Racing the Rain (29 page)

The Edgewater fans went wild and Cassidy could see the Palm Beach players exchanging worried looks with each other. It was their turn to be confused. Their lead was down to six points, and the change of momentum was so palpable you could have caught some of it in a butterfly net. Palm Beach called time-out and Cassidy jogged over to the bench, expecting a few high-fives and butt slaps. Instead, he saw downcast, worried looks from the benchwarmers, and a livid coach.

“What did I tell you about how I want you to bring the ball up?” Bickerstaff was jabbing Cassidy in the chest with his index finger. Sweat was stinging his eyes, so Cassidy was trying to towel off, but when he looked at Bickerstaff he had a hard time understanding the question.

“Uh, carefully?” Cassidy said. Bickerstaff slammed his clipboard to the floor. But Cassidy didn't know what Bickerstaff was driving at, or why he was so angry that his team was suddenly back in the ball game.

“Together! You are one member of a team, mister, and there is no ‘I' in team.”

“Yes, sir.”

They went back to the tandem approach and it was a disaster. Carroll kept trying to set screens, but all it did was bring his man closer so he could double-team and trap. They lost the ball three times in a row bringing it up, twice for quick layups. By halftime they were down fifteen points, and the Edgewater crowd was silent again.

Bickerstaff was upset when they lost the ball, but not nearly as upset as he was when they were bringing the ball up successfully using their own technique. Cassidy was baffled.

In the locker room, Bickerstaff paced back and forth, uttering platitudes and generalizations. “We've got to do a better job of protecting the ball” was one. “Keep your hands up on defense,” another. There was nothing about dealing with Palm Beach's shifting defenses, nothing about how they were supposed to get the ball up when the opposing guards were trapping and stealing them blind.

The year before, Coach Cinnamon would have had five or six specific things for them to work on in the second half: “Joe, your man isn't hurting us long, so try sagging back to help Randleman out with his big guy—he's killing us in the key,” or “Cassidy, your man can't go to his left for love nor money, so overplay the hell out of him.”

With a sinking heart, Cassidy began to realize something. Bob Bickerstaff had been successful in junior high school, where the challenge had been to motivate players, develop basic skills, and emphasize organization and teamwork. But the next level up required something else. Everyone was already motivated, already had the basic skills, and was used to working as a team. At this level you had to be able to read different situations and adjust to them. Bickerstaff not only didn't understand this, he didn't even
realize
that he didn't understand it. As far as he was concerned, the problem was that his players were not listening to him.

Bickerstaff's approach was almost the opposite of Coach Cinnamon's, his predecessor. Bickerstaff thought of players as more or less interchangeable, that the important things were running the plays correctly, paying attention to fundamentals and, of course, not hotdogging or showing off. And to Bickerstaff, showing off could mean almost anything that wasn't a fifteen-foot set shot or a straight two-handed bounce pass. He seemed to barely tolerate the most common shot in the modern game because when he played in college in the '40s, the jump shot didn't exist. He wasn't crazy about underhanded layups either, though Cassidy knew for an absolute fact that they were easier to control and far more accurate than the old-fashioned overhand method.

Now another puzzling thing began to make sense: Cassidy had noticed that Bickerstaff was thrilled that their twelfth man, Dougie Arbogast, still shot an old-fashioned two-handed set shot. It wasn't all that accurate, and he didn't have a prayer of getting it off against an opponent who was half paying attention, but Bickerstaff seemed to light up when the kid was out there practicing this completely outdated, useless shot. Strangely enough, though the kid barely made the team, he seemed to be Bickerstaff's favorite player.

Cassidy had to face facts: Robert Leroy Bickerstaff wasn't a very good basketball coach.

* * *

Nothing improved much in the second half. Sensing vulnerability, Palm Beach put on a full-court zone press, so at least Cassidy didn't have to worry about who was going to bring the ball up and how he was going to do it. The whole team was now involved in the process, and since that was something they had had to deal with the previous year, they were fairly adept at it. But the offense continued to sputter until Cassidy had finally had enough. During a break while Stewart was shooting a pair of foul shots, Cassidy pulled Morgan and Stiggs over to him.

