“AGAIN!” he’d yell, after I ran suicide sprints for fifteen minutes.
“AGAIN!” he’d yell, after I ran backward from foul line to foul line ten times.
So I’d do it again, and again, and again, and again. And at first I was happy to do it, because I got a lot better, and I loved the game.
But as I got older, I stopped getting a lot better and started getting only a little better. And before too long, it got to the point where I never wanted to hear the word “again” again.
No such luck.
“AGAIN!”
We’re at the Tompkins Park courts a few days after we beat South. Coach Cash was at the game, and he didn’t like the way I was distributing the ball on the fast break, so he’s making me dribble up and down the court at a dead sprint while he yells, “LEFT! RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT!” I’m supposed to turn my head in whatever direction he calls, which is how I work on knowing where my teammates are while going at full speed.
“Good,” Coach Cash says, after we’ve been doing this for about ten minutes. “Much better.”
I take that to mean we’re on a break, and I head for the sideline.
“Where ya goin’? We’re not done. AGAIN!”
Finally, after another fifteen minutes and I’m on the verge of collapse, it’s time for a water break. I’m sitting on the bench, sucking major wind, when Coach Cash takes a seat next to me.
“Good work today. You’re getting it. Now listen, I got news.”
For a brief second, I think he’s going to tell me he’s moving somewhere far away, like Australia, and my heart fills with hope.
“I’m starting a new program, and I want you to be a part of it.”
“Awesome!” I say, trying to mean it. “What kind of program?”
“It’s an invitation-only AAU program called Slam Academy, and I’m pulling in some of the best players in the state,” Coach Cash tells me. “We’re going to have a high school team and a junior team. I’d like you to join the juniors.”
I make myself sound as excited as possible. “Wow. That’s so cool. You want me on the team?”
“Of course I want you on the team. You can really play!”
Remember how I said you can’t teach height and speed? Well, it turns out you also can’t teach having a dad who was a college teammate of the guy who’s starting the team.
Coach Cash blows his whistle, which is pretty unnecessary, since we’re the only two people there. “Up and at ’em! Time for some box-out drills! Let’s go!”
I stand under the hoop while he throws up intentionally missed shot after intentionally missed shot, which I attempt to rebound. He pushes me from behind while firing out instructions. “No elbows! Use your butt! Grab the ball with both hands! Keep it up high!”
So I don’t use my elbows, and I use my butt, and I grab the ball with both hands, and I keep it high.
“HIGHER! AGAIN!”
“DON’T FLAIL! AGAIN!”
“EYES DOWNCOURT! AGAIN!”
Every time I do it AGAIN, it feels like I’m messing up more, not less. And then it hits me: I’ve finally reached the point where the more Coach Cash tells me to do something, the worse I get at it.
The good news is, Coach Cash is paid to tell me what to do for only an hour at a time. So today, after the hour is up, he blows his whistle again. “Great work!” he barks, which is kind of funny, since he’s spent the last sixty minutes telling me everything I was doing wrong. “See you Thursday.”
Can’t wait.
We shake hands, he leaves, and I sit there, looking down at the basketball in my hands.
You and I used to be such good friends, I tell the ball. What happened?
My self-pity party is broken up by a voice behind me. “Yo!”
I turn around to see Kevin, Eric, and a few other guys from the team heading my way. I remember that I’d told them to come meet me here for a pickup game.
“Let’s run a few games,” Eric says, as we slap hands.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sore from my workout.”
Kevin waves me off. “Get out with that,” he says. “Come on, let’s ball.”
“Aight,” I say to Kevin.
He looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “ ‘Aight’?” he repeats. He always calls me out when I talk differently to him, because he’s the one Black kid on our team. He’s totally right, of course.
“I mean yeah, let’s go for it,” I say.
We start the game, and on the first play I crossover Eric and hit a reverse scoop layup.
“All day!” I holler at Eric.
“Last time!” he hollers back.
We play for ninety minutes, and no one yells “AGAIN!” once.
And just like that, I remember why basketball is the greatest game in the world.
ALFIE
My dad was hoping I would be a boy. He was okay with me being a girl, though, because I was their first child, and he probably thought he and my mom were going to have a lot more kids.
But they ended up having zero more kids, so I was it.
Everyone’s heard this type of story before, about the sports-crazed dad who doesn’t have any sons, so he transfers all his sports craziness onto his daughter. In my version of the story, it took only about two minutes in first grade for me to realize I was terrible at sports. It took my dad a little longer, though—about ten minutes.
But here’s the funny thing: I love sports.
LOVE them.
And it was my mom, who used to write for her high school newspaper, who told me that I could still be very involved with sports, even if I was the least-coordinated person ever born. Because I could follow sports. I could study them. And when I was old enough, I could cover them, and talk about them, and write about them, and report on them, and even announce them.
So that’s what I did.
