The Sixth Man Read online

  Alex’s throat was dry—perhaps from frustration. He jogged in the direction of the two watercoolers and was about to pour himself some water when he heard Zane Wakefield’s voice.

  “Hey, Myers, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Getting water?” Alex answered, a bit baffled.

  “Not yet,” Wakefield answered. “We get water by class. Freshmen go last.”

  He pushed Alex out of the way, sending his cup flying. Alex was about to say something when he heard the whistle again.

  “Myers, out of the way!” Coach Archer said sharply. “You get water when I say ‘freshmen,’ not before then!”

  “Juniors!” he yelled.

  Alex stepped out of the way while Wakefield, cup of water in hand, smirked at him.

  “Welcome to the varsity,” Jonas whispered.

  Things finally got better after Coach Archer had blown his whistle—for about the ten thousandth time, Alex thought—to end the water break.

  “Ellington, Myers, take the guard spots with the whites,” he said. “Red on offense. Run regular offense against man-to-man.”

  The red team was, most of the time, made up of the starters. The white team mostly consisted of the bench players.

  “Take the point, Myers,” Coach Archer said.

  With pleasure, Alex thought. That meant he’d be going head to head with Zane Wakefield.

  They were playing half-court with the reds on offense all the time. This was a routine drill designed to work on the first-team offense more than the second-team defense, but Alex was happy just to see the floor and have a chance.

  “Mercer’s going to start the game in man-to-man,” Coach Archer said, tossing a ball to Wakefield on one bounce. “We’ve got to be very sharp against it.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Wakefield took several dribbles right at Alex, then veered to his left. Seeing Alex come up to challenge him, he tried to drive past him. His dribble was too high, though, and Alex was able to slap the ball loose. Before Wakefield could turn to try to get it back, Alex tipped it toward midcourt, sprinted after it, and picked it up with nothing—and no one—between him and the basket at the far end. He took one dribble and heard the whistle—that incessant whistle. He stopped. Coach Archer was walking in his direction, hands out so Alex could toss him the ball. Which he did.

  “Good play, Myers,” he said. “I know you can make a layup; that’s why I blew the whistle.”

  He turned in the direction of the other players. “Wakefield, what’d you do wrong there?”

  “Get fouled?” Wakefield asked.

  Coach Archer glared at him a moment. “You didn’t get fouled. First, you tried to dribble past a defender rather than looking to pass to start the offense. Second, you had the ball practically on your hip, which made it easy for Myers to slap it loose. Third, you did not get fouled. Fourth, you gave me a wise-guy answer when you made the mistake, so you can go put on a white shirt. And, when practice is over, you owe me three suicides.”

  One suicide was tiring. Two were exhausting. Three were, well, suicide. Alex was hoping he wasn’t smirking when he heard Coach Archer speaking to him. “Myers, take the point with the reds.”

  Alex was stunned. In thirty seconds Coach Archer had complimented him, climbed all over one of his starters, albeit justifiably, and had made him the starting point guard—at least for one possession.

  He turned his shirt inside out so he would be wearing red instead of white and took the ball from Coach Archer when he flipped it to him.

  “Just run regular,” Coach Archer said. “You know the calls. Same as the JVs.” And then, more softly: “You don’t have to prove how good you are in one possession. Just run the offense.”

  Alex nodded. He wished Coach Archer had also put Jonas in red, but he figured he couldn’t get everything he wanted all in the same minute.

  “Screen one,” he called, holding up a finger to indicate he wanted Steve Holder to come out to set a screen at the top of the key. It would then be up to the point guard—Alex—to decide what to do once he used the screen to clear some space.

  Holder came out to a spot just to the right of the key. Alex dribbled patiently behind him, waiting to see what Wakefield, now playing point for the white team, would do. If Wakefield tried to get around Holder, Alex would pass the ball. If he didn’t, he would shoot.

  Wakefield hedged, almost lunging at Alex. For a split second, Alex was tempted to dribble past him, but he saw Holder rolling away toward the basket. Pete Taylor, the backup center, had come up on him when he set the screen, and Holder was past him in an instant. Alex picked up his dribble and found Holder, who laid the ball in just as Taylor—trying to recover too late—crashed into him.

  Another whistle.

  “Wakefield, how good a shooter is Myers?” Coach Archer asked.

  “I have no idea, Coach. I’ve never seen him play.”

  Coach Archer nodded. “If you don’t know if a guy can make a jump shot, why not make him try one?”

  Alex loved the fact that Wakefield was getting lectured again.

  “Okay, run it one more time.”

  They ran the exact same play. This time, Wakefield didn’t go over the screen, staying behind Holder, leaving Alex open at the three-point line. Wide open, Alex took the shot and nailed it. He could almost hear Wakefield thinking, Okay, Coach, now that I know he can shoot, what should I do next?

  Neither Wakefield nor Coach Archer commented on Alex’s play. Instead, Coach Archer just said, “Okay, let’s run double-high.” That was a play where both inside players came to the high post and the shooting guard, Tony Early, came off a screen and made a curl cut to get open. Alex found Early, who passed up an open shot and drove the lane. This time, though, Taylor recovered and poked the ball loose from Early. It went right to Wakefield.

