by JoAnn Ross
And then, since the chances of turning the program around enough to go to the state tournament was along the lines of an asteroid landing in the center of Evergreen Park, he’d be forced to fall back on every cliché known to sports: “It’s a new season. We’ll be starting with a clean slate.”
Or, “As long as we play all eight minutes of each of the four quarters, I’m expecting the best from our players… .
“They’re a great bunch of kids,” he assured Jimmy Ray Lovell, the owner/cook, who’d called out to him from the open window of the kitchen behind the counter. “We’ve got ourselves a great foundation, and I’m confident about our nucleus.” Given his other job as a physics teacher, Dillon sometimes couldn’t resist tossing in a little science terminology.
Before driving over here, Dillon had Googled Matthew Templeton, and the kid did appear to have the props to play high-level basketball. Considering Beverly Hills High wasn’t exactly a powerhouse in California hoops, Templeton had, from the articles Dillon had read, provided most of the scoring.
Which could be a problem, since there was a lot more to a game than mere scoring. Although he knew there were a lot of sports fans, probably many right here in Shelter Bay, who thought it was all about winning, the way Dillon looked at it, there was something immensely pure about high school basketball, before all the agents, big bucks, television, and gambling problems began chipping away at the game’s soul.
The kids he was looking forward to coaching were right at the age when they were beginning to make decisions about their lives. There were always temptations, always things to lead them off course. All the time he’d been growing up, there’d been divorced parents, drugs, and the discovery that a few minutes of fumbling around in the backseat of a car could earn serious consequences it was hard to foresee when you’re a hormone-driven teenager.
But things seemed to have gotten darker during the time he’d been out of the country and away from any organized game.
Part of the deal with Troops to Teachers was that he’d go to a rural or problem school in need of teachers. Which was fine with him, because unlike coaches who entered the gym every day with the glitter of championship confetti in their sights, after spending so many years watching some of the worst deeds humanity could dish up, Dillon wanted to make a difference in lives.
One problem he was facing was that a team that lost a lot expected to lose. He’d seen it happen in war. If a unit started taking a lot of losses, they began to consider themselves jinxed. Or unlucky. And when that happened, they lost their edge, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Which was why he also needed to impress on his players, who’d never known the heady feeling of winning, that they weren’t in it alone. That if one of them started to slide, the rest stepped up, not just on the court, but in life, and gave their troubled teammate a hand up. In order to turn the Shelter Bay program around, they’d all have to be dedicated to the cause, rather than counting on any single individual with exceptional talent.
He finally reached the bus and sat down on a chair covered in a subtle moss green fabric, rather than the expected tie-dye. Before he could look around to signal the waitress, who owned the restaurant with her husband, she was at his table, pouring coffee into a thick white mug.
“So,” Vanessa Lovell began, which had Dillon bracing himself for the inevitable question about the basketball team, “are you having the usual?”
“OJ, two eggs over easy, and your husband’s famous sweet potato hash,” he confirmed, resisting jumping up and kissing her right on those pretty pink lips for not saying a word about basketball.
“Jimmy always gets embarrassed when people call it that,” she said, coloring prettily with obvious wifely pride.
“He was on Chef Maddy’s new cooking show,” Ken Curtis, who was sitting across from Dillon, pointed out. “Which means people all over the country watched him cook. I’d say that makes him pretty damn famous. “
“And even if it wasn’t famous, it’d still be the best hash I’ve ever eaten,” Dillon said. Which was true.
Her blush deepened as she cast a quick glance over at her husband, who was busy swirling an omelet in a cast-iron pan with a skill that made it look easy. Having tried it at home after watching the show, and ending up dropping the semicooked eggs onto the floor, Dillon knew it wasn’t.
Which was why, when he wanted something more than boxed cereal and toast, he ate breakfast here. After observing the owners on more than one occasion, he’d realized that if he ever met a woman who made him feel the way Vanessa Lovell obviously felt about Jimmy Ray, and Jimmy Ray about her, he might actually consider settling down.
He’d never had any desire to get married or even live with anyone while he’d been in the Army. Having one of the most dangerous jobs in the military wasn’t all that conducive to long-term relationships. Dillon figured there was a reason a lot of guys he’d worked with over the years had insisted EOD was an acronym for “Everyone’s divorced.”
“So,” Curtis began the discussion without preamble, “what are you planning to do about the phenom?”
Dillon didn’t believe in stereotyping. Both sports and war had taught him that appearances could often be deceiving. But he couldn’t help thinking that a player with wealth and press coverage most teenage athletes could only dream of could well upset the cohesiveness Dillon was planning to create.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about the new student, Ken,” he responded. “At this point I don’t even know that he intends to try out.”
“Well, of course he will,” one of the two women at the table said.
Colleen Dennis was currently mayor of Shelter Bay, and from what he’d witnessed, she was a dynamo who probably could have been successful as mayor of Portland, or perhaps even in the statehouse as governor, if she’d had higher political ambitions.
“If he continues the promise he’s already shown, he could be one of the highest-recruited players in the country. Which means he’d have a golden ticket to any school of his choice. Why wouldn’t he want to play?” she asked.
