesday, March 16, the weak-tea winter sun had not yet had a chance to rise when, in one of those old, low-slung, gawky farmhouses in North Amherst, with a tin roof on the outside and odd surprise pantries and boarded-up fireplaces on the inside, a woman woke in the darkness, slipped out of bed, and fired up the computer in the corner of the room next to the only window. Diane Stanton sat on a rocking chair that had belonged to her grandmother, and she began to type a note to Jen and to Jamila. She planned to ask Chris to give it to one or the other during school that day, and she hoped the girls would share it with the rest of their team.
Diane Stanton is the mother of two sons and one of those women in Amherst who is a fixture at sporting events, as a spectator or operating the concession stand or running a car pool or collecting tickets. Her husband umps and refs and coaches. At Christmas they string lights on their outdoor hoop.
Sons and sports are relatively easy. If a boy has any native aptitude, or even if he lacks skill but possesses that funny abstract gift of coachability, chances are there is a playing field out there waiting for him.
In boys’ bedrooms, you’re used to seeing framed photos of Fenway Park or posters of Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal or David Robinson, pictures of their fathers and their grandfathers in their hockey uniforms or playing lacrosse or on a school team. You’re used to them getting Sports Illustrated for Kids and owning a sports encyclopedia and a sports dictionary, and when it comes time to bring in a fact about the Middle Ages for a school project, they come up with something about how soccer began in China as a game where soldiers played with a dead enemy head and then moved to England in the fourteenth century.
You’re used to seeing their rooms and the garage and the various hallways in the house overtaken by athletic equipment—knee pads and whistles strewn about with the graphite baseball bats and the assortment of gloves (one for catching, one for infielding, and one for their father) and a batting helmet and a dozen balls and uncountable baseball hats. There are basketballs, plus shoes, usually a minimum of two pairs, this year’s and last, and sometimes there are soccer balls and of course a pair of cleats. Depending on whether your son goes for the quieter father-son stuff, there might be some lightweight L. L. Bean waders and a Patagonia fly vest and a Bean’s six-weight fly rod with a Martin single-action reel. He might also have a wet suit and boogie board, skis and a trail bike. It’s common to have a basketball hoop or at least access to one. It’s less common but not unheard of to have a batting cage; at least one family on Southeast Street floods its yard in the winter so their boys can skate on their own private hockey rink.
In Amherst, the social life of a lot of boys consists of going from tryouts to scrimmages to games of teams sponsored by places such as Pinocchio’s Pizza, Paige’s Chevrolet, Matuszko Trucking. At the end of the season there is a celebration called, with false ennoblement, a banquet, in which a buffet of food presented in tin bins is served, and at which the players wear their only tie and earn awards like the “Mr. Hustle” certificate. They spend their summers at sports camps being assessed in categories ranging from ball control to dribbling and shooting and passing and creativity with ball and creativity without ball and vision and rebounding and crossover steps and one on one and T-slides (a drill in which a player practices moving from side to side and backwards and forward) and zigzags and tap-rebound drills and pivot drills and superman drills and spin dribbles. There are boys in Amherst who have so many trophies that they have actually given some to their sisters.
You hear the men talk, those fathers and sons, and it is not always possible to distinguish who is saying what, because they all agree with one another so totally.
“Some people belittle sports,” says one.
“Dismiss games as a series of silly maneuvers
.”
“Life is maneuvers,” says one.
“And life’s not silly.”
For years Diane Stanton had been on the sidelines, watching and listening. Over the years, she had observed hundreds of kids, and Jen and Jamila stood out; it takes tremendous courage to play as a girl in an all-male Little League and as a girl in an all-male basketball league.
In the weak early light, she thought about them and of course made inevitable comparisons to herself:
Jenny and Jamila didn’t fall victim to “girl” things—like extreme flirting, acting dumb around boys when, in fact, they are intelligent, being less than they could be in sports. I was somewhat like them when I was their age. I didn’t play head games with the boys; I was their friend. In fact, the guys in high school used to call me “one of the guys.” I never acted dumb in class—at least not any dumber than any other teenager! I did some flirting, of course, but that’s natural. The only thing different that I found was that I wore a lot of miniskirts—girls these days don’t wear dresses as much.