  The ever-present whistle blew.

  “Early, why do you pass up an open shot to dribble into the teeth of the defense?”

  “Coach, the lane looked open.”

  “Was it open?”

  Early hung his head.

  “Guys, you have to anticipate to play basketball. You have to always see the play in front of you as a moving picture, not as a freeze-frame.”

  He paused. “Okay, Ellington, put on red. Early, white.”

  Alex’s heart almost skipped a beat. He and Jonas were not only together; they were also together on the first team.

  Of course that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have to wait their turn at the next water break.

  Coach Archer spent the rest of the practice moving players around from red to white and back, using different combinations to see who worked well together. One thing was apparent to Alex: the team had four pretty good players, two not named Myers or Ellington. One was Holder, the other Patton Gormley, a forward who, Alex guessed, was about six four. Gormley was a good shooter and was quicker than anyone else playing up front—although, being honest, that was a low bar.

  Jonas’s presence on the red team opened things up for the offense. If Alex got the ball inside to Holder and the whites tried to double-team, Holder would pitch the ball outside to Jonas, who had a quick release when he caught the ball and a silky-smooth jump shot. If Jonas wasn’t open when he caught the ball on the perimeter, he put the ball on the floor and used his quickness to get to the basket.

  On one play, when Early came out to challenge him, Jonas slipped the ball to Holder, who was so wide open that he dunked the ball with such force that Alex thought it might go through the floor.

  “That’s the way to run an offense,” Coach Archer said, not blowing his whistle for a change. “Good vision, Ellington.”

  Just before five-thirty, with members of the girls’ team ringing the court to start their practice, Coach Archer instructed the managers to put five minutes on the scoreboard clock. He then told Alex, Jonas, Holder, Gormley, and Jameer Wilson to put on red.

  The scrimmage was one-sided. The reds were better at every posit
ion than the whites. Wakefield and Early simply couldn’t guard Alex and Jonas, and no one could stop Holder inside. When the clock hit one minute with the reds leading 16–2, Coach Archer blew his whistle and called everyone to the center jump circle.

  “Good work today, fellas,” he said. “We’re still a work in progress, but today we definitely moved forward.” He paused. “Myers, Ellington—good job fitting in. Wakefield, Early—these two guys are going to make you better players. Keep your heads up, because we’re going to need you.

  “This is a good week, guys, because we’re only playing one game. Once we get into playing Tuesdays and Fridays, we won’t have as much practice time. So let’s get better every day.

  “Okay, Steve, bring ’em in,” he added.

  “On three,” Holder said. “Beat Mercer!”

  Alex looked at Jonas as they walked to the locker room.

  “Think we can?” he asked.

  “If their guards are as good as Wakefield and Early, we’ll be fine,” Jones said, grinning.

  Alex laughed.

  He felt good. He and Jonas had come a long way in a week.

  Practice the next few days was pretty much the same. Coach Archer kept moving Alex and Jonas back and forth between the red and the white, even though it was apparent to everyone that Wakefield and Early couldn’t compete with the two freshmen.

  The other players remained cool to Alex and Jonas, though less so on the court than off. It was something of a surprise when Steve Holder walked over to their table during lunch on Thursday.

  “Mind if I join you guys for a minute?” he asked.

  “Have a seat,” Matt Gordon said. He had become a regular at the table, which was fine with Alex—sort of. He still felt uncomfortable with the way Christine looked at him—or the way Alex thought she was looking at him.

  “Listen,” Holder said as he sat down. “I think you guys ought to know what the deal is with Coach Archer.”

  “What deal?” Jonas asked.

  “The deal with you two guys,” Holder answered.

  “How do you know what the deal is with us?” Alex asked.

  Holder shrugged and picked up a handful of French fries. “Look, I’ve spent time with him during the fall. Remember, Coach Birdy is new too, so Archer kind of reached out to me as team captain from the beginning of the school year. We’ve talked a lot, actually, and he’s not as bad a guy as you probably think he is. He just doesn’t want you guys—or more importantly, the seniors—to think he’s just handing you playing time.”

  “You don’t think we deserve playing time?” Jonas asked.

  Holder smiled. “Of course you do, and you’ll get it. Coach isn’t dumb—and he really wants to win.”

  “Every coach wants to win,” Alex said dismissively.

  Holder shook his head. “Wanting to win and wanting to win are two different things, Myers. Our last coach was basically a teacher making some extra money on the side by coaching. We weren’t very good, and he was okay with that. Coach Archer will not be okay with that. You haven’t seen him go off yet—I mean really go off, but he did before you joined us. Not for a mistake, but when he thought someone wasn’t giving a hundred percent. He’s a pretty intense competitor.

  “So I think he’ll play you both plenty but not right away,” Holder added. “He kind of has a thing about football.”

  “What does football have to do with anything?” Christine asked.

  Holder held up a hand, but Christine continued: “He already made them spend a week with the JVs because they missed practice to finish football season. Isn’t that enough? Especially since you guys need them.”