“I certainly don’t want to disparage my own program,” Dillon said carefully, mindful that everyone in the place had stopped eating to hear his response to the mayor’s question. “But when was the last time a recruiter was in town?”
“Two years ago,” Curtis said. “A guy from Cal State Northridge.”
“That doesn’t count,” another man at the table, Jake, who owned the Crab Shack, countered. “His rental car broke down on his way up the coast to Astoria. He was checking out their center and got stuck here overnight.”
The booster club was Ken Curtis’ realm. Accustomed to being supreme ruler for life and obviously not happy about being questioned, he thrust out his chest, causing the red-and-black wool logger shirt to strain at the seams. “He was still here long enough for me to meet with him at the Whale Song for a discussion about our players.”
“You staked out his room,” Jake said, “and practically jumped on him the minute he got off the elevator. He couldn’t get into his room fast enough, and you’re just lucky he didn’t dial 911 and have the sheriff send a deputy over to haul your ass out of the inn.”
“I don’t remember seeing you there,” Curtis shot back, “so how would you know what happened? Not that I’m saying you’re right.”
“One of my line cooks was working as a room service waiter at the Whale Song back then. When Coach here moved to town, my guy told me about your trying to bribe him to take the dinner tray in yourself. You should know that there aren’t any secrets in this town.”
Before Ken could respond, Vanessa arrived at the table with their orders.
Dillon smiled up at her, supremely grateful to her for forcing a time-out.
“Thank you, darlin’,” he said. “I know it’s going to be a good day when you bring me breakfast.” He glanced over at Jimmy Ray, who’d moved on from twirling the omelet to chopping something with blinding speed. “Why don’t
you leave that husband of yours and run away with me?”
“You are so bad, Coach Slater.” She dimpled prettily, obviously pleased with the compliment. Especially since none of the other people at the table had paid her any attention as she’d set their orders in front of them, refilled their coffee mugs, then left the table to circle the room with the coffee carafe.
“Back to the topic at hand,” Dillon said, “my point was that although the tryouts are important, I’ve already got an idea what I’m going to be doing with the team. I’m not sure this new kid would fit into the plan.”
He held up a finger when both Curtis and the mayor opened their mouths to question that statement.
“Besides, there’s also the fact that he’s only fifteen.”
“Fifteen and a half,” Tony Genarro, owner of Genarro’s funeral home, looked up from his triple stack of blueberry pancakes to clarify.
“He’s still a sophomore. Which means, if he does come out for the team, he belongs on JV.”
“Surely you wouldn’t relegate a talent like that to the junior varsity team!” The mayor was obviously shocked by that idea.
“That’s where freshmen and sophomores tend to play.” Dillon shrugged and scooped up a bite of the sweet potato hash, which damned well deserved its fame. “Varsity’s for upperclassmen.”
“Typically,” Jake agreed, suggesting that while he and Ken Curtis might not see eye to eye on everything, on this they agreed. “But I watched some of the clips on YouTube. The kid reminds me of Isiah Thomas, back in the day.”
“Thomas played both sides of the ball.” When your depth was as shallow as Shelter Bay’s team’s was, you needed players who could handle both offense and defense.
“The kid steals like he started picking pockets in his playpen,” Curtis said.
“And shoots like Larry Bird,” Jake added.
“Pure swish. Nothin’ but net,” Tony chimed in.
Since he was the new guy, bringing hope all wrapped up in a shiny ribbon to Shelter Bay, most of the previous meetings had gone Dillon’s way. He’d been optimistic without getting all crazy about the team’s prospects, and they’d come up with ways to get the community involved, because, as he’d pointed out, looking at last season’s attendance records, it was going to be hard to motivate the players when there were only a few dozen spectators showing up to watch them play.
But now they’d seen a different, brighter future in the six-foot-three-inch-tall sophomore from Tinseltown. And it was going to take all his persuasive powers to get them back on the program.
“From what I could tell, watching his videos online, the kid never passes.”
“He didn’t need to,” Curtis pointed out. “Because he could make all the plays by himself.”
Dillon put down his fork, leaned back, and folded his arms. “You’ve just made my point. If you want me to turn the team around—”
“That’s why the school board hired you,” the mayor pointed out.
“Actually,” the other woman at the table finally spoke up, “we hired you for your impressive academic credentials and your leadership qualities.”
Ginger Wells was the principal of Shelter Bay High School. She was smart, enthusiastic, and, although he figured her to be in her mid-forties, still pretty damn hot. If she hadn’t been his boss—and married to her college sweetheart—he would’ve invited her out to dinner at the Sea Mist his first week in town.
“I appreciate the confidence,” Dillon said.
“I’ll be honest,” Her Honor said. “I don’t know anything about sports. Nor do I care. But I do care about what’s best for this town. And if this boy is even half as good as Ken keeps telling me—”
“He is,” both Jake and Ken said in unison, proving yet again that they both wanted to see Matthew Templeton in a Dolphins blue-and-white varsity uniform for the first game of the season.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Dillon said, trying to stand up to the booster steamroller yet again. “We don’t even know if the kid intends to try out.”