I never, never compromised my physical ability. I remember once going on a double date with my (then) best friend and we went bowling. It was a first date for me with this particular guy. Her date was fairly new as well. I happened to be bowling really well. I bowled a 224—the highest score I had ever gotten even when I bowled in a league! But it was during this game that I realized that I was different than her. She came up to me at one point during the game when I had gotten a few strikes in a row, and she asked me not to bowl so well. I was stunned. I’m sure my mouth was probably open!! She went on to explain that I was not being a good date since I was beating everyone there (meaning the two guys). I simply said something like “So what?” and continued to bowl my way. I noticed that she was throwing a few more gutter balls than she would normally get. I didn’t let it bother our friendship, but I never forgot what that meant either. She had temporarily forgotten about self-respect.
As I watch Jen and Jamila play, I realize that a part of me was like them. A part of me that I hadn’t been in contact with for a long time. I began to question where my courage had gone, the tenacity to be my best, the desire to do things just for myself.
I don’t know why some women lose this part of themselves. I don’t know if we just shelve it to take care of our families because we think that’s the sacrifice we need to make or if circumstances just force us to leave it behind or what the reason is. I do know that many, many women did and still do leave a part of themselves behind when marriage and children come along. I grew up in a very equality-minded family. My parents just did the work, it didn’t matter if my father mopped the floor or ironed the clothes, or my mother mowed the lawn or vice versa. So my role models were what any feminist would want for a young female.
No matter how many people stand up on a soapbox and try to knock the importance of sports, I believe sports added to Jen’s and Jamila’s development in a very positive way. It gave them more confidence, more self-awareness, more pride. Sports were not responsible for these traits, it just enhanced these existing traits.
And so the thoughts washed over her and crystallized into phrases and then sentences and paragraphs as she composed her near-silent music at the keyboard, click, click, click.
At four that afternoon, the voice of Coach Moyer rose above the din of shuffling footsteps, loud greetings, the slamming of metal, the thud of books. “Listen up. I want you to check right now. Do you have your uniforms? Your shoes and your socks? Do you have any other items of clothing that might be needed?”
Instead of asking them to pack the usual intangibles, their “intensity” and their “game face” and their “consistency” and their “defense,” he looked at all of them, the multitalented Lucia, the two Emilys, Gumby and Jonesbones, one with dark hair, one with light, both formidable, at coltish Rita, serious Jan, reserved Sophie, quiet Jessi, Kristin the Firecracker. He glanced at Jade and thought about her famous imitation of Aretha Franklin’s song “Respect.” There was little Carrie, who had moved up from the junior varsity; at five feet two she was a spark plug of energy. And there was Julie, a quiet but competent practice player. He thought of Skippy, his silent assassin (Kathleen wasn’t able to make it), and of kindhearted Kim, Patri the beloved, Jen and Jamila, and he said, “Today, I want you to pack your courage.”
What Coach Moyer knew about Haverhill was that the one thing it and Amherst had in common was the silent h in the middle of their names. He also knew they had an excellent basketball program with strong support from the town. They’d been in the state finals four times in the last five years and they had won all four times.
He had never been there, never seen its proud hills filled with old factories, had not driven down the main drag where so many of the stores and restaurants are named after people and where there are two hardware stores, one right next to the other, and a huge meat store smack in the center of town. In the twenties the town had been a major manufacturer of women’s shoes, known as Queen Shoe City. The Merrimack River flows twelve miles along the borders of the city and through its center.
To the people of Amherst, Haverhill was just a name, about two hours away, north of Boston in the eastern part of the state, the bullying part that steals small towns to create water for itself.
This afternoon, the Hurricanes could not stand still. The Hurricanes made a point of touching one or the other of their captains, as if Jen and Jamila could transmit the power of their playing. They were, all of them, frisky, giving each other piggybacks, lifting each other on backs that should be preserved for the task at hand.