  “It isn’t about missing practice; it goes beyond that.”

  “To what?” Jonas said. “The guy hasn’t spoken twenty words to us since we met him in his office and he told us we had to try out with the JV team.”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “If you count all the times he’s said ‘Myers, put on white’ or ‘Ellington, put on red,’ it could be closer to a hundred words.”

  Holder shook his head. “He just doesn’t like football or football players. In fact, if there was any way he thought we could beat anyone without you two guys, you might not be on the team at all.”

  “What in the world does he have against football players?” Christine asked almost at the same time that Alex said, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard….”

  “Let him talk,” Matt said. “What’s the deal, Steve?”

  “The deal is, Coach Archer played at Virginia Tech—”

  “More like watched at Virginia Tech,” Alex said, causing Jonas, Matt, and Christine to say almost in unison, “Alex, shut up!”

  Holder continued. “Virginia Tech is a football school. I mean, a football school.”

  Alex was about to say something about the fact that, to him, Virginia Tech was a wannabe football school. Good enough to beat up on weak teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference but never good enough to compete with the real powers in college football. He stifled all that, though, because he didn’t want to be told to shut up again.

  Holder seemed to read his mind. “I know they’re never great, but they win eight or nine games just about every year, go to bowl games—all that. And they sell out their stadium all the time. According to Coach Archer, about the only time the basketball arena was full when he played there was when they played Duke or North Carolina.”

  “That’s true in a lot of places,” Christine said.

  “More so at Virginia Tech, apparently,” Holder said. “Seth Greenberg, the guy on ESPN now, was coaching back then, and it burned him up that almost nothing his team did got anyone’s attention down there. Coach Archer also went to a high school that’s a lot like ours: football’s king. So the idea that he needs two guys who were stars on the football team really bugs him.”

  “So we’re screwed,” said Jonas.

  “You’re going to play because he wants to win games. But he’d rather have twelve guys who just play basketball and love the game like he does.”

  “That’s just dumb,” Matt said. “You can love more than one sport. It’d be one thing if Alex and Jonas came in with some kind of attitude like, ‘We’re more important than you other guys because we almost won the state title in football.’ But that’s not who they are.”

  “I know that,” Holder said. “I’ve talked to Coach about it all fall. I asked him yesterday if you guys had done anything at all to show you thought you deserved special treatment because you played football. But he just said, ‘Not so far.’ ”

  Alex shook his head and then looked at Jonas and then at Christine and Matt.

  “Any thoughts?” he asked.

  It was Matt who answered. “Yeah,” he said, smiling in spite of himself. “By the end of basketball season, you may wish you were still playing for my dad.”

  Everyone laughed—except Holder.

  “I understand why you might feel that way, but give Coach a chance. He’s new to this job, and kinda stubborn. But he really knows basketball, and he’s not a bad guy.”

  “Why are you telling us all this?” Jonas asked. “What are we supposed to do?”

  Holder paused. “I feel like I should be the link between the coach and the rest of the team. I wanted you to know what was going on. And that I’ve got your backs. And I need you to play it cool if you don’t start tomorrow. The more humble you are, the more playing time you’ll get.” He paused and took a deep breath.

  “And we aren’t going to win a lot of games if that doesn’t happen.”

  The bus ride to Mercer took about two hours. Steve Holder had told Alex and Jonas that in the past, the cheerleaders and the dance team had ridden on the same bus as the team, but Coach Archer had banned them.

  “I heard he told the principal, ‘No wonder you’ve only won nineteen games the last three seasons. You think riding on a bus with cheerleaders helps you get ready to play a game?’ ”

  Alex kind of agreed with Coa
ch Archer on that one. He’d seen the cheerleaders and the dance team, and they were definitely a distraction.

  “You think maybe they only won nineteen games because they were just bad?” Jonas asked.

  Whatever the reason, no one was distracted as the bus rumbled toward central Pennsylvania. In fact, it was completely silent, almost everyone listening to something on headphones. Alex put his head back and tried to sleep. It was pretty much impossible. Coach Archer hadn’t given him or Jonas any indication about how much they could expect to play. He felt sure they wouldn’t start—that would be too much of an admission that they were among the best players on the team—but he figured they would get in the game pretty quickly, especially if the Lions got behind.

  Mercer had the look of a small college campus. The bus rolled by all the various playing fields: every sport seemed to have its own separate facility. There was a football stadium, a baseball park, a soccer and lacrosse field. All had different names on them—wealthy donors, Alex assumed, who had given the school money.

  They finally pulled up to the entrance of the David Felkoff Basketball Arena. It practically gleamed, even in the darkness of a December night.

  The Lions walked through a glass doorway and were led onto the court en route to the locker room. The man who was escorting them was telling Coach Archer about the building in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “We opened it two years ago,” he said. “It seats three thousand six hundred, and for conference play, we often sell out.”

  “How much did it cost?” Coach Archer asked.

  “About twelve million,” the man said. “Mr. Felkoff is a graduate. He’s very generous.”

  It was Alex’s favorite teammate, Zane Wakefield, who asked what Alex was wondering.