“Enough of this shit. Carroll, you go to the wing on Stiggs's side. Stiggs, you go to the high post and tell Randleman to go to low post and roam the baseline. Tell Stewart to stay put.”

“Like last year? One-three-one?” Carroll said, brightening.

“Exactly. Clue Stewart in.”

The next time up the floor, after studying the defense for a few seconds, Cassidy signaled for a zone offense. He dribbled to the right wing, where Morgan released and went baseline. Randleman came from low post out to the right corner and Cassidy passed it to him, but the zone adjusted and he was covered. He passed back to Cassidy, who whipped it out to Stewart, top of the key. He passed it down to the opposite corner where Stiggs had set a screen that Morgan used to hang up the baseline defensive man. He was just turning toward the basket when the ball arrived. The zone didn't adjust fast enough and he buried the short jump shot.

Bickerstaff immediately called time-out.

“What the hell in God's green earth was that?” The veins were standing out on his forehead, his skin color now approximating his hair.

“Coach, it's just the wheel offense, but starting from one guard in front,” said Cassidy.

“The wheel offense is a zone offense. They are in a man-to-man!”

Cassidy could see the looks being exchanged around the huddle, but clearly no one was going to speak up.

“Coach, it's a matchup zone, so it starts off looking like a man-to-man,” Cassidy said. “Didn't you see when Carroll released and went backdoor? His man didn't go with him. It's a zone, but disguised. They've been doing this to us the whole game.”

Now Bickerstaff was mad for an entirely different reason. He was mad now because he was being shown up in front of his entire team. Cassidy knew this, but he also didn't know what else he could do but point out the obvious. They were in the process of losing to a team they had beaten twice the year before, by twenty-two and twenty-six points, when Palm Beach had been a considerably better team. Edgewater was just plain beating itself. It was the most frustrated Cassidy had ever been playing sports.

Bickerstaff looked around the huddle, still furious. He put his finger back into Cassidy's sternum.

“Run the offense the way we practiced it,” he said. “And don't take the fast break if it isn't there!”

Cassidy stumbled back onto the floor, wondering what the hell that meant. How could you tell if a fast break was “there” if you didn't bring the ball up the floor quickly and look for an opening? Stiggs had connected with Cassidy several times for easy buckets by hauling down the rebound and immediately looking downcourt. Cassidy or Morgan would run a post route to the basket and Stiggs would hit them perfectly with a leading baseball pass. But how would they know if that fast break was “there” if they didn't make the attempt in the first place?

Cassidy's head was spinning, and he would have been the first to admit that he played terribly for the next several minutes. But then, so did everyone else. They were used to looking to Cassidy for direction, but he didn't have a clue now. Carroll tried to take over, but he was inexperienced as well as equally baffled by the situation.

Finally, after another confusing huddle before the last quarter started, down by eighteen points, Cassidy threw caution to the wind and just started playing the way he knew how to play. He motioned Carroll down to the wing again and took over as point guard and brought the ball up himself. As soon as the other team put up a shot, Cassidy and Carroll flared out on opposite sides of the floor and took off for the opposite goal, looking for a long pass. They were playing like the team they had been the year before. Everything started flowing naturally as they all reverted to something they knew well.

Cassidy could hear Bickerstaff yelling from the sidelines and he would turn occasionally and pretend to pay attention, but he essentially disregarded everything except playing the game of basketball. Edgewater went on a 16–2 run and closed the gap to four points with 3:24 to play. Cassidy scored ten of those points. They were going to win. Cassidy could feel it.

That's when Bickerstaff took him out of the game.

Stiggs was on the foul line shooting two when the klaxon went off and Drake Osgood trotted onto the floor. Cassidy assumed he was spelling Carroll Morgan, but instead Drake apologetically handed Cassidy his warm-up top.