“He told me he was,” Ken said.
Alarm bells went off like the civil defense siren the town tested once a month. “When was that?”
Dillon knew Ken claimed to bleed Dolphin blue, but he sure as hell hoped that he hadn’t actually called Beverly Hills and offered the kid—or his mom—something to move to Oregon. Because recruiting kids from other schools was not only wrong; it had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court after schools in Tennessee got tired of a private academy poaching their best players.
“Saturday. When they first hit town.”
“Not before that?”
“Hell no! That’d be illegal.”
“As long as we’re all on the same page,” Dillon said, relieved. Until another thought occurred to him. “I don’t suppose Marcy just happened to sell the kid’s mother her house.” Ken’s wife was one of the most successful real estate agents on the Oregon coast.
“Yeah. Those two ladies down at the Dancing Deer Two hooked them up after Ms. Templeton told them she was thinking about moving up here. She was the one who asked them if they knew a good Realtor.”
Although the siren had gone silent, Dillon still felt a little niggle of suspicion. Then again, he’d admittedly gotten jaded during his EOD days.
“Where all did Marcy take her to look?”
Ken shrugged and began pushing his cottage fries around on his plate. “If you were married, Coach, you’d know that husbands and wives don’t share every little detail that goes on at work every day.”
“Did your wife happen to mention to you that her California client was the mother of a high school–age basketball player?”
“She might have said something about it.” When Dillon didn’t immediately respond, he moved his massive shoulders again. “Okay, Marcy said the mom asked if the school had a basketball team. She said her kid was pretty good. So, naturally, I checked him out.”
“Meaning you looked him up on the Internet.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t call his coach or his parents or him?”
“No to the coach, and apparently Templeton’s dad’s out of the picture, but I didn’t talk to his mother. And, like I told you, I didn’t speak to him until two days ago. Hell, what good would it do to recruit a player only to end up getting the team suspended for the season if we got caught? Doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“When we got caught,” Dillon corrected.
Ken was, Dillon determined, telling the truth. But he’d bet that once the hardware store owner had discovered the kid’s admittedly impressive stats, he’d suggested his wife try to keep the house search within the Shelter Bay school district boundaries.
“Lucky coincidence, his mother choosing to buy a house in our district,” he said.
“She said she wanted to move to Shelter Bay. She’d visited this area on trips before. And the cottage was just what she was looking for,” Ken said a little too defensively. “It’s not like Marcy held a gun to her head and made her buy it. Besides, it’s a prime piece of oceanfront real estate. She got a helluva deal because it’s one of the few fixer-uppers left on the coast.”
There was no point in arguing. If Ken could be believed, and Dillon hoped to hell he could, the booster had stayed within legal and ethical boundaries. Besides, he figured there’d probably be far more important skirmishes to win as the season went on.
“Well,” he said, scooping up another bite of hash, “if the kid does show up for tryouts, I’ll definitely take a look at him.”
“His basketball skills might not be as well rounded as you’d prefer,” Ginger said, “but would it help you to know that he received a scholar-athlete award his freshman year?”
“That definitely helps. What are his grades now?”
“They’ve slipped,” the principal admitted. “But he’s hovering a bit below a three-point-oh.” She paused to stir cream into her coffee.
One thing Dillon had gotten
real good at was listening to what people didn’t say.
“That’s still not bad for a student athlete.” Though if the kid wanted to play college ball, NCAA regulations required a 2.3, and many universities required higher. “So what’s wrong with him?”
Her tongue was literally in her cheek as Ken began paying vast attention to his cottage fries. “He had a bit of trouble,” she allowed. “Which is one of the reasons his mother decided to move here.”
“Tell me we’re not looking at a possible Columbine thing.”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly.
“Hell no,” Ken seconded, revealing that the two of them had already discussed it. From the looks on the other boosters’ faces, Dillon suspected he was the last to know.
“A bit of marijuana was found in his locker,” Ginger revealed.
“What’s a bit?”
Experimentation was one thing, not that he’d allow a kid who fooled around with drugs to stay on his team. But he could work with that. If the Templeton kid was into selling, all bets were off.
“Less than an ounce. Which is why, along with his grades, he got off with three days’ suspension.”
“But the police were called?”
“Yes, it’s district policy. But because of his age, and California having decriminalized less than an ounce, even though it occurred at school, it was treated much like a traffic ticket.”
“Which means,” Ken pointed out, “that if none of us say anything, there’s no reason for the press to find out about it.”
Although Dillon suspected the booster was thinking more about avoiding negative publicity for the school, if that was the only thing the kid had done, he deserved the right to come into a new school with a clean slate.
“If there’s no record, how do you all know about it?”
“The suspension is in his school record we received from Beverly Hills,” Ginger stated. “Along with a letter from his mother explaining the situation. Apparently his grandmother, who helped raise him, died after a lengthy illness this past year, and once the season was over, the boy began drifting and started hanging out with the wrong crowd.”