And that’s what I do.
When I was ten, I wrote an article about the kickball tournament we had in fifth grade, when Louis Benson’s team beat Alice Freehold’s team 28–27 in a real thriller. My parents said the article was great. My dad said, “It’s almost like I was there!”
I was so happy when he said that.
Then, when I got to Walthorne South, I met Mr. Rashad. He’s a guidance counselor, and also the media advisor, which basically meant that he was going to be the most important person in my life for the next three years.
But our school doesn’t have the greatest media department. We don’t have a lot of money for that kind of stuff. In fact, we don’t have ANY money for that kind of stuff. But we do have a microphone and a transmitter. I don’t know what a transmitter does or how it works exactly—Mr. Rashad handles that part—but when I was in sixth grade, he let me hold the microphone, and he showed me the transmitter, and he told me, “You know what this is? This is a radio station.”
A RADIO STATION!
Right then and there I knew what I was going to do. “I am going to write about sports for the school newspaper,” I told him, “and blog about sports for the town website, and talk about sports on the school radio station.”
“So you want to be a journalist?”
I nodded. “A journalist about sports, yes.”
“That’s great. If you’re going to be a journalist, you must care about one thing, and one thing only.”
“Sports?”
Mr. Rashad shook his head. “Truth. The truth is the only thing that matters.”
“The truth is the only thing that matters,” I repeated.
Mr. Rashad smiled again.
“Welcome to WWMS.”
WALTHORNENEWS.COM
PROWLING WITH THE PANTHERS
A MIDDLE SCHOOL SPORTS BLOG BY ALFIE JENKS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Injured Player: What Really Happened?
Hi again everyone, it’s Alfie, back to talk (well, actually write about) sports. Thanks a lot for reading my blog! Last night, the Walthorne South Panthers boys basketball team evened their
record at 1 and 1 by beating the Harborville Boaters, 59–43.
Carter Haswell led the scoring as usual, with 26 points. The girls team tries to make it two in a row when they play Ackton tonight. Meanwhile, across town, the Walthorne North boys team played their first game without star center Clay Elkind and lost 54–49 to Suffolk Central.
Speaking of Clay Elkind, he really played an incredible game against Walthorne North last week—he led their team in scoring and rebounding and was clearly their best player. But the amazing thing was, he did all this even though he seemed to be limping through most of the game.
Then, just before the end of the game, Clay made a game-saving play but landed awkwardly. The whole gym held its breath as he screamed in agony, lying on the floor until his coaches helped him to the bench. And from what I’m hearing, he may be out for the season.
I checked in with Clay earlier this week, and he didn’t really want to talk about the injury, but he did tell me he came into the game already hurt. It’s hard to know exactly what happened here, but I have a pretty good guess. It was the first game of the season, against a big rival. Somebody, probably his coach or maybe even his parents, pressured Clay to play, told him how important he was to the team and what a big moment it was, and how everyone was counting on him. And then he gave in to the pressure and played, and then, well, you know the rest.
It’s really too bad. I hope Clay has a speedy recovery. I hope he can play basketball again up to his very high level, because he’s a really incredible player. And it would be great to see him on the court again by the time North meets South in the last game of the season. That would sure be a great comeback story!
WALTHORNENEWS.COM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15 2:36 PM
Young Reporter Causes Stir with Blog Post
The youth sports community in Walthorne is buzzing today, after a blog post last night by Walthorne South Middle School eighth grader Alfie Jenks suggested that a young athlete was pressured to play while hurt, which may have led to his severe injury late in the game.
Referring to last Friday night’s contest between Walthorne South and Walthorne North, Ms. Jenks implies that starting North center Clay Elkind was convinced by adults, possibly a coach, to stay on the court even though he was obviously limping. Later in the game, young Mr. Elkind suffered ligament damage in his knee and had to be carried off the court.
In a combined statement this morning, the physical education departments of both schools said, “While we appreciate young Ms. Jenks’s zeal for a good story, there is absolutely no truth to the innuendo that any coach, or anyone in any official capacity, urged this young player to compete in a game despite being injured. Our athletic programs are focused solely on participation, personal growth, and the invaluable experience that comes from being part of a team. It may be true that youth sports, like many student activities, occasionally reach an inappropriate level of pressure, but please be assured that we take our Walthorne tradition of courtesy, cooperation, and fair play very seriously and believe in it deeply.”
Walthornenews.com reached out to the coaches of Walthorne South and Walthorne North Middle Schools with follow-up questions, but both were unavailable for comment.
8:22 pm
Clay
YO ALFIE, WHY DID YOU DO THAT
DO WHAT?
WRITE THAT ARTICLE ABOUT ME
WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WE TALKED ABOUT IT. IT WAS ON THE RECORD.