“Great playing, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

The Edgewater crowd actually booed. Cassidy had never seen that before, booing a substitution. As he was walking to the end of the bench, still panting from the last fast break, he noticed something else he had never seen before: opposing spectators actually laughing at a visiting coach's unfathomable decisions.

Edgewater lost by fourteen.

C
assidy didn't feel much like company at lunch on Monday, so he opted for the guilty pleasure of the cold lunch line, picking up an Italian sub, a tuna sandwich, a bag of barbecue potato chips, and a couple cartons of orange juice.

It had been chilly earlier in the morning, so he was wearing his red wool letter jacket with a big white “E” on the left breast. He was sitting in the bright winter sunshine at one of the concrete tables in the courtyard, when he spotted Stiggs and Randleman, also wearing their jackets, coming from the cafeteria. They looked dour.

He figured they were going to give him grief about his nutritional habits, but they just sat down and looked at him.

“Okay, okay, you caught me. Cold cuts for lunch. Big deal,” Cassidy said.

Stiggs shot a look at Randleman.

“He doesn't know,” he said. Randleman nodded.

“It's posted on the gym bulletin board,” Stiggs said. “Let us know what you want to do.”

Then without another word they got up and left.

Cassidy hadn't finished his second sandwich, but he wrapped it up and tucked his books and sandwich under his arm and headed for the gym.

There were a couple of guys Cassidy didn't know idly perusing notices on the glass-enclosed bulletin board as he walked up. When they saw him coming, they backed away.

The notice was the only thing posted in the varsity basketball section, a single sheet, typed.

Disbelieving, Cassidy read the heading: “The following is the final selection for the 1964–65 Edgewater basketball team.”

Cassidy scanned down the list, dread forming a knot of nausea in his gut. It was his basketball team, all right.

But he wasn't on it.

M
r. Kamrad looked up from his teachers' planning workbook and took off his reading glasses. He did not look surprised to see Cassidy. He motioned to the chair beside his desk.

“I think I know what this is about,” he said. “I heard two of the football coaches talking in the teachers' lounge this morning.”

Cassidy nodded. He wasn't sure he trusted his voice yet. He had sat in a numb trance through his last class. Then he was late to his next class because he was talking to Stiggs in the courtyard, not even caring that he was risking detention.

“Mr. Kamrad, I don't get it. Stiggs and I were first-team all-county last year. I played in the state tournament. We missed the finals on a last-second shot. I've gotten letters from college coaches. Sure, things have been screwed up on the team this year, but I just . . .” He sat shaking his head, unable to continue.

“Quenton, if it makes you feel any better, as far as I can tell, a lot of people in this school are flabbergasted, too.”

“That's something, I guess.”

“Well, I would offer to talk to Bickerstaff on your behalf, but the last time we tried that, things didn't work out so well.”

“Maybe I could appeal to . . .”

Mr. Kamrad was shaking his head already.

“There isn't any appeal. Principal Fleming might be sympathetic to you, but a head coach is like the captain of a ship. His word is law. There is nobody to appeal to. I mean, there is always the possibility of a full-blown mutiny by the team, but . . .”

“No, that would make things worse. Stiggs and Randleman wanted to get the guys together to discuss it, but I know exactly what would happen. Even if we could get every single player on the varsity to threaten to quit—which we can't, by the way—he would just play the rest of the schedule with the JV team. They'd lose every game, but he'd do that before he would back down.”

“I suspect you're right.” Mr. Kamrad still had his glasses off, squeezing the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

“Besides, Stiggs and Randleman have real scholarship possibilities on the line. Their whole futures are at stake,” said Cassidy.

“So is yours, Quenton.”

“I get that, believe me. I spent the last five years of my life pointing for this season, and it was all working. I started to get feelers from colleges last year—admittedly it was Rollins and Stetson and such—but this year was going to put me—put us all—on the map. Now it's just blowing up in our faces. I don't have a clue what's going on with Coach Bickerstaff. We've been trying to do what he says, but most of it makes no sense.”