FOLLOW THE WILDCATS: Flashes in the Urban Pan

The following blog post was taken from its original location, found here.

Welcome to “Follow the Wildcats.” This recent basketball season I did my best to keep an accurate journal of the center-city high school basketball team for which I was the first-year head coach. “Follow the Wildcats” is a compilation of many stories, told through the lens of the Wildcats’ lives. Names and identities of people and places have been changed in deference to the people involved. But all of these stories are 100% true. Everything happened. Boy, did it ever.

Coach Anderson and I loaded the gray school van with a few basketballs, the uniforms, water bottles and the like. The van was beat up inside, its seats ripped and smelling of an old, lurking stench of God-knows-what. Coach Anderson took shotgun and I drove, and the boys piled into the three rows of seats behind us. Throughout the hour-long ride, they took turns clamoring, wrestling with each other, sleeping, and jamming out with their headphones on.

There was a tense excitement in the van, a sense of camaraderie and purpose, but also a hint of curiosity. Are we any good?

An hour later we pulled up to Danby High School, in a farm town far different from Langdon and Shortbridge. Coach Williams, who drove himself to there, came outside and helped bring the equipment inside.

“No iPods, cell phones, or any other electronic devices allowed until we get into the locker room. Please pull up your pants above your waists, too.” I repeated this as I swung the blue, mesh bag of basketballs over my shoulder.

We walked into the small, cement school and into a brightly lit gym that showed the Danby Red Raider pride. The baselines, sidelines and center court were red, the mats on the walls were red, and the walls were red. The court was old but shiny and the squeaks of sneakers echoed throughout. The Red Raiders were warming up, cutting left and right, taking jump-shots and clapping here and there. Their red uniforms matched exactly and they all wore the same pairs of shoes.

A short, smiling man who introduced himself as the school’s Athletic Director led us into our locker room. Like every visiting team’s locker room I had ever been in, it was tight on space. The floor was tile and of a white-blue color, and there were five or six stacks of mustard colored lockers with small, wooden benches bolted to the floor in between them. Somewhere in the room there was stalls and urinals, and maybe some showers, but soon enough the entire place was covered in the Wildcats’ stuff. They had thrown on their uniforms in a flash and were standing up, huddled together, tucking in the uniforms, sagging their shorts.

“Let’s do this,” said Ayo, “take these dudes out from the start. These dudes ain’t from the hood.” The confidence was great to hear, even if it was cocky.

“If you play as hard as you can, we can go home happy,” I announced, “hands in.” All of the boys put their hands on top of one another as some of them made jokes under their breath, causing sections of them to laugh through their teeth. They were nervous, and this was their way of releasing their tension. “Team on three. One, two, three, team!”

The Wildcats ran around the half court excitedly, loosely following the two-line structure of layup lines. Tito, a tall, dark-skinned 17-year old from Shortbridge moved his arms around wildly and smiled, trying to get his teammates to be more animated. Tony strutted around, eyed the other team, and whispered to Ayo with a smirk.

The other coaches and I greeted the Danby coaching staff and played the game of small talk. “What type of school is Charternet?” one of their assistants asked.

“Charter. For kids who have been underserved in Langdon and Shortbridge,” Coach Anderson said.

“Shortbridge, huh?” The coach replied. We looked at him blankly. Yeah, man, Shortbridge. Did we stutter?

Finally, it was time to start the scrimmage. We put Tony, Ayo, and Primo, a short, skinny Puerto Rican with great ball-handling skills in as the guards of the starting lineup. Tito, who stood 6 feet tall and who boasted about his ability to play the post despite being so small, and Debo, a six foot four inch, gangly and skinny junior played the posts. As they walked to the middle of the floor, they spoke to each other about who they’d guard. It was a great sign; they were planning, communicating, and assessing their opponents. I sat next to Coach Williams and Anderson and said out of the side of my mouth, “Let’s see what we got.”

Danby won the jump and scored immediately on a fast break layup. Their bench roared and of its players stood up in unison, clapped, and then sat down, much like Congress does when the President says something bold.

I stood up. “Motion!” I screamed. Primo, who brought the ball up the floor, echoed my call, passed to Tony on the wing, and then cut through the middle of the lane. Tony used the space Primo had created with his cut to juke his defender left, then right, and then left again. Then he faked a shot while still dribbling, darted passed his man and leaned in toward the basket with his left shoulder, floating the ball up and in in a matter of seconds.

Before the Wildcats could recover, Danby had taken the ball out of bounds and advanced the ball to half court, where their point guard dribbled past Ayo, causing Debo to come over to defend him, leaving his man open, who promptly received a crisp pass and scored. Their bench got back up, clapped, and then sat down again. Primo and Tony exchanged shoulder shrugs, funny looks and a few words as they brought the ball up the floor.

This time down, Danby double-teamed Tony. Tony was smart enough to find Ayo in the middle of the lane, who caught the ball, faked a pass to Debo, and then missed a short jump shot. Danby grabbed the rebound, sped the ball down the floor without it bouncing, and scored another layup in the blink of an eye. It was now 6-2 in Danby’s favor.

Ayo, who jogged down the floor, looked at me and shook his head. Then Tony and Primo had some more words for each other, so I called a timeout. In the huddle, I was short and quick but loud. “Guys, no negativity. That was end this game quickly. Get back on defense. Attack the rim on offense.”

Despite a few flashes of offensive prowess from Tony, Ayo and Primo, the Wildcats struggled against Danby. Our best performance was a 19-12 loss during a quarter against Danby’s JV team. At the end of the day, we had firepower, but we, as coaches, had yet to teach these boys how to harness it, control it and then use it. We knew Primo was reliable as a guard, and we knew Tony could score at will. We needed to get the other boys into the action, feeling confidence in themselves and feeling eager to contribute.

I played Raleigh only a few minutes during the entire scrimmage. He played well, sprinting his butt off, and he earned cheers from his teammates. When I took him out, though, and held my hand out for him to slap it, he murmured, “That’s fucked up, only like three minutes, yo,” and ignored my hand, returning to the bench.

“We’re ass,” Tony said to me on the way out of the gym. He probably had 30 points in the scrimmage.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, “these guys just need some practice. And your leadership.”

The next ten days were proof that all things with the Wildcats came sparingly.

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NEXT UP: Surveillance

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