I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS
IT MEANS IT WAS A PUBLIC CONVERSATION
WHATEVER
ALL I KNOW IS YOU ASKED ME A FEW QUESTIONS AND NOW IT’S LIKE LOCAL NEWS OR SOMETHING
YIKES CLAY
I HOPE YOU’RE NOT MAD
I DON’T THINK IT MAKES YOU LOOK BAD
OR ANYTHING
YOU’RE THE VICTIM HERE, RIGHT??
BUT YOU GOT IT WRONG
WHAT DO YOU MEAN
WHAT YOU WROTE
THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED
WHAT DO YOU MEAN
NEVER MIND
JUST DON’T WRITE ABOUT ME AGAIN OKAY?
HOLD ON
WHAT PART DID I GET WRONG?
CLAY?
CLAY ARE YOU THERE??
WALTHORNESPIRIT.COM
Friday at 4:59 pm
Lucas Just want to offer Alfie Jenks some props for her blog, nicely done
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Friday at 5:03 pm
Carter That’s pretty bogus
No coach should make a kid play hurt
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Friday at 5:06 pm
Janeece If it’s true then that coach should be fired tbh
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Friday at 5:09 pm
Sham What do you mean if
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Friday at 5:13 pm
Janeece Well we don’t know for sure
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Friday at 5:16 pm
Alfie Guys Janeece is right, I probably shouldn’t have written that part about the coach
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Friday at 5:17 pm
Carter Cmon we all know that dude was hurting before he got injured
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Friday at 5:19 pm
Alfie Yeah okay fine but we don’t know the details and Clay never said it was the coach who told him he should play
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Friday at 5:21 pm
Briscoe Who was it then
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Friday at 5:22 pm
Alfie I don’t know
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Friday at 5:24pm
Lucas North guys you out there? Fill us in
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Friday at 5:26 pm
North4Eva Yeah I’m here and you guys don’t know what you’re talking about and it’s none of your business and whoever Alfie Jenks is really needs to back off
Like · Reply
Friday at 5:28 pm
Carter Whoa dude calm down
And why don’t you stop hiding behind an anonymous handle for starters
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Friday at 5:30 pm
North4Eva I’m not hiding
my name is Eric
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Friday at 5:33 pm
Sham Okay Eric well maybe you shouldn’t worry about what is and isn’t people’s business
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Friday at 5:35 pm
Clay This is ridiculous everyone should just stop
None of you know what happened
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Friday at 5:36 pm
Sham Okay what happened then
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Friday at 5:38 pm
Kevin What happened is we beaaaaat yooouuuuuuu
Like · Reply
Friday at 5:39 pm
North4Eva Hahahahahahah
Like · Reply
Friday at 5:40 pm
Lucas Enjoy it while it lasts
Like · Reply
Friday at 5:43 pm
North4Eva I’m enjoying it almost as much as you guys enjoy that free lunch you get over there
Like · Reply
Friday at 5:45 pm
Sham you better back off son before I knock that smug grin off your rich boy face
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Friday at 5:47 pm
Kevin Easy fellas
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Friday at 5:49 pm
Janeece Everyone knock it off or they’re gonna take this thread down
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Friday at 5:51 pm
Chase This is so fun I’m loving every minute of it
#betterthannetflix
#freelunchforthepoorkids
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Friday at 5:53 pm
Austin Seriously?
Honestly you guys this is pathetic
You want to know what happened with Clay?
I’ll tell you
It was me
I�
��m the one who pressured him to play
Clay hurt his ankle earlier in the week in practice and was limping. I knew he was injured, everyone knew he was injured, but I’m the captain, and I wanted to beat South. I knew we needed him, so I begged him to play. All week. And he didn’t want to play. But I talked him into it. And before the game Coach Zirkusky asked Clay how he felt and he said fine, and I don’t know what Clay’s parents thought about him playing but they definitely didn’t say he couldn’t play, so the day of the game I asked him one last time and he said he was going to play. And in the first half he played great and I could tell he was hurting but it didn’t seem to be affecting his game, but then at halftime Clay came to me and said he thought he was done, the leg didn’t feel right, and I kind of went nuts. I admit it, I freaked out. I said this is gonna be the hardest game we play all year and we just needed him for one more half, he could sit the next game if it didn’t feel right, and so we got into it, yelling, and the coach came over and asked what we were fighting about, and I didn’t say anything, and Clay didn’t say anything, and the coach asked if we were ready to roll for the second half, and I looked at Clay, and he said let’s do it, and he played great but got hurt, and yeah I feel like crap about it.
So that’s what happened and it would be great if everyone would just stop talking about it.
Like · Reply
Friday at 6:09 pm
Carter Sorry man that’s tough
Hang in there
How’s Clay
Like · Reply
Friday at 6:12 pm
Austin Pretty sure he’s out for the season
And it’s all because of me
Like · Reply
Friday at 6:14 pm
Carter Don’t blame yourself dude
Seriously
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