Coach paused. Was this excessive roughhousing or just a natural drainage system for all those excessive spirits?
He looked as if he might rebuke them for all the squirming, but he shrugged and flashed his trademark grin. “Let’s go.” Then, perhaps more to himself than to them: “While we’re still young.’’
Shortly after five in the evening, the sky was thick and gray and hooded, the cloud cover a welcome hedge against the bitterness.
The bus, festooned with a colorful banner bearing the words Hoop Phi Express, was different from the usual yellow ones.
“Hooked up and smooth!” said Jen Pariseau, as she moved confidently down the aisle, taking in all the special features, including upholstered seats, a toilet, four television sets, and a VCR mounted on the ceiling.
Already, three “pep” buses had left for the game, unprecedented support for an atheletic event, boys’ or girls’.
“Fasten your seatbelts,” said Coach. “Beverage service will commence shortly after takeoff. There’ll be turbulence coming into Haverhill when the Hurricanes hit Worcester.’’ Then he announced the people to whom he would like them to dedicate the entire season. “And that’s to the 140 girls who are now playing youth basketball in Amherst for the first time this year.”
Jen Pariseau stood up and said she wanted to read a letter from Diane Stanton, Chris Stanton’s mom.
All chatter ceased as the girls looked up and listened.
“Jenny and Jamila, I am addressing my comments to you because I know you best, but this letter is for the whole team,” the letter began.
Your existence as a team represents a lot of things to a lot of women like me. . . . As a young girl I remember standing outside the Little League fence and watching the boys and knowing that I could hit and catch better than at least a third of them. When our high school intramural field hockey team and softball team asked for leagues, we were told flatly—NO, because there was no money. When this group of girl athletes got together to form an intramural basketball team, we were subjected to ridicule and anger from some of the student body. I lost courage, I’m embarrassed to admit, in my junior year and would no longer play intramural sports. Part of it was a protest against the failure of my school to recognize that we needed to play as much as boys. I know the struggle.
Coach Moyer gave the driver a signal and the vehicle started to roll.
A police car just ahead suddenly activated its lights and in a slow ceremony led the vehicle to the corner of Main and Triangle Streets, where another officer had been summoned to stop traffic. Coach Moyer was beaming: “Thank you, Charlie.”
The bus proceeded down Main, past the house of Emily to the corner of Northeast, where they got to run a red light, turning in front of Fort River Elementary School, then heading out to Route 9, where the escort lasted all the way to the town line. Then, that odd juncture where in an instant the sign appears that says ENTERING PELHAM and in another instant a new one looms ahead that says ENTERING BELCHERTOWN.
The girls watched the film they had chosen unanimously to pump them up for the game, A League of Their Own. Coach Moyer always found it significant that even though they liked the characters played by Geena Davis and Madonna, they seemed more connected to the homely character of Marla. Sure, they hooted with superior delight when she made a gawky fool of herself during the charm school sequences and they could see that her face, which lacked beauty, was also devoured by shyness, but they also, during the game sequences, saw that she had the strongest arm and the surest pace, and they always gave her the biggest cheers.
They respected her. They could see that she was good. They understood she had it.
What would he say to them tonight? For once he felt that perhaps he had brought a team to the limits of self-knowledge. They had listened eagerly, and they knew what they had to know, both about the sport and about themselves. The cliché was true, well, almost: Even if they did not win tonight, they had won, simply by allowing themselves to get this far.
As he sat, comfortable at last, on that palace of a bus, the closer Coach Moyer got to Worcester, the closer he also traveled back to his own childhood in Philly in the early fifties. Tonight it was all coming to a grand finale. Here he was, coach and counselor of this little high school in Western Massachusetts, and in one of those elections as mysterious as it is thrilling, the Great Gods of Hoops had delivered to him an all-American, and what’s more they had delivered Jen Pariseau, who was acting more and more like an all-American every time she hit the floor, as well as all those other kids who at this moment on this bus had no idea, couldn’t have one because of the very nature of youth, its fickle addiction to an ever-present present, that Jamila’s father was right: This is as good as it gets.
In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle Page 23